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Over-Time

by: DavidNYC

Thu Nov 04, 2010 at 7:06 AM EDT


  • AK-Sen: Right now, write-ins account for 41% of the vote in Alaska, while Joe Miller has 34% and Scott McAdams 24%. State election officials have bumped up the start of the write-in count to Nov. 10th (from Nov. 18th). Murkowski is one of 160 declared write-in candidates, but obviously quite a few write-ins ballots would have to be spoiled, or for other candidates, for her to lose.

  • WA-Sen: Patty Murray's lead widened to 1.6% as votes were counted in the populous Democratic stronghold of King County. The trends look poor for Dino Rossi, who took 40% here in 2004 (when he almost tied Christine Gregoire in the gubernatorial race), but is now at 37% this year.

  • CT-Gov: Yikes - the AP withdrew its call for Dem Dan Malloy. This one could get seriously topsy-turvy. Whatever the hell is going on here might also impact Jim Himes (vs. Dan Debicella) in CT-04. Not good.

  • MN-Gov: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Mark Dayton holds an 8,854-vote lead over Republican Tom Emmer, within the half-percent margin which would prompt an automatic recount. No recount can start until after Nov. 23rd, when the vote is certified. Note that Norm Coleman's election-day lead was just 725 votes in 2008. So even though GOP lawyers are already laying in a supply of amphetamines, it's possible the Republicans will abandon what looks like a futile effort.

  • IL-Gov: Man, did anyone dig a mangier rabbit out of a shabbier hat than Pat Quinn? After a day of counting more votes in Cook County (Chicago), Quinn's lead has expanded to 19,000 votes, and Republicans are getting ready to throw in the towel on behalf of Bill Brady. Pretty amazing, for a guy who seemed DOA just a couple of months ago.

  • OR-Gov: As we noted yesterday, various media sources have called the race for Dem John Kitzhaber over Chris Dudley.

  • AZ-07: As we noted yesterday, Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva has declared victory over Ruth McClung, with a 3% lead. A Grijalva spokesman said that the remaining ballots are in Pima County, which favors Dems.

  • AZ-08: Dem Rep. Gabby Giffords leads by 2,349 votes over Jesse Kelly, but again, Pima - they have some 47,000 votes still outstanding. Pima was one of only four counties to go for Kerry - and for Obama, too.

  • CA-11: With an unclear number of votes left to be counted, Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney has inched into a 121-vote lead over David Harmer. It'll take four weeks for the vote to get certified, at which point the loser can seek a recount (at his own expense).

  • CA-20: Dem Rep. Jim Costa trails Andy Vidak by almost 2,000 votes, but there may be something like 30,000 uncounted ballots from Fresno County, which Costa won on e-night by a 2-to-1 margin. So maybe we'll get lucky here.

  • IL-08: With 100% of the vote in, Dem Rep. Melissa Bean is trailing in a shocker to Jim Walsh by 553 votes. She isn't conceding yet, though.

  • KY-06: With 100% of votes counted, Dem Rep. Ben Chandler has a 619 vote lead over Andy Barr. Barr has until next Tuesday to request a "recanvass," which would be completed by Nov. 12th. Barr could then ask for a formal recount, but he'd have to foot the bill.

  • NY-25: Really barfy: As we noted yesterday, Republican Ann Marie Buerkle has moved into the lead, after late results from Wayne County came in. She's now up by 659 votes. Some 8,300 absentee ballots have been returned so far (out of 11,600 requested), though more are trickling in. Maffei would have to pull in something like 54% or so out of the absentees to pull this one out.

  • TX-27: It's looking pretty bad for Dem Rep. Solomon Oritz, who trails Blake Farenthold by 799 votes with 100% in. Farenthold has declared victory, but Ortiz claims his legal team is conducting a review and that he may seek a recount - which he would have to pay for (unless it changes the final results). And check out how far the apple has fallen from the tree:

    • Farenthold is grandson of Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, a Democrat who served two terms in the state House and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1972. That same year, she finished second in balloting to become George McGovern's vice presidential candidate at the Democratic convention.

  • VA-11: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Rep. Gerry Connolly leads Keith Fimian 111,621 to 110,696. The vote will get certified on Nov. 22nd, at which time Fimian can seek a recount if the margin remains less than half a percent (recounts are not automatic).

  • WA-02, WA-09: As we noted yesterday, a number of media outlets have called the 9th CD race for Dem Rep. Adam Smith over Dick Muri. Meanwhile, Rick Larsen has taken his first lead over John Koster, albeit a narrow one (30% of votes remain to be counted).
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    Over-Time | 228 comments
    CT-04
    Debicella already conceded IIRC. I assume he saw something we didn't see--probably the same Bridgeport/New Haven debacle that also led the SoS to call it for Malloy.

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    Well, Bridgeport debacle anyway
    since New Haven's not in the district.

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    [ Parent ]
    MN-Gov
    (Sorry, my blackberry for some reason doesn't let me start my own comment and I can only reply.  So thanks in advance for letting me piggy-back.)

    Dayton's lead is almost certainly unassailable and it will be a giant waste to the GOP in legal fees.  However, Pawlenty will get to be Governor until a recount is over and this is probably the first time that there has been an anti-government governing trifecta in modern history here.  The GOP could certainly over-reach here and get in deep shit for it as I really doubt Minnesotans would be okay with them passing a budget that guts everything, particularly when Dayton was elected for a reason.  A big overreach would be the fastest way to permanent minority status come 2012.  But they could drag it out simply to pump out legislation that we'll have no way repealing.

    Getting redistricting done, anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment, a budget, tax cuts to businesses we can't afford, just, ugh.  Maybe we can do this TX style and just leave the state.

    [ Parent ]
    Minnesota
    Andrew, could you explain to me how in the world the GOP took over the Minnesota House and Minnesota Senate when the DFL had filibuster-proof majorities going in?  All the while Dayton is winning the governors race, I mean I just don't get it, how could something like that happen?

    23, Male, Democrat, OH-13
    [ Parent ]
    They Voted to Raise Taxes...
    ...but they couldn't offer up anything that it accomplished, because they got played by Pawlenty.  
    [ Parent ]
    which makes my House comparison even more apt
    We barely passed many of these tax increases (the big one for the budget was won by one vote in the state senate) so we even allowed our more vulnerable members to vote against them to save face.  And as with the House, if your institution as a whole is going to vote for something that can be turned into an attack ad, then you damn well better get it into law so you can point to the realities of the vote instead of have it only be rhetorical.

    That is why I think the House was such a smack-down, they were very active on legislation that got turned into attack ads rather than law.  Even though Bobby Bright was completely worthless as a Dem in Congress, he still got sucked in with the rest of us because of the bad aura the House had due to their go it alone liberalism.  

    [ Parent ]
    it was just like the House
    Bloated majorities that relied on swing districts and this year every single one of them swung the other way.  Dayton was a horrible top of the ticket with zero coattails in Greater MN where he was supposed to do extremely well so we lost every competitve seat there.  And then his tax policies scared the shit out of the big-box, over 50k pop. suburbs where I can only think of one state senator and one state rep to have survived.  (Both represent the city of Minnetonka which is now 100% in the DFL fold and I'm also not including soldly DFL eastern Bloomington in this which is more working class than our traditional upper class suburbs.)

    What's interesting is that Dayton did better in Hennepin and Ramsey county compared to 2006 even while get crushed in the suburbs there.  He also didn't manage to do much better in Greater MN, which leaves the big question, how the hell is he about to win?  My guess is Minneapolis/St Paul; it's been 20 long years since we won a gubernatorial so we probably carried the whole thing for him.

    This also leaves me to believe that the DFL here really needs to make a decision on where to focus building a lasting majority.  Running candidates who appeal more so to Greater MN and it coming  at the expense of the suburbs is clearly not working at all.  Especially long-term since the DFL areas of Greater MN are shrinking in population and the metro area growing.  I said this in another thread: I really don't think the Democrat (Twin Cities) Farmer (NW and Southern MN) Labor (NE MN) coalition is winning anymore and we need to run DFLers like the mayors of Minneapolis and St Paul who are viewed as solid progressives that the business community puts faith into.  The Twin Cities has done better than just about every other metro economy wise and we need to start running candidates who can brandish that urban cred.  Make mass transit an issue instead of ethanol production.

    [ Parent ]
    outstate
    Dayton won a surprising number of counties in MN-7, which boggles my mind. He outperformed in St. Louis County which is weird, but kind of understandable for the Minneapolis-based Dayton. Where Democrats got fucked was in the suburbs. Dayton got throttled in everything in the metro outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul proper. FRIDLEY, one of the most liberal suburbs, has a Republican representative for the first time anyone can remember. I would say the suburbs cost Democrats a lot more seats than outstate.

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    Dayton in MN-07 doesn't surprise me
    At least from my visits there (wife's family is from the Alec area). When we were there in June, we saw a couple of parades in the area. The D pickup in both parades had all of the candidates, including the endorsed Gov candidate at the time, MAK. The R pickup in both parades only had local candidates. It really is still the Democratic Farmer Labor party out there. OTOH, it's not nearly as strong as it used to be, at least according to my wife.
    [ Parent ]
    Dayton did worse than Hatch in St. Louis county
    Same Emmer-to-Pawlenty margin of 29%, 3% worst for Dayton from 65% to 62%.  This should be a giant red flag that Dayton did not do as well in Greater MN as he should have and I cant wait to crunch the number to find out.  Here are some more numbers with them being Dayton/Hatch/Emmer/T-Paw.  Freeborn County, 49/54/40/40.  Houston, 40/45/49/49.  Redwood County, 31/36/53/57.  Ottertail 31/35/54/56.  I cant wait to crunch the numbers and do a comparison of 2006-2010 because it appears from just clicking around that Dayton did equal-to-worse in Greater MN, got slaughtered in the suburbs, yet did better in both Hennepin and Ramsey county and Emmer lost more voters to Horner in Washington and Dakota county.

    As for Fridley, both state house candidates won that represent portions of the city while the one state senator who has a portion of Fridley and all of suburban-swingy Blaine lost.  That was a seat destined to fall in a wave election where the DFLers in the inner suburban rings couldnt make up for god damned Blaine, MN.

    [ Parent ]
    District 50
    = my district. That is why I singled that part out. Northern Fridley, Spring Lake Park, and Southern Blaine is the one that switched. Whereas the emerald blue Southern Fridley, Hill top, Columbia Heights, and a tiny portion of New Brighton reelected Caroline Lane (I had a huge crush on her daughter in high school. she is fucking HOT)

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    Unfair Comparison.....
    The third-party candidate was a significant electoral force statewide this year.  Peter Hutchinson was not in 2006, particularly in St. Louis County.  Just comparing the Dayton vs. Emmer vote, Dayton performed on par with Hatch in St. Louis County and in northern Minnesota in general.

    What's most encouraging is just how firm the Democratic hold appears to be in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties.  They single-handedly dragged not only Dayton but also Ritchie and Otto across the finish line.

    [ Parent ]
    MN-07 Was The Home Of One Of The Country's Most Robust Farm Populist Movements.....
    Their political allegiance dates back to the left-wing Farmer-Labor Party of the 1930s before they merged with the Democrats.  Most of the thinly populated border counties in MN-07 are Democratic strongholds, although their aging population is falling like a rock and as a result the DFL margins are shrinking.  Even so, you're just as likely to see St. Louis County go red as you are Lac qui Parle and Swift Counties.  Out of dozens of Minnesota elections in the last 20 years, the only Republican I ever recall winning out there is Arne Carlson in 1994, and in Swift County, he prevailed by 0.2%.
    [ Parent ]
    Carlson
    Honestly, I would not vote against the man if he ran for something again. I would venture to guess he is one of, if not THE most popular politician in the state. He is the last Republican to get more than 50% of the vote in ANY statewide election.

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    Can he do that?
    I mean, I'm not sure who else it would be, but I wouldn't think he would have a mandate to stay in office past the expiry of his original term.
    [ Parent ]
    The Minnesota Constitution
    says something like the term of a governor is for four years or until a successor is duly chosen and sworn.

    So, yeah, he can do it.

    [ Parent ]
    and he absolutely will
    That man has fucked over this state for far too long as is because of his presidential ambitions.  ::sigh::
    [ Parent ]
    Recount
    The recount would have to go into spring for the legislature to convene and have any effect. With an 8000+ margin, I don't see the court battles lasting nearly as long as Coleman/Franken

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    It's the state Dems' and national Dems' responsibiilty...
    ...to make as much noise as possible in the media and among voters if Pawlenty extends his Governorship because of the recount.  There needs to be a very loud noise machine making clear that Republicans have no political mandate or moral authority to do anything with which Dayton disagrees.  Voters will side with Democrats on this one, and it's not that hard to hold it against the Republicans in 2012 and get voters to punish them if they try to do anything.  Upon assuming office, Dayton needs to keep hammering repeal of anything Pawlenty signed that Dayton opposed, making sure the issue stays visible.

    This is a very winnable political battle, with good potential to scare away Republicans from doing anything controversial.  It actually helps us that Pawlenty is running for President, because signing bills that Dayton opposed, and that by extension usurped the will of the voters, would be a damaging controversy that he doesn't need.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    luckily, this is Minnesota and not Texas
    Good governance is a big issue to Minnesotans and a big over-reach by Republicans that's properly attacked would probably cost them their state legislate majorities.  Even while Emmer almost won, Minnesotans still voted 57-43 for a governor who will raise their taxes.
    [ Parent ]
    I don't buy it anyway...
    I don't like Pawlenty, but this would be such a massive overreach, particularly with Dayton clearly going to win the governors race, that I can't see them doing anything even if the recount were to some how extend into next year.  
    [ Parent ]
    just got done reading the paper
    And the GOP sound like they know this.  They even kind of poo poo an anti-marriage equality amendment even, which only needs to pass the legislature to get sent to voters, no gov signature needed.  Which means they'll probably pass that shit in the 2012 legislative session to save time for their version of job creation.  But 2012 would be an awful year to try get that passed anyway with Obama college turn-out.

    And the paper also said the recount process has been stream-lined because of 2008 and with the margin being so decisive in Dayton's favor, maybe they won't need to spend months going through rejected ballots as they won't be able sway the margin anyway.

    [ Parent ]
    BTW Andrew, you're failing to mention one of the worst results of the Repub sweep
    Michelle Bachmann won't be redistricted out of office now.  
    [ Parent ]
    Bachmann could move.
    Any district that contains Wright County would elect her. She is really popular among the exurb an crowd here. A map could be drawn that puts her house into the 4th, but she could just move and be elected to congress in a new district in the west metro.

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    She probably won't have to now.
    The Repubs in the legislature will go out of their way to protect here, and now that they have control they can do it.

    I was so looking forward to Dem control of everything in Minnesota.  

    [ Parent ]
    Because Dayton is the governor
    Barring some weird compromise map, the courts will be drawing the map. Plus, MN-4 needs to expand, and the "claw" of the 6th district of Washington Counyy, which is gaining population, is the obvious choice. Bachmann lives THIS CLOSE to MN-4 anyways. We will see how it works out though.

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    I just found out she lives in Lake Elmo
    I definitely remember reading she moved to Woodbury, but the paper showed her voting at her precinct in Lake Elmo.  Easier to keep her in her own seat by a 5-10 miles, but it's kind of like why bother?  The part of the district she lives in hates her and routinely votes against her while her base of support is on the opposite side of the district.  Maybe she's just a big urban elitist who couldnt stand living in a place like Clearwater, MN.
    [ Parent ]
    to be honest, DFLers were all talk when it came to that
    She could still be redistricted out of her seat simply because she lives on the far far eastern side of the district while the western part of her district is the part exploding in population.  So based off of the numbers, it may just not be feasible to have her live in her new seat regardless.  But, she doesnt need to live in it as my home-town area will vote for that heinous woman every day of the week.  Now, if we were still projected to a lose seat, different story.

    Ha, I typed this comment being extremely depressed about how redistricting will go, psh, this just means a whole new slew of maps for me to make!  And you can't gerrymander in MN because the populace will lose their shit so I cant wait to see how my 7-seater ends up looking.  I've got a date with Dave this weekend and the only thing I'll be putting out are awesome maps.

    [ Parent ]
    Think like a judge
    That's is what kind of people will be making the maps

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    surprised IL-Gov and IL-Sen diverged
    I would have thought Alexi would pull through if Quinn did. Wonder what happened there.
    Different type of Republicans
    Kirk is not as right-wing as Brady.  So, I would guess many independents, or soft Republicans, couldn't stomach Brady.  Also, I saw somewhere where an analyst said Cohen ended up helping Quinn.
    [ Parent ]
    also
    There wasn't much divergence in Illinois. Kirk won by 2 and Quinn by approximately 0. Ohio had divergence: Kasich won by 2, Portman by 18.

    41, Ind, CA-05
    [ Parent ]
    Suburbs
    The Chicago suburbs went pretty strongly for Kirk, but couldn't stomach Brady.

    Maybe the puppy-killer ad worked after all? ;)

    27, Democratic, IL-01

    [ Parent ]
    This
    The difference between Kirk and Brady is almost entirely the suburbs, especially Kirk's old CD.

    A POTUS election year and a too-right voting record* will help, but Kirk's gonna be formidable every time he comes up.

    *- Leadership will give Kirk a wide berth, but they're gonna need him on some things, and even those few things may be too much for IL. Plus, the Tea Baggers.

    [ Parent ]
    Proposed Quinn Bumper Sticker
    "Quinn for Illinois: The Mangiest Rabbit Out of the Shabbiest Hat"

    34, WM, Democrat, FL-11
    Best Pollster
    Posted this on another thread, but I'll post it again. Does anyone see it the same like me? I think that Suffolk deserves the medal for the best pollster (although not the most prolific) of the cycle, they only got FL-GOV wrong and that's it. They got all other races right together with all other pollsters, plus being only pollster to have Quinn, Harris and Reid winning.  

    22, Male, Conservative Republican, anti-teabag, NY-8
    Yep, Suffolk is definitely...
    The BIG winner among public pollsters in 2010! They turned out to be the ONLY public pollster to even come close to the actual NV-Sen results AND predict the correct winner. (They had Reid 46, Angle 43; final results were Reid 50.2, Angle 44.6.) They were also right on the nose with NV-Gov (they had Sandoval 50, R Reid 39; final results were Sandoval 53.4; R Reid 41.6.)

    Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
    24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
    [ Parent ]
    Anyone know if Suffolk polls bilingually?
    http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n...

    Nate notes this fail

    In Nevada, however, where most polls showed Sharron Angle ahead and Harry Reid instead won by almost 6 points, the polls were pretty far off the mark. Errors like that occur quite frequently in primaries and in House races, where the polling landscape is tougher. They also occur sometimes in lopsided races, which are more difficult to hit on the nose. It's fairly unusual, however, to have the consensus of polls off by 7 or 8 points in an extremely competitive Senate or gubernatorial general election.

    and seems to lean to the theory that it's because most pollsters don't offer a Spanish language option.

    [ Parent ]
    They were also one of two in 08 to nail NV
    the other being Zogby, everyone else way underestimated Obama's margin there.
    [ Parent ]
    Farenthold
    I knew that name sounded familiar.  I guess the grandson falls far from the tree.

    Looks like, from the number of votes case, the Latino turnout in Texas was pretty abysmal.

    I had the same reaction ....
    I knew I had heard that last name before.  Sissy Farenthold was a great liberal leader, a longtime ally of Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, etc.  I wonder what she thinks of her grandson!?!?

    I mean, we would never have that situation in Indiana, where say we would have a great liberal Senator who had a son who went on to serve as Governor and Senator and became significantly more conservative than his father.  Oh, wait, umm .......  well at least he calls himself a Democrat!

    [ Parent ]
    The last I heard of Sissy Farenthold
    She was the president of a women's college in upstate New York in the late 1970s.
    [ Parent ]
    CA-20
    Makes sense that there might by 30K uncounted ballots in the district because the the 2-party vote total is absurdly and suspiciously low, with only 63K votes.  I know it's heavily Hispanic and that combined with this being a midterm instead of a Presidential partly explains low turnout, but even under those circumstances neighboring Dennis Cardoza's district still pumped out 93K votes.  So another 30K in CA-20 makes perfect sense.

    I hope Costa still pulls this out, and I bet he will.  That would be sweet because it would mean no Pacific incumbent Dems lost, and in fact we'll end up a net wash with losing Baird's seat but knocking off Djou.  That's a huge symbolic victory that's instructive on how Democratic the Pacific states (excepting Alaska) have really become, that Dems can't be beaten even under the worst conditions.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    That and the effectiveness of California's gerrymandering.


    [ Parent ]
    California Didn't Have a Gerrymander
    Their map in 2001 was drawn to protect all incumbents, D and R, just like Illinois and New York. Because of the Republican collapse in 2005-2008, we won several seats drawn for Republicans in each of those states. The difference in California is that we didn't lose those seats back like we did in IL and NY.
    [ Parent ]
    Protecting incumbents
    More precisely, we won four GOP seats in 2000 and the 2002 map locked in those gains. We also salvaged CA-18, where Gary Condit was imploding, so that another Democrat (who turned out to be Dennis Cardoza) could win it.
    [ Parent ]
    An incumbent protection gerrymander is still a gerrymander
    Also, only CA-11 flipped in 2006 with nothing in 2008. The lack of California losses reflected the minimal freshman/sophomore targets more than some big trend.
    [ Parent ]
    that's still a gerrymander
    Messed up looking districts created for a certain political goal, this one was just done a bit more bi-partisanly
    [ Parent ]
    Incorrect
    Democrats held the Governorship and both chambers of the Legislature in 2001.  As I pointed out in a previous thread, Democrats achieved several key gains in Congressional seats in the 2000 election and decided on an incumbent protection gerrymander to consolidate those gains.  In hindsight it seems like an overly cautious strategy, but the memory of GOP power in the state was still fresh - Republicans had won a Presidential election here in 1988, an Assembly majority (though fractious) in 1994, and four consecutive Gubernatorial elections from 1982 to 1994.
    [ Parent ]
    To Add to This
    This happened even though early reports from EDT were not good for Dems, but it didn't suppress the voting in the time zone three hours behind.  

    I honestly thought we'd hold the House. I knew we were in serious trouble in the industrial Midwest, and I'm not surprised that we got stomped in PA/OH/IN/IL, and I figured that despite not having many competitive seats in the South, that we'd lose most of them. But I didn't think that would add up to 40, because I thought we'd hold on OK in the Northeast and in the far West. Obviously I was wrong about the Northeast, because we took a beating there, too. But the part of my calculation about the West held true, which is extraordinary when you see the asskicking that we took.  

    The Pacific Coast is younger, more heavily minority, and more highly educated than most of the rest of the country. Those were the demographics that saved us or at least kept us close in statewide races, and that were almost completely absent in most of the House districts that we lost.  

    [ Parent ]
    It definitely worked to Harry Reid's advantage...
    Minorities and young voters really saved the day for Harry... And it shows how by mostly or completely excluding young and/or non-white voters, the public polls (again, with the sole exception of Suffolk) completely missed the mark here.


    Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
    24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)
    [ Parent ]
    Once you get above the Bay Area...
    Not a ton of racial minorities in the Pacific Northwest. Just a lot of white liberals. The Native American vote isn't negligible in Washington, and Latinos and Asian Americans make up a small portion of the electorate as well, but the African American population is pretty small. On the whole, the Pacific Northwest is actually one of the least racially diverse parts of the country.

    The youth vote got us Gov.-elect Kitzhaber and probably reelected Rep. Schrader. So yeah, that's important.

    20, center-left independent, Auckland Central resident, MD-05 voter, OR-01 native

    [ Parent ]
    It depends on what you mean by "a ton," but there ARE a lot of racial minorities in OR and WA......
    The exit poll says nonwhite voters were 15% in Washington and 16% in Oregon.  That's plenty.

    Yes there are a lot of white liberals in these states, that's why they lean left overall.

    But Oregon and Washington have nonwhite electorates that are as big in vote share as a lot of states where high minority turnout is crucial to Democratic chances of victory, like Missouri and Ohio and Pennsylvania.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Also, interestingly the exit polls for Oregon and Washington say...
    ...the biggest nonwhite group of voters in both states was Latinos.  It used to be Asians, but I didn't realize these states had such great Latino population growth.  The growth must be massive because the exit polls (if they're right) say Washington had a 6% Latino electorate and Oregon 9%, and Latino vote share almost everywhere lags waaaaay below census.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    wow
    Oregon only 4% behind AZ in Latino %? geez!

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    [ Parent ]
    Exit polls can be wrong......
    It's eye-opening that the margin would be ONLY that.

    But exit polls are flat-out wrong sometimes, and sometimes by a LOT.  And racial breakdown of an electorate is where they've clearly been wrong at times in the past decade.

    To me 13% in Arizona seemed low.  The Latino population there I believe is 31%, and subtracting undocumenteds and legal non-citizens still should leave a voting-eligible population much higher than 13%.  Yes there's Latino dropoff and then a further midterm dropoff, but all that combined still should make Latino vote share higher than the exit poll said, particularly when you throw in the incendiary nature of the immigration enforcement law.  But it's possible they just plain didn't show anyway.

    Meanwhile, the exit poll in Nevada showed Latinos at 15% of the total, same as 2008, with no dropoff.  No one expected that, Ralston had said the Democratic goal was 12% and it was just shy of that, a hair over 11%, in early voting.  So that exit poll result, too, could be wrong, there on the high side.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I started seeing Spanish-language billboards on I-5 and in Salem...
    That was back in maybe the early 2000s? Salem is effectively a bilingual city (trilingual, if you count the significant and culturally proud Russian-speaking minority).

    20, center-left independent, Auckland Central resident, MD-05 voter, OR-01 native
    [ Parent ]
    Check the census for Oregon
    You wouldn't think it, but they don't really have that large of an Asian population. I have no idea why that's the case, but that is the case.

    Politics and Other Random Topics

    24, Male, Democrat, NM-01, Chairman of the Atheist Caucus, and Majority Leader of the "Going to Hell" caucus!

    [ Parent ]
    VA-11
    I think we may be in for a very contentious recount here.  Keith Fimian is now claiming that he won the race.  There might also be a huge problem with one of the 3 people on the canvassing board.  It's none other than Hans von Spakovsky.  If you have no idea who that is a quick look at Google will make you see why it's a huge problem.  
    There is nothing "contentious" in a way that helps Fimian or Republicans......
    A recount is a recount, there is a well-worn path of a process in Virginia and hijinx are not going to be possible.  Remember we went through this in VA-05 in 2008 in Perriello's win.

    Fimian is a dick and dumbass and it doesn't matter what he says.  He has no control over what happens.

    A margin of 500 votes is extremely difficult to reverse on a recount.  Most voting in NoVA (maybe statewide, but I know only NoVA for sure) is on touchscreens and we're experienced with them.  That odds of finding enough mistakes in vote-counting that on net FLIP ONE WAY are extremely low.

    It will be unprecedented if Connolly doesn't win this upon a recount.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Isn't the margin 925?
    Anyway, I agree that Connolly is likely to survive.
    [ Parent ]
    Yes, I messed up, I was going by memory in what I saw Wednesday morning and not by the diary blurb which is correct. (nm)
    nm

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    Pardon me, I messed up and didn't realize the margin is almost 1,000 votes, not 500, so...
    ...it's really over, Fimian's protest doesn't matter.  He'll get his state-paid recount if he wants it, and it only will delay the inevitable.

    Perriello's lead in 2008 that resulted in a Goode-requested state-paid recount was smaller than Connolly's now, and at the time it was understood it was a real longshot that the outcome would change.  And, sure enough, the mistakes found, all of which were missed votes for both candidates, resulted in a change in the final margin of only 22 votes, from a 745-vote margin down to 723.

    Connolly now is up 925 votes, and that's going to hold up.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    that's the same margin Norm Coleman had
    in a constiuency eight times the size.  And considering it's touch screen with no possibility of a stray vote for Lizard People, VA-11 is all but done.
    [ Parent ]
    I agree about Connolly winning
    But I still think it's pretty unbelievable that a guy like Hans von Spakovsky can be in charge of counting votes when the guy is known for his tactics in suppressing voting and he couldn't even get confirmed to the FEC.  
    [ Parent ]
    Attempts to flip Republican Senate seats flop.
    The AK-Sen numbers sadly reminded me.  I think there were nine Republican Senate seats people talked at some point during the campaign about flipping.

    AK, KY, NH, MO, FL, NC, OH, LA, AZ

    Sadly, the results of all these attempts were 10 point deficits or greater.  From the looks of the AK numbers, McAdams trailed Miller by 10.  And in the other 8 races, the Dem contender lost by at least 10%.  Even in this cycle, I wonder if the losses had to be this wide.

    Of those races
    Missouri was the biggest poop I think.  Robin Carnahan loses by 13% to Roy friggin Blunt and wins no counties at all outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.  

    I think we can all stop kidding ourselves that Missouri is a swing state with that result.  

    Honorable mention goes to Florida, where Marco Rubio got 49% in a three way contest.  We thought initially that Crist's entry would split the republican vote and maybe give us the seat.  Instead, it resulted in a split of the democratic vote, and might have supressed the early vote to the point that turnout dropped, costing Alex Sink the governor's race.  

    P.S. If it wasn't before, Florida really is a complete dumbass state now, electing Rick Scott over Alex Sink.  Were they out of their minds?!

    23, Male, Democrat, OH-13

    [ Parent ]
    Missouri
    Turnout in KC and St. Louis was terrible.  It will be a lot higher in 2012.
    [ Parent ]
    Missouri is still a swing state, just a right-leaning one.......
    Missouri is the counterweight to Pennsylvania.  It's clearly center-RIGHT, like PA is clearly center-LEFT, but can flip the other way in a wave.  Toomey did this time what McCaskill did in 2006.  Corbett did this time what Jay Nixon did in 2008.  And Blunt did this time what Casey did in 2006.  And Democrats compete but fail to carry Mizzou every Presidential the same way Republicans compete but fail to carry PA every Presidential.

    But I do think Missouri is slowly drifting away from us.  The rural areas are breaking hard right across the state now, not just in southern Missouri where they always broke hard right.  But there's a similar story in PA, with the Philly suburbs moving left over time.  The wave elections interrupt these trends, but those interruptions are but a blip.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Someone
    like Bill Clinton could win Missouri today, but Obama will never win Missouri ever.  

    19, Male, Independent, CA-12
    [ Parent ]
    I know what you mean by that, but in reality Bill Clinton would struggle...
    ...in a 2-way as much as Obama.

    It's easy to be popular when you're NOT in elective office, when you're not making decisions and not in a position to piss people off.  Bill Clinton is the most popular he's ever been, and it's no coincidence that that's become true a DECADE after he left public office.  Time heals all wounds.

    The problem is, real-time campaigns and elections OPEN wounds.  So actually RUNNING for President makes Missouri very tough, yes for Bill or Hillary or anyone else on the Democratic line.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I Think Hillary Would Have Won Missouri In a Walk in 2008....
    All she would have needed is to pick off a small percentage of rural voters who supported her strongly in the primaries.  I think the Clinton legacy and women voters would have been able to pull that off quite easily.  The border states were simply inhospitable turf for Obama specifically, and he underperformed John Kerry in most of the rural counties in a way the generic Democrat in a year like 2008 wouldn't have.
    [ Parent ]
    There is no "Clinton legacy" that was ever popular in Missouri or other border states......
    Bill Clinton in 1996 got 48% in Missouri, 45% in Kentucky, and 52% in West Virginia.  That was in a 3-way against  Perot, who was weakened from 4 years earlier, and Dole, who was hopeless.  Bill did several points worse in each of those states in 1992.

    Obama in 2008 got 49% in Missouri, 41% in Kentucky, and 43% in West Virginia.  His Mizzou performance was better than Clinton's reelection performance when Bill was popular.

    Realistically Hillary would be in tossup territory in Missouri, same as Obama, and

    To say Hillary would've won Missouri "in a walk" is part of the deep revisionism some have about her history.  She was polarizing, with virtually even favorables and unfavorables.

    And even without a polarizing figure, Missouri today is simply more suspicious of Democrats than Republicans.

    Mizzou is trending Republican, slowly rather than quickly, but trending nonetheless.  It's not a state that Hillary or any Democrat running for federal office can ever win in a walk.  Jay Nixon could win reelection in a landslide and then turn around and run for Senate, and he'd win much more narrowly.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I Live Close Enough To Missouri To Recognize The Culture.....
    ...of rural Missouri and personally know people who were rabidly anti-Obama who said they would have voted for Hillary.  It's presumptuous to assume that the Perot voters in Missouri in 1992 and 1996 would have otherwise been Bush or Dole votes.

    You're right that the state is trending Republican, but in a year like 2008 it was still possible for a Democrat to win there fairly decisive...as long as it's a Democrat not named Barack Obama.

    [ Parent ]
    I'm having trouble
    find exact information, but before I'd make such a sweeping conclusion, I'd find out exactly how many people aren't signed up to vote. It's probably more difficult to find new voters in a state like Ohio than it is in a lot of other states, simply because the state has almost 95 percent of its eligible voters registered. That will change from year to year, but unless something really horrific happens, a la Hurricane Katrina, it's not going to decrease rapidly. But do others states have the same thing happening? If not, in addition to swaying and turning out those who are already registered, it's entirely possible to try to find new voters.

    I know I and many others repeat this quite a but, but simply conceding the state well in advance of election is a terrible decision. It might just be, as DCCyclone said, a center-right state, and we might come short more often than we win, but just as they fight like hell to win Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, and Pennsylvania, we need to do the same in Missouri.  

    "I have never deliberately given anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the opposition-and they think it's hell."--President Harry Truman. President Obama, are you listening?

    [ Parent ]
    if Obama couldnt win it
    It isn't a swing state.  That's my overly simplified position on MO
    [ Parent ]
    By just 3000 votes
    He lost by only about 3000 votes.  About 0.1% of the vote. Granted if the election were held right now, it would probably be a bigger loss against most Republican candidates.  But I bet with hard campaign work, Obama could close that gap and even flip MO.

    I still want the Obama reelection campaign to follow this plan:

    1. Keep all Obama states.
    2. Flip all 2008 Light Red states (SC, GA, MO, SD, ND, MT, AZ) where Obama lost only by less than 10%.
    3. Flip TX and MS.

    I mean treat this setup as the best case scenario that the campaign should be working for, and we'll see how well it really turns out.

    [ Parent ]
    FL
    The Dem's bench in FL was thin, which meant that they had mediocre candidates in both Sen and Gov races.  The fact that they spent much of the year chasing the Republican governor to be their senate candidate demonstrates this.  Rick Scott pulled a jujitsu move on Alex Sink, tarring her with the same corruption brush she painted him with and as that was really the only line of attack she used on him, she had no fallback.  Also, she wasted a lot of effort on north Florida at the expense of south Florida, which was not smart.  I think it clearly cost her in Miami-Dade.

    43 - Male - GOP/Libertarian - FL 22
    [ Parent ]
    So
    do you think Bill Nelson is going down in 2 years? Or do you think he'll retire instead and some GOPer will pick up the seat?

    19, Male, Independent, CA-12
    [ Parent ]
    Disagree
    Ohio was the only state I could see in this environment.  But a weak economy and a bad candidate doomed that one.  New Hampshire reverted to is Republican roots.  In an off year election, Missouri is very tough.  The others they had no shot.
    [ Parent ]
    Believe it or not
    North Carolina ended up being closer than OH, NH and MO! Not saying she would have won, certainly, but it certainly puts the DSCC's supreme disdain towards her in perspective.

    Twitter.com/Taniel
    [ Parent ]
    The disdain was warranted, she polled poorly the ENTIRE cycle as opposed to...
    ...Carnahan who polled very competitively until a month or so out.  And the DSCC didn't put anything into NH.  In OH they were hoping Strickland would help carry Fisher, but I'm pretty sure the DSCC cut the string on Fisher relatively early, no money in October or maybe even September.

    Marshall was never going to run close, that would've been fool's gold, and I'm glad they didn't get in there.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Not saying they should have gone in
    Marshall was never that hapless, in fact she was within single-digits (even within 1-2%) in many polls in the spring and early summer.

    I'm not saying the DSCC should have gone in at all. There's no way Marshall would have won given the environment.

    But that doesn't justify the DSCC discrediting Marshall's campaign as soon as she entered, making it very clear they had no confidence in her and thus obviously hurting her chances of running an even viable campaign. Given that she always looked likely to win the Democratic primary, that was just a stupid strategy. At least pretend you're supporting her.  

    Twitter.com/Taniel

    [ Parent ]
    In defense of the DSCC
    The reason why they were against Marshall was she had the reputation as a poor fundraiser, a reputation she did nothing to challenge this year (although the DSCC backed candidate Cal Cunningham proved to be equally bad).

    I don't think this year anyone would have beaten Burr, but given the results, it would have been interesting to see how Cooper would have done, anyway. Burr is still not popular in North Carolina.  

    [ Parent ]
    Add Elton Gallegly to underperformance watch
    Barely cracked 60% against Some Dude. Also, in exchange for Capps' district being made more Republican, I bet his district is made more Democratic. And he might retire since I believe he almost ended up doing so in 2006. This district is one of many in California that is a ripe opportunity even now and might end up even better after redistricting.

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    oh and same with Gary Miller
    plus Gary Miller has ethics issues and won his primary by a weak 52-45 in June.

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    [ Parent ]
    Agree, he's in deep doo-doo
    I just posted a detailed analysis in an older thread, but my current theory is that for Team Blue, Cardoza is gone and Capps is weakened, while for Team Red, Dreier and Lungren are gone, Gallegly's on life support, and Gary Miller is weakened.
    [ Parent ]
    Another take on CA-20
    Here's KMPH at 11pm PT last night:

    In Fresno county, about 40,000 absentee ballots still need to be counted.

    In Kern county, more than 58,000 absentee ballots, and 7,000 provisional ballots have yet to be tallied.

    And in Kings county, they've only got about 500 provisional ballots left to count.

    Costa won Fresno and Kern by big margins; he lost Kings by a big margin. If this is correct, he can certainly pull it off.

    Twitter.com/Taniel

    With those numbers I bet he does. (nm)
    nm

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    This does look very good for Costa
    The only thing that seems odd is the article implies all of the absentees have been counted in Kings County and only provisionals remain.  Usually it takes at least a week after the election to count all of the absentees.

    If for some reason Kings has a very efficient way of counting absentees and all their votes are in, Costa will end up winning fairly easily.  The only thing propping up Vidak is Kings County where he got 70% of the vote.

    [ Parent ]
    Kings is a small county compared to
      others like Fresno, Kern and Tulare. Fresno and Kern each have populations around half a million or more. I think Kings is under 100,000 though I may be wrong on that. It is easier to count ballots when there are fewer of them to begin with.

    52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28
    [ Parent ]
    Kings County is overperforming way too much right now
    In 2008 the 20th district had 54k votes from Fresno, 36k from Kern, and 34k from Kings. This year Kings is providing more votes than Fresno or Kern. Either that's one hell of an intensity gap, or there are a lot of votes left to count in Fresno and Kern.

    I'm no longer worried about this one; Costa will pull through.

    24, CA-14, previously DC-AL

    [ Parent ]
    "Obama's No-Shows: 29 Million"
    http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenu...

    Exactly as PPP were projectinf for months. Anyway, does anybody get the sense that as bad as the House was that in statewide races the GOP actually underperformed? They certainly were under my expectations in both Senate and gubernatorial races.

    Underperformed
    They underperformed in the senate because they blew three seats, Nevada, Delaware and Colorado, by nominating far right wackos.  When you win around 65 seats, it's hard to say you underperformed in the house.  By holding on Florida, they at least met expectations in the governor's races.
    [ Parent ]
    They didn't meet expectations in Governor's races, see my other comment here. (nm)
    nm

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    I think this is right
    I guess you could argue if you're a Republican in a perfect world they would have won Illinois and California in the governor's race.

    One thing I was thinking - it may be because most of us were expecting the worse that we are all more upbeat than you would expect about the election results. If we were looking at this at the beginning of this year, the loss of 65 House seats, 6 Senate's seat, and all but two of the important competitive governor's races would have been look at as a pretty big disaster.

    But I don't feel too bad about the results. Maybe next week reality will set in.  

    [ Parent ]
    Agree
    I don't feel the way I did in '94.  Holding on to the senate is a big reason.  Also, Dems hadn't lost the house in 40 years in '94.  This time it's only 4 years, so I'm used to it.  And the Republicans had an agenda in '94.  They have nothing but "no" this time.
    [ Parent ]
    Also, I'd add that almost all the candidates I truly despised in the Senate races lost
    Angle, O'Donnell, and (apparently, though he's in denial) Miller all went down. Rand Paul sadly won.  

    In the governor's race, I'm really bummed about Sink losing, but at least Dayton and Brown won.  

    [ Parent ]
    Yes
    But one of my most despised candidates, Toomey, won.  That was my biggest disappointment of the night.
    [ Parent ]
    I feel better than in 1994
      but then the results were much better here in the California Republic (that's what it is called on the flag.) In 1994 the GOP Governor was re-elected (beating Jerry's sister, former CA Treasurer Kathleen Brown) and they even grabbed a one seat majority in the Assembly. This year we added two Assemblymembers for a 52-28 majority. We lost some CA seats in the House while this year we might hold all of the Democratic seats if Costa can get enough from the late absentees and provisionals and McNerney's razor-thin margin holds up.

      This year we won all our statewide races (AG is still very close but likely ours) most by landslides. We have some great possibilities for future higher office, including SoS Debra Bowen, Controller John Chiang, Ins. Comm. Dave Jones and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

       On the national level, the House was worse than '94 but the Senate not as bad (Thanks Christine, Sharrrrron and Ken!)
    I still can't get used to the idea of Speaker Bohner, though. I am also still puzzled and dismayed by some of the ballot measure results; I expected 19 to lose but am saddened by the loss of Prop 21 (which would have funded state parks through a fee on vehicle registrations and then given free day use access to the parks and beaches.) At least 25 passed (majority rule state budgets).

       Maybe it is California that should be looking at secession not Texas. I don't see it happening but at times like these I feel more like a Californian than a U.S. American.

       The one last good thing: No more Meg or Carly commercials and good riddance to the Califuehrer or Governator or "GAS", too!

    52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

    [ Parent ]
    I felt much more like a Californian than an American in 2004 also.
    I remember some talking about California secession then and there was even a "New California Republic" website. California has had a history of bucking the national trend since 2000 (with 2008 a possible exception).

    2000 - While the country shifts Republican, California shifts Democratic, reelecting DiFi by a wide margin and giving Dems 5 more House seats

    2002 - With Republicans winning almost everywhere else, California elects Democrats to all its statewide offices (though that didn't even last a year)

    2004 - California continued trending Democratic unlike the rest of the country, voting for Kerry by double digits

    2006 - While Democrats win almost everywhere, California backslides with Ahnold's landslide

    My blog
    Twitter
    Scribd
    28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

    [ Parent ]
    We'd all be suicidal if we didnt have the WH
    But we do.  The Senate majority will hold up anythign crazy before it even gets to Obama.  

    Writing is on the wall for nelson and Lieberman that they are done so I do NOT expect them to try and play power broker.  I know 1,000% of people on here disagree with me, but I just don't see it logistically happening.

    One curiosity I have.  If Murkowski holds, she's still a Repub and all that.  But considering people actively endorsed/campaigned against her (the whole I supported the GOP nominee stuff will get old) but still there will be fractured relationships temporarily.  But more importantly, if the GOP goal of blocking earmarks goes away, does she becoem more amenable to stepping out of line with GOP on ANY issues?  

    I ask ebcause I always got the feelign AK Senators toed the line to get their pork, but if the pork is slashed might they be more conscious.

    She's not my favorite but she has never been anywhere close to my least favorite Senator.

    [ Parent ]
    Murkowski
    While she is a conservative Republican she is also competent and not crazy. I feel much better having Murkowski in the Senate than I would Joe Miller. Who knows maybe this election will release her inner Joe Liebermann, having already pissed off the far wing of her party she may feel to be a little more moderate once in a while.

    BTW this being SSP, what do you think Murkowski does is 2016? Does she run as a Republican and risk getting tea bagged again or does she run as an independent?

    "Where free Unions and collective bargaining is forbidden, freedom is lost." - Ronald Reagan

    [ Parent ]
    Easy call, of course she runs as a Republican......
    Murkowski IS a Republican, a loyal one who toes the party line.  And by winning as a write-in against crazy Joe she's fully vindicated.  Joe Miller is not akin to Ned Lamont, Miller is disrespected by the GOP establishment.  So Murkowski will be fine, and frankly her survival now actually will scare away primary challengers next time, not to mention she'll never be passive again in a primary.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    She runs as GOP
    And bring a ton of tenure in 2016.  Alaska + tenure = pork.  
    [ Parent ]
    Your point on power brokers...
    ...is 100% correct because we'll now need SEVEN REPUBLICANS for cloture on everything, and Lieberman and Nelson don't want to stick out as conspicuous dissenters on anything where at least 7 Republicans are willing to cross the aisle.

    That's the political angle.

    But even before that, as a policy and ideological matter, it's almost impossible that a bill that satisfies at least 7 Republicans won't also satisfy Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and all the other Democrats.  If anything, dissent in those instances will come ONLY from the LEFT.

    McConnell today was sharing his wet dream of getting the 23 Dems up for reelection in 2012 to go along with HIS party's agenda.  Not.  Gonna.  Happen.  Realistically the Senate Republicans will just cut deals that satisfy most Democrats and a large number of Republicans with perhaps the likes of Bernie Sanders and Jim DeMint and their philosophical counterparts joining them in voting no.  But those deals will be on shared agenda items or must-do things like appropriations, NOT on the Republican agenda.

    Mitch is gonna find that 2012 is a lot harder than 2010.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I don't know if that is entirely true
    I know that filibuster reform is a pet project of Markos Moulitsas, and he has recently stated that currently every democratic senator in the chamber is open to reforming the filibuster, that is, no one was explicitly against it.

    Reforming the filibuster only takes 50 +1 votes at the beginning of the new congress, so it isn't entirely impossible that a weakening or eliminated it could occur.

    I have heard some people float around the idea that the initial cloture vote threshold will be 60, but if it fails, there is a guaranteed amount of time the bill can be debated until the bill is brought up for a cloture vote again, but the threshold will only be 57 votes, then 55, then 53, then 51.

    If a plan like this is put into place, I think the senate will turn into less of a roadblock for legislation, which would help the dems immensely.

    20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)

    [ Parent ]
    No
    At this point, it would help the Republicans to pass their agenda. You really mean to tell me they can't get 51 votes for all kinds of crap? They did when Reagan was in office and when G.W. Bush was in office.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    Don't count on the small Democratic majority in the Senate
    They are not as ideologically cohesive as the Republicans, and it's very likely that the Republicans will assemble a functional majority on a bunch of stuff. Don't expect 41 Democrats to filibuster every piece of crap, either. Did they filibuster the Alito nomination?

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    Dude, that's silly, actually it's beyond silly, it's ridiculous. No the GOP will not have a "functional majority" or...
    ...anything remotely like it.

    The Senate GOP will not get any votes on anything it wants.

    Your example of Alito is completely inapplicable, that was with a Republican President, and Obama's Supreme Court confirmations, too, have gotten bunches of cross-party "yes" votes.

    The Senate will vote only and exclusively on what Dem Senate leadership wants.  Even committee votes happen only if and when Democrats say so.

    No Republican agenda will get voted on.  They might compromimse on things that HAVE to be done like spending, and that's where the Senate GOP will try to exert leverage, but they will have to compromise more than they ever did in the current Congress and that will be where they're caught between a rock and a hard place, either they diss the teabaggers or shut down the government and piss off the public.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Nicely said...
    I also like that we'll have one chamber for investigations. I'm assuming the Republican will use and abuse their investigative powers in the House. Having the Senate will give us the ability to effectively respond to any of the more ridiculous allegations. Clinton didn't have this benefit.
    [ Parent ]
    You ignore the most likely possibility
    which is that some of the more right-wing, corporate Democratic senators vote for things the Republicans want. Your confidence in the Leadership to whip the votes of people like the Nelsons, Pryor, and Landrieu is misplaced. It will be easy for the Republicans to get 4 Democratic votes on a whole bunch of things.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    It doesn't take 4
    It takes 13. Remember, under your logic, Democrats could have passed everything and had 9 votes to spare on every vote. Cloture votes are going to prevent anything from winning votes.

    And Republicans won't get their bills through committees, as every committee is still chaired by a Democrat.

    26 White Male. Born and raised in MN-8, currently living in MN-5.

    "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

    [ Parent ]
    Correct, Pan and some others are acting like Republicans have 56 seats......
    We have 53, they have 47.  There will never be 13 Dems who diss leadership on anything, ever.

    The next 2 years are going to be all about appropriations, and anything tangential like undercutting health care reform or other matters will get fought through appropriations.  That's where everyone will have to compromise, but Republicans are going to have to compromise a LOT more than they want.

    Really, the GOP is going to be stuck.  Democrats will NOT allow HCR to be gutted.  They just won't.  They won't even allow a Senate committee vote on it, let alone a cloture vote to open floor debate, let alone a cloture vote to close debate, let alone an up-or-down vote.  This is going to end in either a shutdown whose politics damage the Republicans followed by a compromise by Republicans that does things we on the left don't like but that in the big picture represents a GOP surrender that HCR is here to stay for the forseeable future--and that will piss off the conservative base, i.e., teabaggers.  The alternative scenario is the same base-damaging compromise WITHOUT a shutdown.  Either way we will come out on top.

    The next 2 years are going to go better for us, period.  The GOP now will try to do their own thing, and get shot down because you can't govern from the House, and that's all they have.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I'm definitely very pumped up after this election
    mostly because of the California results.

    My blog
    Twitter
    Scribd
    28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)
    [ Parent ]
    They overperformed in the House is what I'm saying
    Agree on Angle, O'Donnell and Buck but the polls were still suggesting at least two of them would win. And they barely won in IL and PA.

    The case of underperformce in gubernatorial races is stronger - looks like apart from Florida and Ohio (yes, the most important sadly) they lost the tossups in MN, VT, OR, CT and IL.

    [ Parent ]
    Not a "sense," GOP clearly DID underperform in Senate and Gov races......
    The Republicans gained 11 Governorships but lost 6, a net gain of 5 that was CLEARLY LESS than all the experts predicted.

    And 6 in the Senate was every expert's FLOOR.

    What happened was that while the tossups went mostly against us in House races as always happens in a wave, the tossups instead were split in statewide races.

    This just proves candidates and campaigns matter, and we had either good candidates or great campaigns or both in our statewide runs.

    Taking a look at the various ratings, we won 5(!) of the 7 Senate races Cook labeled as tossups (I'm counting Murray the winner in WA) the day before the election, and 3 of our 5 wins were by 5 points or more, not really a "tossup margin."  And our 2 losses were each by 2 points.  Even one loss Cook had as lean R, Feingold's seat, was just a 5-point decision.  Cook had 11 Governorships as tossups, and we won 7 of those (I'm counting Malloy the winner in CT) with Chafee winning another as an liberal indy.

    Rothenberg had 3 Senate races as "pure tossup" and we won ALL of them, and the one he called "tossup/tilt D" was WV which we won in an 11-point blowout.  Rothenberg had 2 tossup/tilt R which we lost by 2 points each in PA and IL.  So we won 4 of 6 in his tossup categories.  Rothenberg's Gov ratings had 3 pure tossups, 4 tossup/tilt D, and 3 tossup/tilt R.  We lost FL in the pure tossups and won IL in tossup/tilt R, and won all the tossup/tilt D seats.  That gave us a 7 wins total out of the 10 in various tossup columns.

    So in all we ended up actually winning majorities of tossups in both guys' lists.

    Did we overperform?  Hell yes we did!  :-)

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Govs
    If Malloy does win CT, and Dayton is confirmed in MN, and counting Chaffee as a Dem, it will end up as 5.  Which is less than people were predicting.  However, by winning the swing states of Ohio and Florida, the Republicans, qualitatively, did well.
    [ Parent ]
    Agree, sort of
    OTOH, to DC's point, the Republicans lost in Illinois, where they were expected to win. They also lost Colorado, a potential swing state in 2010. And California, Minnesota, Massachusets and Oregon. So the Dems certainly could have a much worse night.

    Considering how much more money the RGA had then the DGA, these results aren't too bad. (in fact did you notice of the three Republican campaign committes, the one that was the most underfunded, the RNCC, did by far the best?)  

    [ Parent ]
    And regarding Ohio, we had no business being competitive there......
    Strickland had low 40s job approval and Fisher was no help.  And still it was a legitimate tossup not just going in, but for much of election night.  Strickland pulled a Corzine by drawing about 5 points better than his job approval.

    Florida was the one heartbreaker where a golden opportunity slipped through.  But I always knew it would be no better than a tossup because of Scott's money.  He could do what Whitman did and get away with it because Florida is simply far less liberal than California, and the Republican floor is a lot higher.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Florida
    We just can't win close races there, whatever the reason.  Scott had high negatives and yet managed to win.
    [ Parent ]
    He won because he won indies
    All the final polls had Sink winning those voters. There were also more Dems in the electorate than the polls projected.
    [ Parent ]
    RNCC
    Really didn't matter because that's where the IE's made the most impact.  In high profile races like senate, they get less bang for the pact.  But in more numerous, less high profile house races, they made a big difference in many districts.  Oberstar, Boucher, Etheridge, and at least several others wouldn't have gone down if not for the Crossroads, etc.
    [ Parent ]
    house v senate, gov
    I think people pay much more attention to governor and Senate races than they do to House races. The results suggest that people based their governor and Seante votes on their perceptions of the individual candidates, whereas they saw most House races as simply generic R v. generic D.

    41, Ind, CA-05
    [ Parent ]
    Yes, that's exactly right. It's what I thought all fall, and Tom Jensen at PPP...
    ...said exactly the same thing.  People get familiar with major party nominees for Senate and Governor, they DON'T get familiar with House challengers.  That's why downballot candidates are so vulnerable in a wave, the letter next to their name can be a scarlet letter.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    They under-performed I'd say
    I'm actually shocked how well things went for Dems.  We lost a few house seats I didn't expect but 55 was my guess so even 70 isn't a catastrophe in my eyes.

    The Senate was good not only for the wins but how strong Sestak was and the idea that IL is probably a tossup again in 2016.  I mean we came close keeping 55 seats really when you think about it...even during this environments.

    I kind of feel the same about the Guvs.  The FL and OH races saddened me.  Close too all things considered.  Had Sink runa  campaign liek Strickland she could have won.  Oh well.

    Where the slaughtering really happened as we all know is at the state legislative and state executive branch levels.  We lost what 15 chambers and so many SoS, AG type races its sad.  This lays the ground for strong GOP challengers somewhat in 2012 but especially for 2014 races.  State AG's and SoS are usually good jumping points for Governor, congress or Senate.

    [ Parent ]
    SoS is a LOUSY springboard to higher office...
    Witness:

    2010;
    Robin Carnahan in MO
    Brunner in OH
    Marshall in NC
    Grayson in KY

    2006:
    Ken Blackwell in OH

    2002:
    Marshall in NC

    others I might have missed?  Any Exceptions to this rule?

    [ Parent ]
    LOL
    Its a good springboard.  Jus tbecause candidates lost means nothing.  All 6 you mentioned lost in wave-against years too so I don't really think its a "fair" sample.

    Being elected statewide is always a good springboard.  Someone could find a governor who was previously Insurance or Ag commissioner and try to use that to prove its a good springboard.  Anything statewide is good.

    [ Parent ]
    Can't agree
    Marshall 2002, Brunner and Grayson were PRIMARY losses, so the wave comment is not relevant.

    Lt. Gov. and AG are legit springboards, but I disagree on anything lower.  They are low-profile, low-accomplishment, bureacratic positions that do not lend themselves to building a true political operation. The winners are determined primarily by name recognition and/or affiliation with the predominant state party.  Winning such an office does not demonstrate a true 'following', nor campaign or governing acumen.    

    [ Parent ]
    SoS not as good as AG
    But it's still not a BAD springboard, I think any statewide office is helpful for other statewide races. Off the top of my head, a few SoS who went on to Governor were: Matt Blunt (R) in MO in '04, Bill Graves (R) in KS in '94. Sebelius was Insurance Commissioner before Governor, and Claire McCaskill was State Auditor before winning a Senate seat.

    Kansan by birth, Californian by choice, and Gay by the grace of God.
    [ Parent ]
    Lots of exceptions
    Jerry Brown, Jan Brewer, Max Cleland, Don Siegelman, Evan Bayh, Chet Culver, Mario Cuomo, Roy and Matt Blunt, Sherrod Brown, both WV senators (Rockefeller and Manchin). Going further in the past, Bob Taft, Barbara Roberts, Alan Dixon, George Ryan and James Edgar, Jane Dee Hull, Mark Hatfield...a lot of them had other things going for them (family ties, for one) but all were Secretaries of State before becoming senator or governor.

    24, CA-14, previously DC-AL
    [ Parent ]
    Interestingly
    Jerry Brown has the bragging rights of being SoS and AG before being elected governor.

    My blog
    Twitter
    Scribd
    28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)
    [ Parent ]
    AZ
    Hull and Brewer were not originally elected governor. They inherited the office when the sitting governor was convicted of fraud (Symington) or accepted a cabinet position (Napolitano). The same thing happened back in the 80s: SoS Rose Mofford became governor after Evan Mecham was impeached. Mecham was a real piece of work.

    41, Ind, CA-05
    [ Parent ]
    Even more on our Senate overperformance......
    In the 7 Senate races Real Clear Politics listed as tossups, we overperformed our polling margin in ALL 7!

    In the Pollster.com regression averages for those same 7 races, we matched the 2-point margin for IL and overperformed in the other 6, although in WA the overperformance was extremely small and probably trivial.

    Both RCP and Pollster had us losing NV and CO, and a much smaller Boxer win in CA.  So our party's death in the West has been greatly exaggerated.  WV also was much tigher than RCP and Pollster expected, and PA was a couple points tighter than the polling showed.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Incumbency...
    So, in the House at least, there were 236 incumbent Democrats and 156 incumbent Republicans running for re-election. (Not counting Diaz-Balart)  Out of those 392, 4 lost their primary for re-nomination, and 51 lost on Tuesday.  Nine others are still too close...Right now 55 of 392 are out.  I'm not sure if 14% is high or not, but when you look at just Democrats, 49 (plus maybe more) of 236 lost.  21% of incumbent Democrats lost.  In '94, 34 incumbent Democrats lost.  This may turn around the idea that you need a lot of open seats to take control.  
    House race rankings report card: Tim Sahd of National Journal......
    I just went through Tim Sahd's race rankings at National Journal, his final ones the day before the election.  Sahd expanded his list to 90(!) seats by then.

    http://nationaljournal.com/mem...

    Big stinker for us:  he had IL-10, where Seals choked to Dold, as no. 19 in likelihood of flipping.  Adding insult to injury, that was the ONLY seat in Sahd's top 53 NOT to flip.  The top 50 Dem-held on his list all flipped, as did the DE-AL and Cao seats which both were in the top 6.

    The most vulnerable Dem-held seat NOT to flip was Martin Heinrich at 54.  Kurt Schrader at 55 also survived.  Jim Costa is 59, Gabrielle Giffords is 61, and Gerry Connolly is 62, and I believe they'll all win based on what we know about their vote counts.  Everyone from 66 through 70 survived, but our people made up 17 of the final 20 and we actually lost 5 of those, all the way down to Oberstar at 89(!).

    That's 62 losses total out of the 84 Dems on Sahd's list, and we still lost 3 more not in Sahd's top 90!  Melissa Bean, Bob Etheridge, and John Adler were those 3.

    I'll try to do the same evaluation for Cook and Rothenberg, but suffice it to say that Sahd did a stellar job that only one of his top 53 didn't flip.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    Forgot a couple NOT on Sahd's list.....
    Mike McMahon lost, he goes with Bean, Etheridge, and Adler as losers outside Sahd's top 90 (which included 84 Dems).

    And Maffei was not in the top 90, but he hasn't lost YET.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    One more correction.....
    John Adler WAS on Sahd's list, in fact quite high at 46.  So Bean, Etheridge, and McMahon were the only 3 losses outside Sahd's top 90.  Also, 3 of the GOP's 6 seats on the list flipped to us, making for a total of 65 of Sahd's 90 actually flipping, and only 3 flips from outside his top 90.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    Interestingly
    Driehaus, despite being all but written off and being at #9 on that list, only lost 52-45%. Don't know what to make of that.  

    Radical or something, WA-07
    [ Parent ]
    Texas
    We go defeated badly here.  20+ Dem State Representatives lost reelection.
    similar story in Iowa
    Republicans defeated 12 to 14 incumbents in the Iowa House and took four open Democratic-held House seats. Likely switch from 56D 44R to 60R 40D.
    [ Parent ]
    Latino turnout
    Was there a poor Latino turnout?
    [ Parent ]
    I read too quick
    And thought you were asking about Latino turnout in Iowa.  For some reason that made me laugh.
    [ Parent ]
    Not so funny
    I understand that the Latino population in Iowa is rapidly growing, with many Latino working in meat processing factories.
    [ Parent ]
    No its very funny
    Don't be so serious.  It'd be hard for Iowa's latino population not to be growing, wouldn't it.
    [ Parent ]
    it is rapidly growing
    About 4.5 percent of the state's population now, which doesn't sound like much but is way up compared to a decade or two ago. Could reach 10 percent by 2030. Births account for at least half of the Latino population growth in Iowa.
    [ Parent ]
    Still
    No oen would ask a question abotu Latinoe turnout in the 2010 Iowa elections.  That's what made it funny.  
    [ Parent ]
    Per CNN and CBS, not really
    CNN had Latinos making up 20% of the vote in 2008, and CBS had them at 17% this year. That 3% drop may, however, have been a factor in the TX-23 and TX-27 races.

    20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08
    [ Parent ]
    TX 27
    I know he was IEd by the 60 + group.  I can't see any other explanation for the apparent result, unless Latino turnout in his district had a bigger drop than statewide.
    [ Parent ]
    MAY!!!! in TX-27????
    Less than 100k voted.

    DAMN STRAIGHT IT MADE A DIFFERENCE!

    That and Ortiz not exactly being popular . . .

    26, Male, Democrat, TX-26

    [ Parent ]
    Republican performance in the Senate races
    I think this is kind of interesting, ranking Senate Republicans by their percent of the vote, to see what states over/underperformed.  Of course, numbers are still in flux a little bit, so it will be worth revisiting in a couple weeks.

    HI: 21%
    VT: 31%
    NY: 33%
    MD: 36%
    NY: 37% (special)
    DE: 40%
    OR: 40%
    CA: 43%
    WV: 43%
    CT: 44%
    NV: 45%
    CO: 47%
    IL: 48%
    FL: 49%
    WA: 49% (or less, probably)
    PA: 51%
    MO: 54%
    NC: 55%
    IN: 55%
    KY: 56%
    LA: 57%
    OH: 57%
    GA: 58%
    AR: 58%
    AZ: 59%
    NH: 60%
    UT: 61%
    SC: 63%
    IA: 65%
    AL: 65%
    KS: 70%
    OK: 71%
    ID: 71%
    ND: 76%
    SD: unopposed

    Some thoughts: Hoeven is popular!  Portman almost outperformed Isakson, who did about as well as he did in 2004.  Ayotte outperformed McCain, who did kind of crappy (he won with 77% of the vote in 2004!).

    I put this together kind of thinking about whether a realistic map for Obama in 2012 involves holding the NE, the West (NM, CO, NV) plus NC, GA and putting AZ in play.  Democrats did surprisingly well in NC and GA at a federal level (it may be overlooked that Marshall overperformed in GA-08 compared to its PVI, while Bishop eked out a win in GA-02).  But that map would depend on massive mobilization of the black and hispanic vote, which is a dicey play.

    And RE: Indiana
    55% for Coats being a pretty much generic R isn't overwhelming.  It would be interesting to model the 2008 electorate onto Indiana and see what it looks like.  I don't think it's completely out of play... probably easier to win in 2012 than MO would be.
    [ Parent ]
    Indiana
    Interesting finding about turnout in Indiana this year:  12% Black, 82% White.  In 2008, it was 7% Black, 88% White.  The people that didn't show up were young whites.  18-44 was 50% of the electorate in 2008, but only 35% this year.
    [ Parent ]
    I bet the exit poll is wrong......WAAAAAY wrong......
    This reminds me of the 2004 North Carolina exit poll.  The state's population is 20% black, very stable over the long haul.  The 2004 exit poll had black voters at 26% of the total, WAAAAAY over census.  As it goes, NC happens to track voter registration by race for VRA purposes, and goes further and provides voter turnout data by race as a public service.  So we know the exact number and exact percentage of voters by each race in every NC election, and in 2004 it was 19.6% black, a full 6.4% lower than the exit poll said.  That is the classic proof of how badly off an exit poll can be.

    I see the same thing with Indiana this time.  The census estimate for Indiana is 88% white and 9% black.  So the exit poll says black voters were census+3 in a midterm, but only census-minus-2 in the Presidential election that elected the first black President?

    I don't think so.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Minor correction......
    I took a 2nd look at the census estimate, and the white population is actually 83%, not 88%.  But the black population is, indeed, 9%.  Hispanics make up 5%.

    My point regarding black turnout still holds:  it could not have been 12% this time when it was only 7% for Obama himself.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    When will we have NC 2010 turnout info do you think?
    That would be clarifying.  The early vote turnout for black voters was pretty good.
    [ Parent ]
    Don't know, but when available their data has always been on the official state elections web site. (nm)
    nm

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    Forgot WI: 52%
    I guess if Republicans are looking for places they think they can beat Obama in 2012, WI, NH, and OH are top of the list.
    [ Parent ]
    The one that really stands out is NC-SE
    No wonder Tom Jensen was gunning for him all year - Burr was the lowest performing Republican incumbent. Paul, Portman and Boozeman all outperformed him.

    It's too bad someone who had some fundraising capabilities didn't run against him.  

    [ Parent ]
    Rating Charlie Cook's final House race ratings......
    I did this above for Tim Sahd's National Journal House race rankings, now it's time to look at Cook's final product, on election eve.

    Cook had 29 Dem-held seats in the likely R or lean R categories, and all 29 did, in fact, flip.  Alan Grayson was the only incumbent out of the 8 seats in likely R; the others were open seats.  And sure enough, Grayson got blown out.  The 21 Dems in lean R included 4 open seats and 17 incumbents.

    Cook had 49 Dem-held seats as tossups, with 45 incumbents and 4 open seats.  Only 17 survived, including Jim Costa and Rick Larson who I expect to win as well as Grijalva and Giffords.  So that's 32 more that flipped.

    Cook had 21 Dem-held seats in the lean D category.  Out of those we've lost 3:  Ortiz; Etheridge; and McMahon.  Maffei also is on this list but his outcome is genuinely undecided and hard to project.

    Finally, Cook had 18 Dem-held seats in the likely D category.  Melissa Bean was the only loser on this list.

    It's a credit to Cook that every lost seat was somewhere on his list, and that 64 of the 65 to flip (again not yet counting Maffei as a flip) were no better than lean D.  Indeed, 61 of the flips were no better than tossups!

    Regarding GOP-held seats, Cook misfired on IL-10 just as Tim Sahd did, having moved it from tossup to lean D a couple weeks before the election.  Of the 3 GOP-held seast we flipped, Cook had Djou as a tossup, Cao as lean D, and DE-AL as likely D.

    Pretty good performance by Cook, everything was at least on his radar.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    PVI is now much more predictive of Party representation
    There are still some races to be called which could affect these numbers slightly, but the overall outcome is clear.

    Before the election, there were 64 Democrats in red districts (R+1 or higher) and 7 Republicans in blue districts (D+1 or higher).  This represented 16.7% of all districts (excluding the 9 districts with Even PVIs).

    Now, there are 15 Democrats in red districts and 17 Republicans in blue districts, representing 7.5% of all districts (again excluding the Even PVIs).

    There are now far fewer outliers:
    19 of the 22 Democrats in R+7 or higher districts lost.  Only Ross AR-04 (R+7), Chandler KY-06 (R+9) and Boren OK-02 (R+14) remain.
    Republicans lost all 3 of the D+7 districts they held: DE-AL (D+7), HI-01 (D+11) and LA-02 (D+25).  The bluest district now held by a Republican is IL-10 (D+6).

    Candidates may matter in higher profile races (such as Senate or Governor), but prior voting history is more important in House races and that was especially true in 2010.

    I was thinking about this
    The result on Tuesday does not differ significantly from Bush/Kerry by district. In fact, had we seen Presidential level turnout, it is likely that the result would have actually been an improvement on that.  
    [ Parent ]
    Yup, we do better with Presidential turnout, primarily because...
    ...the country is changing and there are more and more people of color in the electorate each time.

    That's why I'm guessing we do well in 2012.  We'll take back a bunch of those GOP-held seats with Democratic PVIs.  And now that the wave is over and voter anger is satisfied, we won't lose many, perhaps even not any, of the 15 seats we have with Republican PVIs.

    I still stand confident in Obama's reelection, and that's going to help us.  We'll gain back at least a dozen or so seats; anything more is much harder, but not impossible.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    So the opportunity/conundrum is
    What, if anythign can be done to increase minority turnout during midterms.

    I've wondered about this in recent years and I think some procedural changes in various states could help.  Outreach, GOTV efforts and the like are all great but still can't mitigate the issue even during races like this year (see Philly 201 vs Philly 2008 for a very clear example).

    I've often wondered if it would be at all possible fro Philadelphia to put their mayoral elections into the congressional off cycle year instead of the eyar after the presidential race.  I wonder if this would improve turnout at all.  I wonder if the same could eb done for other cities (though I don't know which years they all have their elections) like Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, etc and see if that could help.

    Seriously though, the dropoff from presidential to off-cycle is too much every time even before the Obama drop-off.  Voting just isn't that hard.

    [ Parent ]
    I think minority turnout already IS increasing during midterms, but...
    ...the increase is from midterm-to-midterm, apples-to-apples.  As the minority population share increases, the minority vote share increases, even though the midterm turnout rate remains lower than for whites.

    I think it's awfully tough to get minorities to vote at the same rate as whites in midterms.

    That said, minority vote share this time was the same as 2006, with no increase as should've existed.  So white turnout was jazzed up per Republican enthusiasm, compared to 2006 when Dem enthusiasm was greater.  I think the enthusiasm gap accounted for the difference.

    Ultimately, though, minorities will vote more in midterms over time.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I guess I'm not so certain
    And certainly not so patient.  I can't guarantee mid-term minority turnout and am not sure the trend is moving one way or the other in a meaningful way (i.e. minority turnout in NYC in 2010 probably didn't help/hurt any Dem).

    Once all the data is compiled it will be interesting to compare 2010-2006-2002 for oh so many reasons, including this.

    [ Parent ]
    so much depends on the economy
    I don't think we will see a robust recovery, and that's why I am pessimistic about the presidential election unless the GOP nominates a truly awful candidate.
    [ Parent ]
    Well compiling a list
    Of truly awful GOP candidates is easier than a list of normal candidates, so the odds are with you/us.  LOL
    [ Parent ]
    Matheson
    His district is R+15 if I'm not mistaken. Your basic point is right, though. The party split is about what it was in 2005, but with a lot fewer Ds in red districts or Rs in blue ones.

    I would consider anything between +2 and 2 a swing district, and anything between +5 and 5 a competitive district.

    41, Ind, CA-05

    [ Parent ]
    You are correct. I missed Matheson.
    As far as the swing districts, I agree with your assessment.  This election showed that Democrats are safe from a Republican wave if they are in a D+5 district or higher.  But, they need to do better in the Even to R+5 range to regain the majority because there are not enough D+1 or higher districts to get to 218.
    [ Parent ]
    One other D
    Matheson, D-UT-2 R+17

    26, Male, Democrat, TX-26
    [ Parent ]
    Makes me think three waves in a row strangely may mean the end of such things
    The results certainly suggest a future where Democrats win Democratic PVI seats and vice versa with control fought over a small number of seats in the middle. Could mean post-2012 a decade of very tight House majorities for either side.
    [ Parent ]
    Incorrect use of PVI
    In my opinion. And please correct if wrong, but the PVI calculation is based on the average of the last two national presidential popular votes, which currently is D+4.8 (Obama +7.2, Bush +2.4). So PVI even means a district is 4.8 points more Republican than Democratic. Your metric should focus on seats with PVI north or south of R+5.

    FWIW, for this reason I think PVI is a bad stat. Very easily misused.

    [ Parent ]
    Its not 4.8 divided by 2?
    To me it would seem to be the average of the last 2, not the sum.  If Obama wins 2 terms would we really add the 2 together and get some wackadoo PVI's heading out of 2012?

    I know nothing of PVI but this doesn't seem right...but it could be.

    [ Parent ]
    It is an average, correct
    Average of 2.4 and 7.2 is 4.8.
    [ Parent ]
    Wait ... bad math
    You're right. The number is 2.4. Anything R+2 or better is actually a blue seat.
    [ Parent ]
    That would be -2.4 +7.2 => 4.8/2 = 2.4
    since the '04 and '08 Presidential elections had different party winners...
    [ Parent ]
    I think you're right, it's why PVI can be misleading......
    PVI really is a great measure in a 50-50 country with 50-50 elections, which is what we had in 2000 and 2004.

    But if Obama wins 53-46 yet again in 2012, a district that went 53-46 for a Dem House candidate in both 2008 and 2012 will have a PVI of ZERO even though it's 53% Democratic.

    I think right now the PVIs are OK because they come from elections that went 51-48 Republican and 53-46 Democratic, or an average of 50.5D-49.5R.  That's still very even.  It's when one party wins the popular vote twice in a row by a decent margin that PVI starts to get misleading as a measure of a district's partisanship.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    but if you want how it is overall...
    You can just average the Presidential results in that Congressional District.  The nice thing about PVI is that it IS relative to the country.  So if there's another Obama 7 point win,  an R+4 district is 4 points to the right of the national average.  It was never really designed to be a suggestion that Republicans have a 4 point edge in that district.  Like I said, if the distict's partisanship is what you want, you don't need PVI.  
    [ Parent ]
    There was no implication that an Even PVI
    meant the Presidential vote was tied.  An Even PVI means that the district voted the same as the rest of the country in the last 2 presidential elections.  A D+1 district is slightly more Democratic than that and an R+1 district slightly more Republican.

    An R+5 district has never historically been a coin flip for Democrats to hold, no matter which 2 presidential elections were included.  There are different ways to calculate PVI that have been presented on SSP, but those did not go so far as to adjust R+5 to the midpoint.

    [ Parent ]
    Question
    In CA, statewide Dem candidates got 50-55% of the votes and we lost very little in congress if at all.

    In NY Gov and the two senators get 60+ and still we lose big in congress. Is it how the districts are drawn or something else?

    I am really pissed off with Dem NY state senators who also had a lot of self-inflicted wounds. I really cannot ask anyone to vote for Sampson, Malcolm Smith and the gang. How come we do not have equally bad senators in California? Term limits?

    NY State Sen. and NY-Congress
    are incumbent protection maps that operate as Republican gerrymanders. Even so, our candidates at the top of the ticket dominated those districts as drawn.

    I think the issue was that the voters upstate wanted a Republican Congress for stupid reasons, and the map helped them elect one.

    In my view, even if the Republicans won a slim majority in the state senate this year, they will be unable to keep it in 2012.  

    [ Parent ]
    Rating Stu Rothenberg's final House race ratings......
    I've done Tim Sahd and Charlie Cook above, and now it's time to look at Rothenberg's work.

    Rothenberg had 17 Dem-held seats in the R favored category, including 7 open seats, and all 17 flipped.

    He had 8 Dem-held seats, all incumbents, under lean R, and again all 8 flipped.

    He had 23 Dem-held seats, 5 of them open, under tossup/tilt R, and sure enough all 23 flipped.

    He had 17 Dem-held seats as pure tossups, and 10 flipped.  Surviving incumbents were Giffords; McNerney; Heinrich; Bill Owens; Schrader; and Critz.  Keating won in open MA-10.  The flips included 8 defeated incumbents and open seats lost by Kuster and Oliverio.

    Rothenberg had 5 Dem-held seats in tossup/tilt D, and 2 of them, McIntyre and Tim Bishop, survived.

    The aforementioned lists account for 61 of our lost seats.

    Rothenberg had 11 Dem-held seats in lean Dem, and all 11 survived.

    And Rothenberg had 19 Dem-held seats in Dem favored, with 3 losing:  Oberstar; McMahon, and Ortiz.  Maffei also is on this list with his outcome undetermined.

    That leaves one seat we definitely lost that Rothenberg rated as safe Dem:  Melissa Bean.

    Overall Rothenberg did well, about the same as Cook.  Rothenberg didn't have Bean on his radar, and Cook did.  But Rothenberg had 61 of our 65 losses as no better than tossup/tilt D.

    On GOP-held seats, Rothenberg had Cao's seat as Dem favored; DE-AL at lean Dem; and Djou's seat as a pure tossup.  He had IL-10 as tossup/tilt D, and of course that was our big choke job.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    Rothenberg
    probably won the cycle.  He had 55-65, while Cook had 48-60 and Sabato 55.
    [ Parent ]
    Malloy back on track for win
    And our own Taniel
    was ahead of this by a good half a day, doing the work that the local media should have done during the day yesterday.

    He really had a big scoop here last night:
    http://campaigndiaries.com/201...

    [ Parent ]
    Taniel's work is great, proving again that SSP is as invaluable for campaign information...
    ...as anything in the media.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    I know!
    I'm a little frustrated by the way this is written up in the main post (above), which seems to reinforce the confusion generated by the AP's incompetence. I just posted a new comment on this below.
    [ Parent ]
    Scott Brown
    Just got to thinking, Scott Brown probably has seniority over about 12-15 senators heading into 2011.  Not bad for 6 months work.

    In the 2 years from the 2009 seating of the Senate to the 2011 seating, there will be close to 30 Senators seated in that time.  is that a record across even a 4 year period?

    Brown will be #84 in January
    Three Senators will be sworn in this month: Kirk (85), Manchin (86), and Coons (87).

    The final 13 will be sworn in on January 3rd, and in order of seniority, they are: Coats, Blunt, Moran, Portman, Boozman, Toomey, Hoeven, Rubio, Johnson, Paul, Blumenthal, Lee, and Ayotte, who will be the most junior Senator until further notice.

    20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

    [ Parent ]
    Crazy
    16 sworn in in the next 3 months, 16 sworn in since 1/1/09.  32 in 2 years has to be a record.
    [ Parent ]
    how did Johnson/Paul get ahead of Blumenthal?
    I thought Blumenthal has been elected state  AG since forever and I am not sure Johnson/Paul has held elected office before.  
    [ Parent ]
    to answer my own question
    only federal offices count so state offices tenures do no count. One of the remaining factors is size of the state so Rubio/Johnson/Paul etc will be ahead of Blumenthal
    [ Parent ]
    Correct
    Governor is the only state office that counts, which is why Hoeven slides in after Toomey (the ex-Rep. with the fewest years of service) and before Rubio (who comes from the largest state of the non-Reps. and Govs.)

    20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08
    [ Parent ]
    New Governors
    Two states that didn't have gubernatorial elections on Tuesday are getting new governors very soon: Earl Ray Tomblin (D) will become acting Gov. of West Virginia sometime this month, and he will have to call a special election at some point (it's unclear whether he can wait until 2012.) Jack Dalrymple (R) will become Governor of North Dakota when John Hoeven resigns, which will apparently be in December.  

    20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08
    Redistricting will be brutal
    Republicans will control 204 seats (could go down because of Florida), Democrats will control 47 seats. That last number would've been 100 except every liberal I know voted for Prop 20. Unilateral disarmament.

    I am not one of those who believes this ensures a permanent Republican majority in the House, but I get the sense that things will become even more uphill.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/...

    (Anyone know what the numbers were like in 2000?)

    24, CA-14, previously DC-AL

    Not As Uphill As One Would Think
    Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Florida (if it counts) and Pennsylvania are all either maxed out or close to maxed out.  

    36, M, Democrat, MD-03
    [ Parent ]
    Hopefully, SC is required to make another VRA district.
    I heard that might be the case.  Maybe Spratt could come back...but I doubt it, he's old and is in the early stages of Parkinson's.

    Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
    So little time, so much to know!
    [ Parent ]
    Not really.
    MI, PA, and OH are already GOP-gerrymandered as much as they can be.  We finally get to gerrymander IL back.  AZ and IA have nonpartisan redistricting.  Also, nonpartisan redistricting in CA might net us a seat or two as CA continues to shift our way.

    Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
    So little time, so much to know!
    [ Parent ]
    Question on Illinois for anyone who knows.
    Didn't the Dems play a pretty substantial part in redistrcting Illinois in 2002? I know they had control of both houses of the legislature.  
    [ Parent ]
    There was a GOP Governor, so we didn't have total control. (nm)
    nm

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
    [ Parent ]
    They did not have the governorship, though.
    So they compromised with the governor (George Ryan) by drawing incumbent protection maps.
    Now they can finally undo the GOP gerrymandering from the early 90's.

    Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
    So little time, so much to know!
    [ Parent ]
    Yes
    But they focused on protecting incumbents rather than going after Republican seats.
    [ Parent ]
    The State Senate was also under GOP control.


    Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
    So little time, so much to know!
    [ Parent ]
    last redistricting in Illinois..
    resulted in protecting 19 of 20 incumbents.  Illinois lost one seat.  For some reason they agreed on a map that forced out a blue dog democrat in the far southern tip of the state.  So the redistrict favored the GOP.  Maybe that was in exchange for a very effective Democratic gerrymander of the state house and senate.  Democrats gained supermajorities in both houses in 2002 and are likely to retain them even after losing a few seats this cycle.
    [ Parent ]
    And Texas, the biggest gerrymander of them all
    Most of the growth in TX is Latino as well. Gonna be real creative if they're going to get more than 2 of their 4 new seats to go red. Probably impossible.
    [ Parent ]
    It's more like a 5-6 pickup
    in California.  The 2002 map was a Democratic incumbent protection gerrymander and it worked pretty well for '02/'04.  It happened to protect Republicans too well, though, so pickups from the running national 1% liberal/D shift per year have been really small.  Though a 32/20 split in the House delegation is a good fit to California's generic split at present (around 60/40).

    There are at least four districts around L.A. that are running low on Republicans and will soon tip.  And probably as many will come into range for Democrats.  I'm not sure a whole lot of them can be redistricted to safety for long.

    [ Parent ]
    Methinks this matters less than you fear or some others think......
    Some of these states are so heavily Republican that redistricting doesn't matter.  Southern states will have to have VRA districts that are safe for us or otherwise very winnable, and otherwise they're too conservative for us to win anyway.  Others are small states with few seats, and again are so conservative statewide that it doesn't matter.

    Some states already were gerrymandered to the hilt under full GOP control in 2001, and they can't make us much or any worse off than we've already been.  These include some swing states like MI, OH, and PA.  There's a limit to how much safer they can make their GOP seats there, and we're eventually going to take back some seats no matter what because some of them have too many seats for all the pickups to remain tenable.  It's like us in NY, if we had held a 27-2 edge and won the state Senate outright on Tuesday, we'd be hard-pressed to protect all the seats; we'd eventually lose some no matter the map.

    California's proposition doesn't disarm us.  The new system actually helps us, unwittingly perhaps, because it destroys the incumbent protection plan that helped us in 2002 but now is preventing us from making further gains that the state's demographic and political trends would support.  As was pointed out in this thread, even this Tuesday there were a bunch of CA GOP incumbents who were held down to the low/mid-50s in what were drawn to be safe seats.

    This is not going to have such a great adverse affect on us as all that.

    The real adverse affect of the GOP winning all these state legislative chambers is going to be bad legislation and bad policymaking.  Oh, and of course bad state legislative districts.  But Congressional districts aren't going to be THAT bad.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    the VRA
    Yes, that will restrict their gerrymandering in TX, GA and FL.  And their efforts in FL will be further restricted by the proposition that was past.  Although that doesn't seem to set forth standards for complying with its "no political benefit" requirement.  The Florida supreme court will probably have to sort it out.
    [ Parent ]
    Disagree on Prop 20
    It is disarming unilaterally.  And it's unpredictable.  It could benefit us, or it could cost us several seats.
    [ Parent ]
    You keep repeating this, so I have to keep rebutting it
    I agree that the commission-drawn Congressional map in California will help Democrats compared to the status quo.  But that is NOT the proper context for comparison!  The alternative to the commission-drawn map is a DEMOCRATIC GERRYMANDER, and that entails an opportunity cost of 1-5 House seats (1-3 Dem gains from the commission, 4-6 Dem gains from a gerrymander).  I don't know about you, but I wanted those extra seats!

    And you still haven't answered my question from the morning after, though - would you have voted for Prop 20, if you were a Californian?

    [ Parent ]
    Redistricting is not destiny
    Look at PA and OH.  Republicans gerrymandered it as much as they could after 2000, only to see Dems win seats like OH 18, OH 16, PA 10 that they had no business winning.  Scandals and political waves can upset the apple cart.

    And it will be hard for them to squeeze any more out of states like PA, OH, TX and FL, even though they have control.

    [ Parent ]
    I agree they cannot squeeze much more
    out of what already exists.  But they can create districts that make it very difficult for Democrats to make gains over the next decade, thus locking in the status quo, which is not good at all for Democrats.  
    [ Parent ]
    I'm not worried about losing more seats
    I think this is the Republicans' high water mark. I'm more worried about them consolidating what they've won and avoiding the mistakes of the last redistricting.

    For example, the GOP stretched itself too thin in PA when they tried to stuff Democrats into 5-6 safe seats. If they give the Dems 1-2 more seats (for example, putting Holden into a solid blue seat that sucks up Dems in SE PA), they'll be keeping their current advantage while making their marginal seats much safer.  

    24, CA-14, previously DC-AL

    [ Parent ]
    Dispatches from Arizona
    --As mentioned in the main posting, we're still waiting for tons of same-day mail-in ballots along with provisionals; there are over 375K votes yet to be counted statewide, including 47K in Pima County and over 3400 in Cochise County.

    --The Giffords camp seems to feel good about their chances of maintain their lead, noting that they won the early votes that have been counted by about 10K. Realistic, if they at least tie in the remaining early votes, than they should eke out a victory.

    --The Kelly camp, meanwhile, has sent out a generic let's wait until all the votes are counted message. Frankly, given his campaign's propensity for hubris, with Jesse Kelly himself projecting on election night that he was on his way to a five-point victory, I think the subdued message is pretty telling. I'm not projecting a thing because there's so much uncertainty, but I do know that I'd rather be in Giffords' shoes than Kelly's.  

    --Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez expects us to have a pretty good idea how all of the close races are going by Saturday. I don't know if she means that it's going to take that long for them to get around to posting any returns, or if that's just when she expects enough results to be in for results to be clear.

    --Democratic Attorney General candidate Felecia Rotellini, who is down by almost 67K votes, isn't conceding yet.  As I mentioned, there's almost 400K uncounted votes statewide, but that's still a pretty heavy lift for Rotellini. Kudos to her for getting so close in a year when other statewide Democrats were getting walloped.

    --Russell Pearce, the author of SB 1070, was elected Senate President. Gross.

    22, Democrat, AZ-01
    Peace. Love. Gabby.

    Sounds like everyone is thinking AZ-07 and AZ-08...
    Close wins for the Democrats there. I don't see how Kelly makes up the margins with Democratic-friendly Pima County, considering he's already down almost 2,500 votes.

    20, center-left independent, Auckland Central resident, MD-05 voter, OR-01 native
    [ Parent ]
    DavidNYC...
    No offense, but your blurb on CT-Gov reads as overly dramatic to me. There was a big scoop on this site last night (from Taniel), and it doesn't even show up in your overview.

    Based on Taniel's well researched analysis, I think it was pretty clear that the AP botched its New Haven numbers, underestimating Malloy's position by a net of upwards of 12,000 votes. That alone would put Malloy in the lead.

    It was great legwork by Taniel, posted in the comments right here, beating the local and national media by more than half a day.

    Now they, too, are on it:
    http://voices.washingtonpost.c...

    The confusion Wednesday night appeared to stem from incomplete vote totals in the city of New Haven. Occhiogrosso said that the AP originally showed Malloy taking 7,741 votes there to Foley's 1,579 when it retracted its call, but updated results later showed Malloy taking 22,298 votes to 3,685 for Foley, a net gain of more than 12,500 for the Democrat.

    As for Himes v. Debicella, the AP numbers don't include ANY Bridgeport votes. That will add many thousands to Himes' totals. It won't even be close.
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/f...

    Here's a good overview of the AP's role
    in bungling the New Haven numbers:
    http://blogs.courant.com/capit...

    It's a credit to the members of this site that reading SSP can be like getting the news a day ahead of time.

    [ Parent ]
    There is a news story in here somewhere regarding CA-44
    PPP says the swing from Obama in 2008 to the House Republicans in 2010 is 14 points (+7 Obama in 2008 to +7 GOP house in 2010).

    Ken Calvert has continually done worse in every election here in CA-44, and while it sucks that it might APPEAR that he gained ground in 2010, he has got the fewest ammount of votes EVER this election.

    Help me out here, I feel that I will somehow be forgetting something if I try to crunch the numbers myself, but I want to know what Calvert would have gotten this year if it was a neutral year (or even a slightly less republican year in the house).  here are the results from the past 3 cycles in ca-44

    2006
    Ken Calvert (incumbent) 89,555 60.0%
    Louis Vandenberg (Some Dude)   55,275 37.0%

    2008
    Ken Calvert (incumbent) 129,937 51.2%
    Bill Hedrick 123,890 48.8%

    2010
    Calvert (Incumbent) 85,500 56%
    Hedrick 68,391 44%

    I know for a fact that Calvert should have done better this year.  I think his support may have eroded percentage wise.  2008 +7 dem year he gets 51.2, which would mean in a neutral year he should have gotten 63% right?  Now in a +7 GOP year, it means that in a neutral year he should have gotten 49%?

    If this is TRUE, this makes me very optimistic, but I somehow feel that I may have done something wrong in calculating this (maybe because I compaired Obama swing to GOP house when I should have done 2008 Dem house swing to 2010 GOP house swing?)

    Please stamp out my enthusiasm if I have messed this up somehow!

    20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)

    Well, an argument could be made . . .
    that 2010 was kind of a neutral year IN CALIFORNIA.  The state seemed to defy most of the GOP surge across the rest of the country.  Dems won the Senate and gubernatorial elections by large margins, the Dems seem to have won most of the state constitutional offices, Dems barely suffered any losses in the state legislature and Dems appear poised to lose only one US House seat (and maybe zero if Costa finds enough votes among the absentee ballots).    
    [ Parent ]
    I guess that would make sense for the PVI
    CA-44 is a +6 R PVI, but I want to say there is NO WAY that the environment did not at all hurt Hedrick, especially in the Orange County part of the district.

    20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)
    [ Parent ]
    CA Dems gain in the Legislature
       The Assembly went from 50D, 29R, 1I to 52D-28R.
      The Senate went from 25D, 15R to 24D, 1D vacancy (the late Sen. Jenny Oropeza was re-elected so there will be a special election), 14R and 1R vacancy (the late Sen. Dave Cox). Both vacancies will most likely stay with their previous parties. The one disappointment in the State Senate was that we hoped to pick up SD-12 but our candidate, Anna Caballero, was defeated by the GOP in that open swing seat.

       We did win all the statewide offices, though Attorney General is still too close for comfort. The rest of the statewide candidates won by margins ranging from 10% to 19%.

    52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

    [ Parent ]
    Look at this map!
    http://vote.sos.ca.gov/maps/co...

    My blog
    Twitter
    Scribd
    28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)
    [ Parent ]
    That map is beautiful !
       I like that map very much. Chiang won by a margin of about 18%, nicely distributed around the state.

    52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28
    [ Parent ]
    Don't worry about Calvert
    His days are numbered, and that number is 729.  There's no way the commission will keep southern Orange County in his district, and that's the only thing keeping him afloat.  Any Riverside County areas his district gains in the new map will be much less Republican, and a solid Democratic candidate should win it in a neutral or D-leaning Presidential year.  Don't forget, Obama won his district as currently drawn!

    These are the damning data:

    Riverside County
    Bill Hedrick (Dem) 58,352 48.1%
    Ken Calvert (Rep) 62,860 51.9%

    Orange County
    Bill Hedrick (Dem) 10,694 31.4%
    Ken Calvert (Rep) 23,305 68.6%

    [ Parent ]
    WA races - new vote tallies trending more Democratic than Tues.
    Murray has increased her lead over Rossi to 48,979 votes with the latest releases from King and Whatcom counties. More tallies due from Pierce and Spokane Counties due within the hour. Murray's carried 68% of the King County votes tallied today and 55% of the Whatcom votes. In both cases this is an increase of 3% over the percentage Murray held in yesterday's tally. Rossi's lead in the Spokane votes tallied yesterday was 1.5% lower than it was on election night. Nobody is calling this yet but commentators on KOMO are suggesting they could.

    Larsen's lead over Koster (WA 2) is now 1500 votes.

    It sounds like analogies can be made between WA/OR
    King : Multnomah
    Whatcom : Lane

    (aka, Seattle is to Portland as Bellingham is to Eugene)

    [ Parent ]
    WA 2 Larsen's lead is now over 3,000 not officially called but
    too big to overcome with ballots outstanding. Larsen's win percentage was 58% in Whatcom County votes counted today.

    WA state senate outlook improved today too with Tom up and the 48th district looking safe. D leads in 45th house seat now, too. In Pierce County Ds extended their leads in 28th district.  

    Over-Time | 228 comments

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