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Post by Old Badger on Nov 5, 2018 17:15:24 GMT -5
I'll try to post results from time to time here on Tuesday. This election is one of the most unpredictable off-years in a while. Consider the final Cook ratings:
House: 30 of 435 races rated Toss-ups (1 D, 29 R), and 75 between Lean D and Lean R (5 D, 70 R).
Senate: 9 of 35 rated Toss-ups (5 D, 4 R), and 13 between Lean D and Lean R (8 D, 5 R)
Governors: 12 of 36 rated Toss-ups (2 D, 10 R), and18 between Lean D and Lean R (5 D, 13 R, 1 I)
That means that almost any result is possible. Many pundits are giving the edge to the Dems in the House, GOP in the Senate, and figure the Dems will gain some Governorships and legislative chambers / seats. But the reality is that there are non-trivial odds that other outcomes will emerge: the Dems could win both the House and Senate, or the GOP could hold both. Overall, the Dems seem to have more to be optimistic about: a majority of the most at-risk seats currently are held by Republicans, and early voting numbers suggest a high (possibly record) turnout for an off-year election, even among voters under 30 years old--both of which would bode well for Dems. But those are just straws in the wind; tomorrow is when the real counting starts. I think I'll be sticking around to see what happens.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 18:00:38 GMT -5
The polls just have closed in most of Indiana, where Joe Donnelly's Senate seat is the big story, and Kentucky, where there are no races for US Senate or any state offices, but there is some interest in CD-6, where R Andy Barr is in an unexpectedly tough race. Returns should be coming along in the next 20 minutes or so. We're off!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 18:09:54 GMT -5
The first results come from Guam, where a Democrat has won the Governor's race from the Republicans after 16 years. The Dem got twice as many votes as the R (16K - 8K), getting 50.7 percent of the total votes in a multiparty race, avoiding a runoff. OK, it's only a territory, but it is the first result. And it's so early because Guam is on the other side of the International Date Line, so they were voting while most of us were sleeping.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 18:36:01 GMT -5
First CD call: Harold Rogers (R) re-elected in KY-5. In fact, all the early returns are coming from GOP districts in IN and KY; only KY-6 is expected to be contested seriously. Rogers was called with less than 1 percent in (don't ask me how, lol).
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 19:44:09 GMT -5
First flip of the night: Barbara Comstock (R) loses to Jennifer Wexton (D) by a lot.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 20:01:15 GMT -5
Another flip: Our very own Donna Shalala takes CD-27 in FL!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 22:05:31 GMT -5
GOP finally got a pick-up in the IN Senate race. But Dems are on course for a House majority, with around 230 seats, give or take.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 22:19:55 GMT -5
Dems have picked up Governorships in MI and IL. Evers leading Walker by about 4 1/2 points in WI with about half the precincts in. In KS, Chris Kobach is getting pounded by 10 points by Laura Kelly with about half the votes in. The Dems also seem on track to pick up NM and ME, possibly Iowa (very early returns only). GOP is going to hold in OH, GA, and FL it appears.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 6, 2018 22:42:04 GMT -5
Dems have picked up 13 seats so far: PA-5, PA-6, PA-7, PA-17 (Rothfus), CO-6 (Coffman), FL-26 (Curbelo), FL-27, IL-6 (Roskam), KS-3 (Yoder), MN-3 (Paulsen), NJ-11, VA-10 (Comstock), NY-11 (Donovan). That last was a surprise, but an even bigger surprise may be coming in OK, where Steve Russell is trailing by a bit over a point with just 9 precincts out in what was considered a safe GOP seat. Yeah, it's got a lot of suburban OKC.
The GOP has picked up one D seat, but that was the one Conor Lamb held before the state was redistricted; he beat incumbent Keith Rothfus handily in the new district. Guy's been elected in two different districts this year!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 2:58:49 GMT -5
Walker goes down! This is just great. After Brown Co. came in and put Walker ahead I couldn't see where Evers would get the votes to win. Apparently they were waiting to be counted in La Crosse. Great result. The Dems have picked up 6 governorships, and are leading for a 7th in Nevada. The biggest wins were in IL, MI, and WI, where the governors will have a say in post 2020 reapportionment. The GOP has to be happy they held FL and GA for the same reason. It looks as if they'll pick up CT, as well--though that's mostly about outgoing Gov. Molloy.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 3:43:24 GMT -5
Dems now officially (by which I mean according to the NYT's handy table) have taken the House with 218 seats, while the GOP has 51 Senate seats to retain control there.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 3:54:40 GMT -5
Can someone call the Green Party and explain to them that if they keep helping elect Republicans they literally are moving the country AWAY from what the Green Party says it wants? This rant brought to you by Arizona, where with 93 percent of precincts reporting the results are:
McSally (R) 827,616
Sinema (D) 810,376
Green (G) 37,375
Can any of those people add? I would have thought they'd have mastered that skill before now. Idiots!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 4:19:29 GMT -5
Ever the uniter, Walker refuses to concede. What a freaking jerk!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 4:38:18 GMT -5
Late returns coming in:
Lucy McBath (D) got an injection of much-needed votes from Fulton Co. to take a 389-vote lead over GA incumbent Karen Handel (R). Recount for sure, but that would be quite a win.
With just one precinct not reporting Harley Rouda (D) has a 2,774-vote lead over long-time CA incumbent Dana Rohrabacher (R), Russia's best friend in the Capitol. So glad to see that dope lose.
With three precincts left, Elissa Slotkin (D) leads incumbent Mike Bishop (R) by 2,249 in MI.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 9:45:32 GMT -5
The Cook Political Report was amazingly accurate in assessing House races. The Dems won or are leading in every single district they categorized as Solid, Likely, or Leaning D; and the GOP won or is leading in all but three races they called for them. The Toss-ups are all within the 52-48 range, and about evenly split. Bravo!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 10:58:12 GMT -5
Some interesting results on ballot questions. Some are about specific policies:
Expanded Medicaid: Won or winning in ID, NE, UT.
Raise minimum wage: Won or winning in AR and MO.
Crime victims' rights: About half a dozen states passed (I'm sure some organization is pushing this one--ALEC?).
Marijuana legalization: Lots of measures, a mixed bad of results, but mostly moving toward more legalization.
Stricter gun control: WA.
The ones I find most interesting are on voting-related issues, which has been such a huge issue:
Establish redistricting commission: Won or winning in CO, MI, MO, UT.
Same-day voting registration: MD. MI; automatic registration: NV.
Voter ID requirement: NC.
Voting rights for felons: FL; but prohibiting felons from holding office: LA. What's important here is that FL has 1.6 million convicted felons who've served their sentences, but can't vote. This amendment passed with 64 percent of the vote. What it means is likely that hundreds of thousands more people will be voting D in coming elections. Andrew Gillum may not be done in the Sunshine State.
Then there are the idiosyncratic ones that make American politics so fascinating:
Gender identity rights: MA. Thumbing their collective noses at the "gender on the birth certificate" Yahoos.
Slavery and indentured servitude: CO finally got around to aligning the state constitution with the 13th Amendment, recently passed by Congress and approved by the states...in 1865.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 7, 2018 14:09:16 GMT -5
Tester holds Montana! I was confident he would when I saw that most of the outstanding vote was in Dem-leaning counties.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 8, 2018 13:14:20 GMT -5
In 1978 voters in CA started a "tax revolt" that has made governing much more difficult for federal, state, and local governments ever since. Using the initiative process, they effectively froze local property tax increases, which progressively hurt local funding for schools, streets, social services, and other needs, and eventually putting enormous pressure on the state treasury to keep them solvent--which nearly bankrupted the state itself. In the aftermath of Proposition 13, states across the country have enacted various forms of revenue restrictions, cementing continuous tax-cutting as the cornerstone of Republican policies, even at the federal level, where Reagan, Bush II, and Trump all pushed through changes in tax law that permanently impaired revenues. So it was satisfyingly ironic to see what Californians did to the latest tax-cut initiative: "The defeat of Proposition 6, which would have nullified a 12-cent-per-gallon tax increase that legislators passed in 2017, was the more surprising loss. The measure had served as a symbol of high-tax California and helped energize a state Republican Party that has faded as a political force over the past two decades. The proposition was rejected by 55 percent of voters, after polls showed it as too close to call heading into Election Day. The tax increase is projected to raise $52 billion over the next decade for roads, highways and bridges, projects the proposition’s opponents said would be in jeopardy if voters repealed it. Rural parts of the state, where traffic is lightest, largely supported a repeal. But urban voters plagued by round-the-clock 'rush hour' traffic killed it." linkMindless tax-cutting may (finally) have run out of steam as a winning issue. The Trump tax cut of 2017 had no--zero--traction in the 2018 elections, so much so that GOP campaigners almost completely stopped mentioning it long before Election Day. It turns out (surprise!) that straight-jacketing government revenues in hopes of someday using the resulting fiscal crisis to kill off programs you don't like ("Starve the Beast" strategy) has a flaw: the things you have to cut to make the strategy work are things people want from government. Oops! Anyway, bravo to today's CA voters. |
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 8, 2018 21:06:05 GMT -5
Sinema has taken the lead in AZ! She's up by almost 10,000 votes, even though the nutso Greens siphoned off almost 44,000, most of which she likely would have gotten. Great victory if it hold, especially if the Florida recount finds Nelson won. That would mean a net loss of only 1 seat, despite the inhospitable playing field.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 9, 2018 22:04:21 GMT -5
On election night, when the early returns in KY and FL didn't register huge Dem gains, some pundits proclaimed the Blue Wave more of a "blue trickle". But these days, with most states allowing provisional and mail-in ballots that are postmarked election day to be counted in the days after Election Day, results take a long time to become final. And as the week has progressed the Blue Wave has become more apparent. Consider: "Democrats appear poised to pick up between 35 and 40 seats in the House, once the last races are tallied, according to strategists in both parties. That would represent the biggest Democratic gain in the House since the post-Watergate election of 1974, when the party picked up 49 seats three months after Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency...The Democrats’ gains this week are still far short of what Republicans accomplished in their historic victories of 1994 and 2010. But they would eclipse the number of seats Democrats gained in 2006, the last time the party recaptured control of the House, as well as the 26-seat gain in 1982, when the national unemployment rate was at 10 percent. This year, the election took place with the unemployment rate at just 3.7 percent." In the Senate, the GOP apparently will gain a net of one or two seats, despite the fact that the Dems had 26 on the line, compared with just 9 Republicans, and many of those Dem seats were in GOP-leaning states. In fact, Dem Senate candidates got over 13 million more votes than GOP candidates; in the House it was about 5 million more--and both margins likely will grow as CA vote-counting continues. Plus they flipped 7 governorships and hundreds of state legislative districts. Blue Wave it was.  |
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