With virtually all ballots counted in #OH06, per the AP, Rulli's final margin over Kripchak is 9 points. This is a Trump+29 seat, so that's a 20-point overperformance for Democrats.
*Consistent* overperformance in special elections has historically been correlated with general-election success. Democrats have now overperformed in 2023-24 special congressional elections by an average of 7 points.
It's all over the place, too.
Special elections outperform polling. Likely voters outperform registered voters by 3-4 points, and outperform general polls by 5-6 points.
Someone has an enthusiasm problem.
Trying to figure this out.
Rulli republican, Kripchak democrat.
Rulli won.
But what does the 20-point overperformance mean?
How many more Rs voted compared to Ds?
Ah, ok.
So the Trump/R winning margin shrunk significantly, which means the Kripchak/D did good, but didn't win vs the R candidate.
But, it could be an indicator for elections to come?
That's the idea. In addition to that pattern holding for quite a few special elections so far. Everything is so weird now, it still all feels like a crap shoot to me.
I suspect there are voters who will turn out for "TRUMP" who don't give a shit about things like special elections or wearing a mask or walking on their hind legs, but I can't imagine - outside of maybe the greater Dearborn area - people turning out for Ds in specials, then staying home for POTUS
It means that the last time they won by 29 and this time by 9. It was never going to be won by the Democrat but to put it on perspective, if Biden’s vote increased 20 points relative to last time he would have won all but 11 states. Not saying this will happen but this swing is significant.
