The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
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Leading Off
● Data: In the increasingly likely event that George Santos winds up leaving office early, there's a long list of politicians in both parties who might run to succeed him in a special election. But what if, in addition to relying on news reports, we could bring a quantitative approach to the question of who might be interested in such a race? With Daily Kos Elections' newest data set—updated by David Jarman for the most recent round of redistricting—we can do exactly that.
- Our data shows precisely how counties and congressional districts overlap. From this, we can tell you that three quarters of the population in Santos' 3rd District comes from Long Island's Nassau County while the remainder lives in Queens. Any Nassau pol who holds county-wide office would therefore automatically be a possible contender.
- We also know how state Senate districts overlap with Santos' seat. Republican Sen. Jack Martins already represents two-in-five residents of the 3rd District. That's more than any other senator and would give him a considerable leg up if he ran for the House.
- What if Martins ran—and won? There would be a special for his Senate seat, too, and we can likewise tell you that Assemblywoman Gina Sillitti, a Democrat, currently represents the lion's share of Martins' 7th District. That would make her the obvious frontrunner, but two of her Assembly colleagues also have sizable overlaps with the 7th and might merit consideration.
Of course, this goes well beyond just Santos: As more and more House seats open up over the course of the election cycle, this data will help fill in the gaps on potential candidates nationwide.
Check out all of our new spreadsheets to find out how any pair of districts and/or counties overlap, plus illustrative maps!
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