2010 Downticket Statewide Races Rundown

by: spiderdem

Sun Jan 16, 2011 at 9:42 AM EST

The trends were similar to the overall trends, with Democrats showing strength in the Northeast and the West Coast, with emerging pockets of blue in the Mountain West/Southwest.  Republicans dominated the South and the redder areas of the Midwest and Mountain West, and also had success in some of the blue/swingy areas of the upper Midwest, particularly in Ohio, where they flipped all three Democratic-held downticket statewide seats.  Republicans also ran the table in swing states like Colorado, Florida, and Michigan.  Meanwhile, Minnesota was an oasis of blue, with Dems taking all of the statewide offices, including of course the Governor's mansion.

True Blue

California - Democrats ran the table (6 for 6), easily defeating incumbent Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado and easily taking the open Insurance Commissioner seat left by Steve Poizner.

Connecticut - Democrats ran the table (4 for 4), as they did in 2006.

Delaware - No change, with Democrats still holding 3 of 4 seats.  Republican Auditor Tom Wagner narrowly held on.

Maryland - Democrats ran the table (2 for 2), as they did in 2006.

Massachusetts - Democrats ran the table (4 for 4), as they did in 2006.

Minnesota - Democrats ran the table (3 for 3), as they did in 2006.

Nevada - All incumbents held, with Democrats continuing to hold 4 of 5 seats.

New Mexico - Static, with Democrats still holding 4 of 5 seats.  The Democrats flipped the open Public Lands Commissioner seat left by Pat Lyons, while Republicans defeated incumbent Secretary of State Mary Herrera.

New York - Democrats ran the table (2 for 2), as they did in 2006.

Oregon - The only election was the special election for Treasurer, which the Democrats held.

Rhode Island - Democrats ran the table (4 for 4), as they did in 2006.

Mixed Nuts

Arkansas - Republicans only contested 3 of 6 seats, and flipped all three of them.  They took the open Lieutenant Governor seat left by Bill Halter, the open Secretary of State seat left by Charlie Daniels, and the open Land Commissioner seat left by John Thurston.  Incumbent Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, incumbent Treasurer Martha Shoffner, and outgoing Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, who ran for the open Auditor seat, all ran without Republican opposition.  Ominously, none of them managed to top 70% of the vote.

Illinois - Republicans now hold 2 of 4 seats, flipping the open Treasurer seat left by Alexi Giannoulias and the open Comptroller seat left by Dan Hynes.

Iowa - Republicans now hold 3 of 5 seats after defeating incumbent Secretary of State Michael Mauro.

Vermont - All seats held, leaving Democrats with 3 of 5 seats.  Republicans held the open seat for Lieutenant Governor left by Brian Dubie and Republican Auditor Tom Salmon held on.

Wisconsin - Republicans now hold 2 of 3 seats after defeating incumbent Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass.

The Redder the Better

Alabama - Republicans ran the table (6 for 6), narrowly defeating incumbent Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom and easily flipping the open Ag Commissioner seat left by Ron Sparks.

Arizona - Republicans ran the table (5 for 5), narrowly flipping the open Attorney General seat left by Terry Goddard.

Colorado - Republicans ran the table (3 for 3), defeating incumbent Secretary of State Bernie Bueschler and incumbent Treasurer Cary Kennedy.

Florida - Republicans ran the table (3 for 3), easily flipping the open Chief Financial Officer seat left by Alex Sink.

Georgia - Republicans ran the table (7 for 7), flipping the open Attorney General seat left by Thurbert Baker, the open Ag Commissioner seat left by Tommy Irvin, and the open Labor Commissioner seat left by Mike Thurmond.

Idaho - Republicans ran the table, (6 for 6), as they did in 2006.

Indiana - Republicans ran the table (3 for 3), as they did in 2006.

Kansas - Republicans ran the table (4 for 4), defeating incumbent Secretary of State Chris Biggs, incumbent Attorney General Steve Six, and incumbent Treasurer Dennis McKinney.

Louisiana - The only election was the special election for Lieutenant Governor, which the Republicans held.

Michigan - Republicans ran the table (2 for 2), as they did in 2006.

Missouri - The only election was for Auditor, where Republicans defeated incumbent Auditor Susan Montee.

Nebraska - Republicans ran the table (4 for 4), as they did in 2006.

North Dakota - Republicans ran the table (5 for 5), as they did in 2006.

Ohio - Republicans ran the table (4 for 4), defeating incumbent Attorney General Richard Cordray and incumbent Treasurer Kevin Boyce, and taking the open Secretary of State seat left by Jennifer Brunner.

Oklahoma - Republicans ran the table (8 for 8), flipping an incredible 7 seats.  They defeated incumbent Auditor Steve Burrage, incumbent Labor Commissioner Lloyd Fields, and incumbent Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland.  They also took the open Lieutenant Governor seat left by Jari Askins, the open Attorney General seat left by Drew Edmondson, the open Treasurer seat left by Scott Meacham, and the open Superintendent of Education seat left by Sandy Garrett.

South Carolina - Republicans ran the table (8 for 8), flipping the open Superintendent of Education seat left by Jim Rex.

South Dakota - Republicans ran the table (5 for 5), as they did in 2006.

Texas - Republicans ran the table (6 for 6), as they did in 2006.

Wyoming - Republicans ran the table (4 for 4), as they did in 2006.

Thoughts from Netroots CA, 2010 Election

by: atdleft

Tue Nov 09, 2010 at 2:02 PM EST

OK, so I've had more time to process what happened. And I had a chance to talk with my old Cali friends at Netroots California last Saturday. And I came out surprisingly hopeful about our future.

538's pollster analysis: Rasmussen sucked

by: Paleo

Fri Nov 05, 2010 at 9:30 AM EDT

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight's database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen's polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen's polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases - that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state - rather than including all polls within the three-week interval - it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.

Who did well?  Q, SUSA (in the last three weeks) and, surpisingly, YouGov:

The most accurate surveys were those issued by Quinnipiac University, which missed the final margin between the candidates by 3.3 points, and which showed little overall bias.

The next-best result was from SurveyUSA, which is among the highest-rated firms in FiveThirtyEight's pollster rankings: it missed the margin between the candidates by 3.5 points, on average.

SurveyUSA also issued polls in a number of U.S. House races, missing the margin between the candidates by an average of 5.2 points. That is a comparatively good score: individual U.S. House races are generally quite difficult to poll, and the typical poll issued by companies other than SurveyUSA had missed the margin between the candidates by an average of 7.3 points.

In some of the house races that it polled, SurveyUSA's results had been more Republican-leaning than those of other pollsters. But it turned out that it had the right impression in most of those races - anticipating, for instance, that the Democratic incumbent Jim Oberstar could easily lose his race, as he eventually did.

YouGov, which conducts its surveys through Internet panels, also performed fairly well, missing the eventual margin by 3.5 points on average - although it confined its polling to a handful of swing races, in which polling is generally easier because of high levels of voter engagement.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n...

Bob Bobson's Super Extra Kick-Ass Predictions Diary 2010

by: Bob Bobson

Mon Nov 01, 2010 at 5:51 PM EDT

Making predictions about elections is pretty fun, you could say. I've been trying to since 2006, and I haven't really improved at it at all. But this time, I'm going to put all of my calls down in one place, so that way I can't change them later and tell people I totally saw Lee Terry's/John Yarmuth's/etc SHOCKING UPSET LOSS coming.

I'm going to split these into two different scenarios, one of which I'll call the "Okay" scenario and one of which I'll call the "Great Republican Tea Avalanche of 2010" scenario, since that sounds pretty impressive. And because there's all sorts of polls floating around that probably are less accurate than the results I would get by calling people in the phone book at random. Yeah, guy who says he's 1 point behind Bennie Thompson, that's your internal I'm talking about. Anyways, even though a lot of these here polls are total garbage, I don't feel comfortable ruling out the possibility of a large Republican win.

As for the possibility of a weaker Republican win than expected, I'm defining a "good night" for the Dems purely on a selfish basis, and I wouldn't be surprised if other folks here are too. If Baron Hill, Russ Feingold, and Tom Perriello make it, I'll be happy. Come up with your own "good Dem" version, people!

Predictions: 56, 8, 7.5

by: Paleo

Mon Nov 01, 2010 at 10:34 AM EDT

D LOSSES 60

TN 6
LA 3
NY 29
AR 2
MS 1
OH 1
TX 17
KS 3
FL 24
OH 15
FL 2
IN 8
TN 8
IL 11
CO 4
PA 3
FL 8
OH 16
VA 2
MD 1
MI 1
VA 5
WI 8
AR 1
WI 7
ND
NH 1
NM 2
SC 5
GA 8
IL 14
AZ 5
AL 2
AZ 1
WA 3
PA 7
PA 8
IN 9
NY 23
SD
CA 11
CO 3
NJ 3
TN 4
MS 4
NY 20
PA 10
WV 1
NC 7
NH 2
NV 3
NY 19
IL 17
NC 8
FL 22
OH 18
NC 2
CT 4
NM 1
CT 5

D WINS 4

LA 2
DE
IL 10
HI 1

SENATE

D LOSSES 8

NEVADA
ILLINOIS
PENNSYLVANIA
COLORADO
WISCONSIN
INDIANA
ARKANSAS
NORTH DAKOTA

GOVERNORS

D LOSSES 12

Wyoming
Oklahoma
Kansas
Iowa
Wisconsin
Michigan
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New Mexico
Tennessee
Illinois
Maine

D GAINS 4

Hawaii
California
Minnesota
Vermont

1/2 R loss -- I
Rhode Island

Net loss of 7.5.

Whereas I hit a new bottom in my House and Senate predictions

by: DCCyclone

Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 10:53 PM EDT

Using Charlie Cook's historical & current ratings to predict next month's midterm......

by: DCCyclone

Fri Oct 01, 2010 at 2:06 PM EDT

NV-03: Life Inside a "Swing District"

by: atdleft

Thu Sep 09, 2010 at 8:41 PM EDT

All too often, I hear the Beltway pundits chatter away over national poll numbers, party fundraising, who's hiring which lobbyists, what the strategists at The White House must REALLY be thinking, and so much more.

But you know what? Here in what may be one of the districts that determines who will control Congress next year, none of that really matters. People here are asking who has solutions to the actual problems that plague us.

(NV-Sen) Sharron Angle's Downfall: REPUBLICANS

by: atdleft

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 4:32 PM EDT

Not that long ago, the Nevada Republican Party truly was a "big tent", one that could fit the more traditional "libertarian conservatives" that once dominated, pragmatic conservatives, moderates, and others. But these days, it seems to be dominated by "Tea Party, Inc." and the radical religious right. And no one better demonstrates this better than Sharron Angle and her ascendancy in the Nevada GOP.

Perhaps this is why we're seeing more and more "Republicans for Reid" speaking out?

Outlook for the California State Legislature in 2010 - May 2010 Edition

by: californianintexas

Mon May 17, 2010 at 6:23 AM EDT

Cross-posted at Calitics and Democracy for California.

Competitive and/or open state legislature districts are over the flip...