In a race seen as a bellwether for Democratic chances in November, Democrat Tom Keen flipped what had been a Republican state House seat in Central Florida in a special election held Tuesday.
Keen, a Navy flight officer who works in the aerospace training and simulation industry, defeated Republican Erika Booth, a teacher and member of the Osceola School Board. Unofficial totals for the District 35 seat had Keen with 51.3% of the vote to Booth’s 48.7%.
“A huge THANK YOU to all our supporters, volunteers, and voters who believed in our vision for a better, brighter District 35,” Keen wrote on social media. “Your dedication, hard work, and votes have brought us to this incredible moment.”
Keen, who made abortion rights and property insurance key issues in the race, got between 65% to 70% of nonpartisan, or NPA, voters to make up for Republicans turning out in larger numbers than Democrats, said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst.
Let this be a sign that people are waking up to the threat that the GOP represents.
it isn’t:
Republicans turning out in larger numbers than Democrats
Keen, who made abortion rights and property insurance key issues in the race, got between 65% to 70% of nonpartisan, or NPA, voters to make up for Republicans turning out in larger numbers than Democrats, said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst.
That’s the full quote that paints an entirely different picture. And he still won. So wtf are you talking about?
“What actually clinched the win for Democrats was this massive margin with NPAs and perhaps some Republican moderates as well,” Isbell said. “If anything, this should be concerning for the GOP because it indicates a voter anger that maybe they have not understood.”
Again, different story than what you’re trying to paint.
if democrats stay home, it makes no difference how many ‘nonpartisan’ voters turn out.
It factually, concretely, made a difference. Republicans showed up in greater numbers because the district contains more Republicans, and they still lost, because nonpartisan voters turned up in sufficient numbers to make a difference. You need to adjust your level of doom.
Wrong. NC, for example, has 2.7 million unaffiliated voters, compared to 2.4 million Democrats and 2.2 million Republicans. Unaffiliated or nonpartisan voter proportions are currently at record highs, compared to very low (and falling) affiliation with either major party. The swing of nonpartisan voters in 2020 was D+9, and they’re thought to have significantly contributed to Democratic victories in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
The first half of the sentence you quoted was also fairly important to the overall message.
You’re point is still important though, but more information is needed to really evaluate the situation. If the district naturally has more repubs, then this is a big win by dems. If there are fewer repubs, then this was a disappointing victory.
If the district naturally has more repubs, then this is a big win by dems. If there are fewer repubs, then this was a disappointing victory.
According to Florida Today, it’s more or less a three-way tossup between Rs, Ds, and Is. The district is composed of 75% Orange County residents, despite the land area being overwhelmingly the majority of Osceola County, and it runs from the suburbs of Orlando to the suburbs of Titusville, and then south about halfway from Orlando to Miami. There are lots of lakes. It’s one of the districts DeSantis redrew in 2022 as an attempt to further gerrymander an already-gerrymandered state, and is in fact one of the only competitive districts in the state.
They’ve always turned out in large numbers. As a general rule Republicans can and will disagree on anything and still come together to try and fuck someone over. Democrats historically tend to argue and disagree while make choices on who or what they want in regards to their beliefs instead of specifically against someone or something else.
This isn’t accounting for a plethora of other reasons such as average demographics, Republican ease-of-voting in heavily gerrymandered districts and States, etc etc. I’m convinced one super solid election cycle, including local elections, would change things drastically. Unfortunately that is unbelievably unlikely to happen.
Whatever the reason, it’s about time those of us who do not agree with the modern Republican party begin to take risks. We need to run in local elections. We must take seats of authority. We cannot allow these evil and malicious people to constantly go unchallenged.
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FL HD 35’s margins by year:
2024: D+2.6
2022: R+10.8 (no incumbent, new map)
2020: R+28.6
2018: R+22.8
2016: R+23.58
Blaise Ingoglia held the seat from 2014 through 2022 and won by large margins. Incumbency got him about a R+15% boost, and with no incumbents and new districts the partisan edge normalized. This is the first election since the Dobbs ruling, and the overall swing is about D+13%, even with the same district map. Republicans are still winning in generic ballot polls, but not by much.
Repeating for emphasis that the state house map was redrawn after 2020; the most similar district under the old map was HD-42, which went R by 1% in the 2020 election, but the borders were different around Orlando so it’s an apples-and-oranges comparison.
pRoGrEsSiVeS cAn’T wIn In ReD sTaTes
