For those readers who don’t track special elections, a special election to fill an empty Congressional seat is often used to attempt to forecast the next general election for the entire country. Its usefulness depends on the nature of the district, the popularity of the individual candidates although appropriate adjustments can still yield prognosticatory … information.
So there was a special election last night in New York to fill the seat that was emptied by new Governor Hochul (D-NY) selecting Rep Antonio Delgado (D-NY) to be her Lt. Governor. Popular pundit opinion had it that Republican Marc Molinaro should beat Democrat Pat Ryan in a mildly close race.
The results? Ryan beats Molinaro, roughly 51%-49%. That’s stirred up the pundit class.
Marc Molinaro’s (R) On The Issues Summation.
But what does it mean for the November elections? Molinaro’s On The Issues page shows him to be an atypical Republican candidate, favoring abortion rights, and generally a libertarian, rather than what passes for a doctrinaire Republican these days. So this may suggest that the standard Republican base voters walked away from him, at least in part; the fact that he’s a poor match for the standard Republican voter may suggest that this special election is a poor specimen to use for forecasting the November elections.
But it’s also true that a lot of voters will simply see the Republican label and decide to vote against Molinaro, meaning he might have been better served running as a Libertarian! Teasing out the details from an election like this can be a tricky business.
So is this in line with the surprisingly close special elections run in Nebraska and Minnesota over the last few months? It’s probably good advice to both sides not to be complacent. It was fairly close one way instead of the other in New York. More detailed analysis of such factors as new voter registrations is not within my means, so I can’t take it any further.
