On April 13, Florida held a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 19th district. The results: Ted Deutch, Democrat, 62%; Ed Lynch, Republican, 36%, Jim McCormick, independent, 3%.
When this district last voted, in November 2008, the results had been: Democratic 66.2%, Republican 27.2%, independent 6.6%. The 19th district includes parts of West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.
I wonder what the turnout was like? I wonder how many snowbirds vote in Florida, and how the ideological makeup compares to full time Floridians?
Obvious remedy – have a candidate or incumbent have a rank order list of replacements = NO more high cost / low turnout special elections.
What if one of the 911 suicide planes had hit the Congress while it was in session — along with possible wars, earthquakes, etc. ???
From this result it would not appear the Democrats have hurt themselves very much with passage of their aggressive health care bill.
Florida has one of the more EVIL U.S.A. Rep. gerrymanders — packing the max Donkeys into the min number of gerrymander districts — aka political concentration camps.
That district was safe Democrat; a PVI of D+19