Democrats win huge in Iowa special election, but we don't know if there's a'Trump effect' just yet
An interesting thing happened on Tuesday night in a special election for Iowa's 89th state House District: Democrats didn't just win—though they were expected to—they won big. This, suffice it to say, is an outcome Team Blue does not typically see in oddly-timed elections, so here's a little background.
Last month, Democratic state Rep. Jim Lykam won a previous special election for the state Senate, thus setting off a second special election—the political equivalent of musical chairs. Democrats, who nominated retired community college instructor Monica Kurth, were favored to retain Lykam's seat, which is located in the city of Davenport and backed Hillary Clinton by a 52-41 margin.
But you never know with these kinds of races, which so often see turnout among Democratic voters drop disproportionately, compared to elections when there's a presidential contest on the ballot. What's more, Clinton's performance represented a huge drop from four years earlier, when Obama racked up a huge 63-36 win. That falloff seemed to mirror Democrats' misfortune statewide, and should have been cause for concern.
Kurth, however, completely smashed her Republican opponent, police officer Mike Gonzales, winning by a 72-27 margin, and that's certainly a positive sign. At the very least, a lot of Trump voters either didn't show up, and some, perhaps, switched sides.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/1/1628689/-Democrats-win-huge-in-Iowa-special-election-but-we-don-t-know-if-there-s-a-Trump-effect-just-yet?detail=email&link_id=7&can_id=861a9125edc6ec9480b5e7910a47b2d9&source=email-unapologetic-kansas-air-patrol-officer-to-legislator-this-b-needs-to-swing-from-a-tree&email_referrer=unapologetic-kansas-air-patrol-officer-to-legislator-this-b-needs-to-swing-from-a-tree&email_subject=unapologetic-kansas-air-patrol-officer-to-legislator-this-b-needs-to-swing-from-a-tree
= new reply since forum marked as read
