The Hierarchy of Special Elections

I was thinking about the special elections this year and how so much money was spent on the MT and GA house races, even though they didn't have the potential to really change anything. Those seats wouldn't change control of the house and likely won't change the outcome of any votes. Those seats will be up for re-election in 2018 anyway, and either Democrats are going to ride a wave to regain control (which would probably mean those seats) or they aren't.

So how could we rank special elections? I took a stab at it below. I was trying to think about elections that would have consequence such as changing legislation, who is appointed to what jobs, funding, investigative powers etc...and so it is a ranking of how much power is shifted by an election. It's not relative but rather ranked. 7 is not twice as good as 14 for example. Also some ranking can change later based on events that follow - for example the AL special for the Senate right now is a 13, but after 2018 it could be a 4 or even a 1, because it could be the difference in control of the Senate.

Notes: There's no president race because we don't have special elections for that office. By trifecta I mean control of the House, Senate and Governor/President - in Nebraska that would just be control of the legislature and governor.  There's some weird equivalencies here as not every governor or mayor has the same amount of power.

Election could:

1. Flip control of US Senate and create/break trifecta
2. Flip control of US House and create/break trifecta
3. Create/break up supermajority (60%) in Senate with trifecta
4. Flip control of US Senate
5. Seat a Governor and create/break a trifecta
6. Flip control of a state legislature and create/break a trifecta
7. Flip control of a state court
8. Seat a Governor
9. Flip control of the US house
10. Fill a statewide office other than Governor or State Court
11. Create/break up a 2/3 majority in the US Senate with a trifecta
12. Flip control of statehouse
13. Seat a US senator
14. Seat a mayor
15. Flip control of a county-wide or city-wide body
16. Seat a US representative
17. Seat a city or countywide official other than Mayor
18. Seat a state judge or statewide commissioner
19. Seat a state senator
20. Seat a state representative
21. Seat any other local official like a city council, county board member, etc...

So what are the most important elections this year? Here they are ranked.

Race, Date, Rank - Why - Winner
1. DE State Senate District 10, February 25th (6) - Could have broken a Dem Trifecta - Dems won
2. CT State Sen Districts 2 & 32, Feb 28th (6) - Could have broken a Dem Trifecta - Dems won
3. WA Senate 5 seats, Nov 7th (6) - could give Democrats a Trifecta - TBD
4. LA Treasurer,  Oct 15 (9) - Statewide office  - TBD
5. VA State Sen Districts 9 and 22, January 10 (12) - Could have flipped the Sen - Reps retained control when seats were split (could go up to 6 if Dems take house, governor and Lt. Governor in November)
6. AL Senate, Dec 12, (13) - Single Senate seat - TBD - (Could go up to a 4 if Dems are +2 Senate seats in 2018 and win House, or a 1 if they're +2 Senate seats and don't win House)
7. KS 4th, Apr 11 (16) - Single House seat - Reps won
8. MT At-Large, May 25 (16) - Single House seat - Reps won
9. CA 34th, June 6 (16) - Single House seat - Dems won
10. GA 6th, June 20 (16) - Single House seat - Reps won

This year Republicans have won 4 of the top 10 and Democrats 3, including the two biggest prizes so far.

None of the top 10 have been flips. Probably the biggest flip thus far has been in the race for the Prince William, VA Clerk of the Court race which went from Republican to Democrat. That was a 17 (but there may be others). The most important special election flip in recent history (and maybe in US History) was Scott Brown's in 2010 - that was a 3.

Technically, the 2002 MO Senate race was the last "1" and it was also a flip, as it gave Republicans control of the Senate creating a trifecta but it happened after the Senate went into recess and they didn't return until the new year when a new Senate was seated.