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Independent Study: Midterm Paper

Assignment Directions

Chaz will write two major papers during the course of the semesters.  The first paper will deal will detail about six state legislative races of interest, three races that are highly likely to determine control of at least two state legislative chambers and three races of the student’s choosing that are deemed noteworthy but may not be imperative to chamber control

Midterm Paper

Democracy has returned to Wisconsin’s state legislative elections with the installment of competitive maps and the death of the country’s greatest state legislative gerrymander. The Wisconsin Senate will not be competitive this year due to staggered terms, with the current CNalysis forecast giving Republicans a 100% chance of winning a majority in the chamber eight months from now. The State Assembly, however, has all 99 seats up for election this year. It is highly competitive, with our classic model forecast giving Republicans only a 70% chance of winning and our expanded model a 75% chance of winning. Donald Trump won 50 Assembly seats on the new map, and in 2022 Ron Johnson (R) won 51 seats in the US Senate election while Tony Evers (D) won 52 seats in the concurrent gubernatorial election. The map, though drawn by Governor Evers, has a slight Republican lean with the mean/median PVI difference at 3%. Using the 2022 State Assembly precinct results, Republicans would have won 58 seats that year, though this number is inflated due to several districts where Democrats didn’t put up a candidate; they likely would have won 54 seats in actuality when examining the 2022 statewide election results and lack of quality campaigns run in the districts.

As I began predicting state legislative elections as a hobby in 2017, I distinctly remember learning about the upcoming case in Gill v. Whitford when the Republican gerrymander from the 2010s from FiveThirtyEight’s podcast in a December episode under a special season called “The Gerrymandering Project” where they discuss the case. At the top of the episode, they detail the city of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and how it was split in two under the 2010s map to ensure that Republicans would be able to hold the seat throughout the decade by cracking the city’s Democratic-leaning areas. This part of the gerrymander was remedied under the new maps with Sheboygan kept together, creating a highly competitive but slightly Democratic-leaning district. Unfortunately, this is one of the districts where a large chunk of the precincts didn’t have a Democratic candidate to vote for in 2022, so we don’t know how this district really would have voted in the Assembly elections that year. However, every Democrat who has run in a statewide election in Wisconsin since 2016 has won the new 26th Assembly District containing Sheboygan besides Russ Feingold in 2016 and Tony Evers in 2018. 

To my understanding according to a Republican source familiar with who will be running where, freshman Representative Amy Binsfeld, who represents the old 27th district and faced an independent candidate in 2022, will be running in the new 26th district. On the Democratic side, there are likely several members of Sheboygan’s municipal government who have been waiting for a moment like this to run for the Assembly, so it is quite possible we’ll see a member of the city’s government become the nominee. Of note, the city’s Mayor, Ryan Sorenson, handily defeated a two-term incumbent Republican in 2021 and is the youngest mayor in the city’s history at age 27 – it wouldn’t be a surprise if he made a run for the Assembly and became the nominee. The district is rated as a Toss-Up in both the classic and expanded models, so the majority could very well run through the city as Democrats likely need to win all of the seats they’re favored in for both models as well as all of the Toss-Ups to win a majority in the Assembly.

Of course, when forecasting elections not everything lines up all nice and neatly when comparing projections to actual election results – upsets happen. There are plenty of statistical scenarios where the majority in the Wisconsin Assembly doesn’t run through a Toss-Up district and instead runs through a seat that’s projected to be less competitive. Upon examining how each new district voted in the 2022 Assembly elections where every precinct had both a Republican and a Democrat running for State Assembly, one seat stuck out to me: Assembly District 51 in southwestern Wisconsin. The old 51st district was to me (as well as Wisconsin Democrats) what would best be described as a “Charlie Brown and the football” situation, with Republicans being Lucy in this scenario and the 51st as the football. In 2018, the first time I tried predicting state legislative elections outside Virginia, I had the old 51st as a Likely Democratic pickup, and in 2020 as a Tilt Democratic pickup. In both of those years, incumbent Republican Todd Novak narrowly won re-election, just as he did in 2016 and 2014. 

In 2022, as Republicans drew Novak’s district to be slightly more Republican-leaning, he faced stifled competition from his Democratic opponent that year, who raised little money compared to Novak’s previous opponents. When examining Wisconsin campaign finance, Novak’s campaigns spent $294,885 in 2018, $523,944 in 2020, and $179,096 in 2022 while his Democratic opponents’ campaigns spent $210,672 in 2018, $728,575 in 2020, and $145,368 in 2022. So in 2018, he outspent his opponent by $84,000 when he was in a targeted race and was outraised in 2020 by $204,631, while in 2022 he outspent his opponent by $33,728 when his race wasn’t targeted, giving him a lopsided re-election margin while spending relatively little money compared to his previous campaigns.

Democrats running in statewide elections in Wisconsin usually comfortably carry the new 51st district: in 2020, Biden won the seat by 8 points, and in 2022 Mandela Barnes, Ron Johnson’s Democratic opponent, also carried it by about 8 points. In the gubernatorial election in 2022, Evers won the seat by 14 points. However, while all parts of the new 51st were contested by Democrats running for State Assembly, it only voted for those candidates by half a percentage point, in part due to the weak campaigns running against Novak as well as the old 49th district. Only 53% of the new 51st is inside Novak’s previous district iteration while 47% were in either the old 49th, 80th, or 81st Assembly districts. That 47% is also much more Democratic-leaning than the parts of the district Novak has represented: Joe Biden won the new portion of the seat by 16 points in 2020 while winning the old portion by just half a percentage point. This coupled with the fact that Novak will have an actual campaign against him this time around has resulted in the seat being marked as a Lean Democratic pickup in the classic and expanded forecasts. When incumbents are running for re-election in new territory, they gain little personal votes compared to the parts of the district they have already represented. A great and recent example of this would be in 2022 when long-time incumbent Democrat-turned-Independent John Mark Windle ran for re-election to the Tennessee State House in the 41st district and outran Joe Biden’s performance in the parts of his old district by a massive 72 points, but only outran him by 14 points in the new parts of the 41st he didn’t previously represent. Given the closeness of the district using 2022’s result, it’s certainly plausible that the majority could run through the 51st, but when context is added to the upcoming election it’s unlikely that will be the case and Novak loses this year to whomever his Democratic opponent will be.

Ahead of the final paper for this independent study, in which I will be examining the electoral performances of those who have worked on local television stations when running for state legislatures, one district that I have written extensively about popped out as a great pick to preface the final paper, which is District 72 in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Incumbent Democrat Frank Burns, who is well to the right of his fellow members of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus, was first elected to his Cambria County-based district in 2008. In 2020, he was the 10th strongest Democratic candidate in nationwide single-member state legislative elections when compared to how Joe Biden fared in each state legislative district. In 2022, he rose to become the 9th strongest. This year, he faces a former local TV anchor, Amy Bradley. My hypothesis for the final paper will be that reporters and anchors on local TV stations will prove to be strong electoral candidates when running for state legislatures, but I do want to note that I believe recency of this line of work as they try and run for the job likely influences this. Given that Bradley was an anchor for eight years during the 90s, I believe that months from now when we compare her electoral performance to more recent candidacies of anchors and reporters who have run for state legislatures as a transitional job, she will run behind them due to her being nearly a quarter-century out of that line of work.

It was in part thanks to Burns’ major crossover appeal to conservative voters that Democrats won their one-seat majority in 2022 in the Pennsylvania House. Burns won re-election by 9 points while every statewide Democratic candidate lost the district. The district is rated as a Lean Democratic race right now in the classic forecast and a Tilt Democratic race in the expanded forecast. It’s quite possible that the majority could yet again depend on whether Frank Burns wins re-election or not given that the median rating in the classic forecast is Lean Democratic and Tilt Democratic in the expanded forecast.

8 places above Frank Burns’ 2022 record is Ashley Tackett Laferty of the 95th district in the Kentucky House of Representatives. After former Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo (D) lost re-election in 2016 in this Floyd County-based seat, Tackett Laferty ran in 2018 and beat freshman Representative Larry Brown (R) by a whopping 15-point margin. She won re-election in 2020 and 2022 by 20 points. While winning re-election in 2020, she outran Joe Biden’s margin in her district by 73 points and outran his performance again by 71 points in 2022. She is the last Democrat in the State House to represent an overwhelmingly rural district and as such is the last Democrat in the chamber from eastern Kentucky. Floyd County (as well as parts of Pike) is a very ancestrally Democratic area, explaining most of the reason why Laferty performs as well as she does.

Laferty is running for re-election, likely against her 2022 opponent, former State Representative Brandon Spencer, who in 2022 had his campaign slogan as “Let’s Go Brandon.” Spencer will once again face his Republican primary opponent from that year, David Pennington, who Spencer bested by 17 points. Laferty will likely win re-election as our classic forecast has the seat as Very Likely Democratic and the expanded forecast has it as Likely Democratic. The reason why I’ve chosen this as a noteworthy race despite the lack of competition is to see what the ticket-splitting rate will be this year, as Laferty is an extremely rare breed in state legislative politics and she’s pretty much certain to hold the spot of most ticket-splitting in a Democrat’s direction.

Alaska politics and elections are, without a doubt, the most interesting of any state in the country, likely in part because they’re so far removed from the mainland. One of my biggest missed predictions during the 2020 election was the one seat in the Alaska House I got wrong that year, District 40. This is the geographically largest State House district in the country, resting on the most northern part of the state in what is known as the “Bush Region,” otherwise simply called “The Bush.” This is a majority Native-American district and Democrats have represented the district all throughout the 21st century up until the 2020 election, when independent candidate Josiah “Aullaqsruaq” Patkotak bested Democratic nominee Elizabeth Niiqsik Ferguson by 5 points. Fun fact, Patkotak actually was the star of an indie movie filmed in his hometown of Utqiaġvik, the most northern town in the United States, titled On the Ice. Patkotak wasn’t the only future politician in the movie as Tara Sweeney, the future Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs under Donald Trump, also starred in the movie. I of course went and watched it after having such a massive error in my forecasts.

Getting back on track, Patkotak was elected as the Mayor of North Slope Borough in 2023 and resigned his position in the House afterwards. Alaska has appointments when an incumbent resigns, and is chosen by the Governor. Governor Dunleavy (R) chose 2020 State Senate candidate Thomas Baker (R) to replace Patkotak, making this the first time the 40th (or its district equivalent) has been represented by a Republican during the 21st century. It’s widely known amongst election analysts that The Bush (especially this part of it) is one of the most incumbent-friendly areas in the country. The equivalent of the 40th voted for Don Young in 2020 and in every single one of his re-elections besides 1974, 1976, and 2008. It also voted for Susan Murkowski in every one of her re-election bids and swung heavily toward Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2020. In the State House elections, you have to go all the way back to 1996 to find an incumbent who lost, and they were appointed to the position anyways.

This year will be a test of just how incumbent-friendly The Bush and this particular part of it is. When Baker ran for State Senate, he lost to incumbent Democrat Donny Olson by 15 points in the current District 40. Qaiyaan Harcharek is a resident of Patkotak’s hometown and will be running as an independent candidate against Baker. This seat may or may not be pivotal for control of the Alaska House this year, it’s much too early to tell as we’ll have to wait until the candidacy filing deadline in June to see who is running in what districts due to ranked-choice voting and the elasticity of seats like these.

Probably the most bizarre set of election results in state legislative elections was on the western part of Oahu, where Republicans flipped four seats in the State House, three of which were held by Democratic incumbents, all of which were won by Biden in 2020. But while that happened, Democrats won two open seats on this part of the island that voted for Trump. I had recognized that three of the four Biden-won seats had a high chance of flipping with one in the Tilt Republican column and two in the Tilt Democratic column. However, the two Trump seats were rated Likely Republican and Lean Republican. The Lean Republican seat, the 44th district in the State House, would end up being my biggest miss in the 2022 state legislative elections, with the Democratic nominee Darius Kila winning by 25 points despite Donald Trump winning the seat by 1 point two years earlier.

Kila is one of the few native Hawaiians in the legislature, which I believe may explain why he performed so well in his 2022 election. According to Dave’s Redistricting, the 44th district is one of two majority-native Hawaiian districts, making up 58% of the district. This year, though the forecast has not been made public yet, the 44th will be a Solid Democratic race despite voting for Donald Trump in 2020 and is the only case in the country where this rare difference in the presidential results and ratings occurs. Turnout will be higher in 2024 than when Kila was first elected in 2022, so it’s worth watching just how well he performs with a larger electorate.

 

Bibliography (APA)

  1. Kersting, J. (2024, March 1). 24 WI Forecast. CNalysis. https://projects.cnalysis.com/23-24/sl/wisconsin#upper 
  2. Nuttycombe, Chaz. (2024, February 15). Governor Evers Maps. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LuL2oXmv2h9pmLNYi_ShjRbaDx3GMAi6-fH6wqdq4DQ/edit?usp=sharing
  3. Druke, G. (2017, December 7). Partisan Gerrymandering in Wisconsin. Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gerrymandering-project/id1336743759?mt=2
  4. Dave’s Redistricting. (2024, February). WI 2024 State House.  https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::c4f3821b-51c4-4f41-99d8-c4c9d67e116f
  5. Dombrowski, D. (2021, April 7). Sorenson ousts Vandersteen in Sheboygan mayor’s race, becoming City’s youngest elected mayor. The Sheboygan Press. https://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/04/06/ryan-sorenson-sheboygan-new-mayor-ousts-mike-vandersteen-election/7018589002/
  6. OurCampaigns. (2014, August 12). Our Campaigns – Candidate – Todd Novak. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=345060
  7. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. (2020, February 7). 2018 Campaign Finance Profile – Todd Novak. https://www.wisdc.org/follow-the-money/125-campaign-finance-profiles-2018/candidate-profiles-2018/6522-2018-campaign-finance-profile-todd-novak
  8. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. (2023, January 12). 2020 Campaign Finance Profile – Todd Novak. https://www.wisdc.org/follow-the-money/135-campaign-finance-profiles-2020/candidate-profiles-2020/6882-2020-campaign-finance-profile-todd-novak
  9. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. (2023, February 13). Campaign 2022 – Assembly. https://www.wisdc.org/follow-the-money/138-campaign-finance-profiles-2022/7093-campaign-2022-assembly 
  10. Nuttycombe, Chaz. (2024, March 2). novakRIP. Dave’s Redistricting. https://davesredistricting.org/join/f96b1670-3d0f-4b37-8969-96ae3b593642 
  11. Carsey, T. M., Winburn, J., & Berry, W. D. (2017). Rethinking the Normal Vote, the Personal Vote, and the Impact of Legislative Professionalism in U.S. State Legislative Elections. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 17(4), 465–488. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26940195 
  12. Nuttycombe, Chaz. (2024, March 2). JMWperformance. Dave’s Redistricting. https://davesredistricting.org/join/94f6f857-64aa-4c26-b1d0-2e1b5c62b308  
  13. OurCampaigns. (2022, November 9). TN State House 41. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=979858 
  14. Nuttycombe, Chaz. (2022, November 22). Our final 2022 state legislative forecasts. CNalysis. https://cnalysis.com/articles/our-final-2022-state-legislative-forecasts/  
  15. Hurst, D. (2024, January 29). Cambria Regional Chamber president Amy Bradley to seek GOP nomination for 72nd District in state house. The Tribune-Democrat. https://www.tribdem.com/news/cambria-regional-chamber-president-amy-bradley-to-seek-gop-nomination-for-72nd-district-in-state/article_57ef8faa-bd3a-11ee-9be9-df8a774764d9.html 
  16. Amy Bradley – President and CEO – cambria regional chamber. (Date Unknown). https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-bradley-a1334619 
  17. Kersting, J. (2024, March 1). 24 PA Forecast. CNalysis. https://projects.cnalysis.com/23-24/sl/pennsylvania#lower 
  18. Kentucky House of Representatives District 95. Ballotpedia. (Date Unknown). https://ballotpedia.org/Kentucky_House_of_Representatives_District_95 
  19. OurCampaigns. (2022, November 3). AK State House 40. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=897944 
  20. Hockema, R. (2023, November 13). Gov. Dunleavy has chosen Republican Thomas Baker to replace Independent Josiah Patkotak in HD40. Twitter. https://twitter.com/alaskanrobby/status/1723951200544989334/photo/1
  21. Alaskan Landmine. Qaiyaan Harcharek, who is registered as Undeclared, field a letter of intent to run for House District 40 – the seat that will soon be vacant as Rep. Josiah Patkotak won the NSB mayoral race. Twitter. https://twitter.com/alaskalandmine/status/1710132099246891149 
  22. Cinyc9. 2022-2023 Election Data. CNalysis. https://cnalysis.com/uncategorized/2022-2023-election-data/ 
  23. Kersting, J. (2022). HI State Leg. Forecast. CNalysis. https://projects.cnalysis.com/21-22/state-legislative/hawaii#lower 

Dave’s Redistricting. (2024, February). WI 2024 State House.  https://davesredistricting.org/maps#stats::6e4f9c2e-6a11-4848-adab-22f3113bef79