The 2014 primary season ends (Sept. 9: DE, MA, NH, NY, RI)

[Morning in Atlas]

Also, to any people who know Mississippi: What the hell happened in Wilkinson County? It's the only county Childers lost, and not only that, he's in last place there. And the guy in last place overall leads there. WTF?

Maybe the home county of this guy ?

The guy in first place is also from MS-01 and the guy in 2nd place a black R-turned-D from MS-02. Odd.

Not only that, but the second place guy was more conservative than Childers - he was probably a Republican plant.

[Morning in Atlas]

Knight's lead is expanding.

Looks like Rodgers is done, folks.

[moderatevoter]

Cochran seems to be back up by a very slim margin (less than 100 votes).

Where?  In Rankin County?  Not statewide.

I might have misinterpreted something in that case.

EDIT: Cochran + 69, according to Austin Barbour. This is after updates in Hinds and Rankin. I saw someone post it on RRH.

[Morning in Atlas]

Precinct dump in on CA-31 - Aguilar up by 400 votes. Even more troubling, Gooch has overtaken Gomez-Reyes by ~200.

[IceSpear]

Also, to any people who know Mississippi: What the hell happened in Wilkinson County? It's the only county Childers lost, and not only that, he's in last place there. And the guy in last place overall leads there. WTF?

Good catch.  There has to be an error there.  The third Republican, who is receiving 1.6% of the vote statewide, supposedly received 25% of the vote in Wilkinson County.  Also, turnout in the Republican primary is supposedly running 50% of 2012, which is unheard of in most other counties, where turnout equals or exceeds 2012.

Luckily, the county is tiny (286 Republican voters in 2012) and the error won't affect the totals much.

I was using the map here:

http://www.clarionledger.com/longform/news/2014/06/03/mississippi-congressional-election-results/9925563/

It sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm assuming either the voters or the vote counters there are on something.

[cinyc]

Cochran seems to be back up by a very slim margin (less than 100 votes).

Where?  In Rankin County?  Not statewide.

I might have misinterpreted something in that case.

EDIT: Cochran + 69, according to Austin Barbour. This is after updates in Hinds and Rankin. I saw someone post it on RRH.

I'll believe it when the AP posts it.  The Hinds County precincts would have had to be very large and very pro-Cochran for that to be true.  And there are still two small Jefferson County precincts to be counted, which probably tilt Cochran to give him tens of additional votes.

Rankin County is probably done counting.  They posted a precinct-level report on their website.  Unfortunately, best I can tell, it doesn't include a county-wide total and compiling it using Excel would be a pain due to the format they use to report results.

[Miles]

MT-AL (R) called for Ryan Zinke, who has 33% in a 5-way field.

[cinyc]

Based on a quick, lazy Excel analysis of the Rankin County precinct results, Cochran won the county 50.0%-49.0%, 11900-11659-249.   Cochran won the last three precincts' 2,548 voters 52.5%-46.6%.  

When updated to show full Rankin results, assuming my math is correct, McDainiel should lead 153,030-151,052-4,771.  Cochran would need to net about 2,050 Hinds County votes to be up by 69.  I guess it's theoretically possible - if there are 6,150 votes outstanding and the current county margin holds, or if there are 3,000 votes outstanding and Cochran won about 84% of them, Cochran would be ahead.  Who knows if that's what actually happened, though.

 

[Miles]

Here's the Cochran/McDaniel map.



This really shows how well McDaniel did in the south-central region.

Going back to Wilkenson County, yeah, something seems odd. Childers lost it and McDaniel won it with 43% (Carey got 25%).

Cochran only won Hancock County by 300 votes; if Taylor wasn't cranking up turnout there, I could see McDaniel flipping it.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

CA-31 is 100% reporting. I'm sure there are a number of uncounted absentees, but it looks like Democrat Aguilar narrowly wins 2nd place in CA-31, avoiding a repeat of 2012. You can see all the close contests in California here.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests/

[Morning in Atlas]

Thank God. Now I can go to bed.

[7,052,770]

Cochran certainly owes Taylor a fruit basket.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I'll just say, no matter who wins tonight (or if it goes to a runoff), Thad Cochran is the Richard Lugar of 2014.

And hopefully Travis Childers will be the Joe Donnelly of 2014.

Are you accounting for Mississippi being one of the most inelastic Republican states in the nation? McDaniel will probably still win if he is the nominee.

Not saying Childers will win, but the "Mississippi is inelastic" meme only applies to presidential elections. Remember that as late as 2008 3 of Mississippi's 4 districts sent Democrats to the House.

Well, that's true, but it has been a couple of decades since Mississippi has sent a Democrat to the Senate. 2014 is not going to be the year that changes.

It's McDaniel's to lose, no doubt. But he's a far bigger buffoon than all the other buffoons the Tea Party has put up in other states and is extremely gaffe-prone. We definitely don't have all the facts on photogate, and more Tea Party leaders/prominent McDaniel supporters are likely to be implicated.

At the very least, Mississippi jumps to #1 on the most likely Democratic pickups this year if McDaniel pulls it out. Childers just has to sit back and see if McDaniel blows it.

I kind of doubt it's "McDaniel's to lose," especially if it's this close. 

Anyway, I am SO glad right now that Mississippi has runoffs.

[Maxwell]

MT-AL (R) called for Ryan Zinke, who has 33% in a 5-way field.

Congrats Dems - The Republicans basically nominated a criminal. Only waiting for it to blow up.

[Never]

CA-31 is 100% reporting. I'm sure there are a number of uncounted absentees, but it looks like Democrat Aguilar narrowly wins 2nd place in CA-31, avoiding a repeat of 2012. You can see all the close contests in California here.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests/

Well, Aguilar will win if everything stays the same, but he only leads Gooch by 390 votes.

For the second slot, Politico has CA-31 as too close to call between Aguilar and Gooch. I'm inclined to agree with this. For one, who knows how the absentees voted, and how many there were? It's plausible that there could be way more than 390 absentee ballots. I'm not sure if this district has that many military servicemembers who voted absentee, but if they do, then Gooch could make it to second place, since this demographic is very Republican.

[RogueBeaver]

Re MS: anyone think absentees/contested will change the outcome?

[Never]

Re MS: anyone think absentees/contested will change the outcome?

There only seems like a 10% chance of the absentees changing the outcome. The absentees would have to swing heavily in favor of one candidate, in contrast to the near tie that we saw with regular voters.

It's possible that contested ballots could change things, considering how close everything is, but it seems unclear how likely that would be.

[Meeker]

CA-31 is 100% reporting. I'm sure there are a number of uncounted absentees, but it looks like Democrat Aguilar narrowly wins 2nd place in CA-31, avoiding a repeat of 2012. You can see all the close contests in California here.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests/

Well, Aguilar will win if everything stays the same, but he only leads Gooch by 390 votes.

For the second slot, Politico has CA-31 as too close to call between Aguilar and Gooch. I'm inclined to agree with this. For one, who knows how the absentees voted, and how many there were? It's plausible that there could be way more than 390 absentee ballots. I'm not sure if this district has that many military servicemembers who voted absentee, but if they do, then Gooch could make it to second place, since this demographic is very Republican.

There are thousands of absentee ballots left to count. Next update won't be until 4 PM PT Thursday.

[Miles]

Cochran certainly owes Taylor a fruit basket.

Looks like he'll also be sending out more fruit baskets to these last-minute donors:

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[publicunofficial]

American Crossroads, who was previously backing Cochran, will be sitting out the run-off.

[RogueBeaver]

They weren't spending much anyways. C4G and COC are still in.

[RogueBeaver]

Cochran statement: "I've also fought for MS, will continue for next 3 weeks in runoff."

[cinyc]

With 4 Hinds and 1 (supposed) Rankin precinct left to count, McDaniel leads 49.5%-48.9%, per the AP tally.  

Based on the precinct-level data provided by Rankin County, the only outstanding Rankin precinct isn't one of the 50 real physical precincts - it's precinct 51 -  PVP Purged Voter Precinct - likely affidavits.

Per media reports on Twitter, the only ballot box yet to arrive at Hinds County election HQ is from Wildwood Baptist Church in Clinton.  Clinton is a suburb of Jackson with a population of about 25,000 that's 60% white.  It's not clear how big that particular precinct is though.  I can't find 2012 precinct-level results.  It's also unclear where the other 3 outstanding Hinds precincts are.

The Cochran camp is claiming on Twitter that Cochran will lead by 75, based on their Hinds numbers.

There are also an undetermined number of paper ballots that need to be counted in Harrison County (Biloxi).  Republican officials delivered the wrong boxes to 13 precincts.  While the error was caught, ballots can only be counted by machine if they are delivered to the correct precinct.  It is unclear how many erroneous ballots were cast - though the county is already at 134% of 2012 Republican primary turnout, so it might not be many.

Harrison County went to Cochran and Taylor.  This gives Taylor hope that he can force a runoff in MS-04.  He needs to net about 800 votes to do so.

[cinyc]

Rankin's now all-in.  McDaniel leads by 1,736.  The 848 votes in the last Rankin precinct (whatever it was) went 58%-40% Cochran.

Updated results from other counties also seem to be trickling into the AP tally - perhaps affidavits.

[RogueBeaver]

AP gives Palazzo the check.

Pro-Cochran groups are considering whether to dial back. Henry Barbour suggesting they'll try attacking the outside groups supporting McDaniel.