If we look at all the special elections, it’s interesting to note that Democrats this year have been outperforming their 2016 baseline most in the districts where Clinton underperformed Obama and least in the districts where Clinton outperformed Obama. The latter group tends to include more highly educated, suburban areas that traditionally voted Republican. These places may be growing bluer, but perhaps Clinton did as well as could be hoped for by a Democratic candidate for the time being. In the districts where Clinton didn’t do as well as Obama had, it’s possible that traditional Democratic voters who voted for Trump in 2016 may not be voting for Republicans in 2017. [...]
For starters, it suggests that Democrats should not give up on areas where Clinton did significantly worse than Obama did. Democrats gained a seat in a special state legislative election in New York where Clinton underperformed Obama by 9 points compared with the national vote, for example. Many of the areas where Clinton did worse than Obama and where there was a large swing in the 2017 special elections, like South Carolina 5, have a low percentage of college-educated voters. So perhaps Democrats should continue to try to compete in traditionally competitive districts with fewer college-educated voters — voters that have traditionally gone Democratic, but went for Trump. These voters may have cast a ballot for Trump, but they’ll apparently still pull the Democratic lever, at least when Trump isn’t on the ballot. [...]
More broadly, the results of this year’s special elections suggest — as have some commentators — that Democrats would benefit from a broad House playing field in 2018. When the electoral map is in flux, like it is now, what the partisan baseline is for an individual district — how Democratic is it, compared with the nation as a whole? — isn’t going to be entirely clear. And because Democrats need 24 seats to take back the House, they really can’t afford to leave any stone unturned.
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