Talk Elections

Over the course of 2017 and 2018, several congressional special elections were held. Final Predictions and results coverage were posted here. This was the schedule:

Tuesday 4 April 2017   California - Special Primary Election House CD 34
Tuesday 11 April 2017   Kansas - Special Election House CD 4
Tuesday 18 April 2017   Georgia - Special Election House CD 6
Tuesday 2 May 2017   South Carolina - Special Primary House CD 5
Tuesday 16 May 2017   South Carolina - Special Runoff (if necessary) House CD 5
Thursday 25 May 2017   Montana - Special Election House At-Large
Tuesday 6 June 2017   California - Special General Election (if necessary) House CD 34

Tuesday 20 June 2017   Georgia - Special Runoff (if necessary) House CD 6
South Carolina - Special General Election House CD 5

Tuesday 15 August 2017   Alabama - Special Primary Senate Class 2
Utah - Special Primary House CD 3

Tuesday 26 September 2017   Alabama - Special Runoff (if needed) Senate Class 2

Tuesday 7 November 2017   
Utah - Special Election House CD 3

Tuesday 12 December 2017   Alabama - Special Election Senate Class 2

Tuesday 27 February 2018   Arizona - Special Primary House CD 8

Tuesday 13 March 2018   Pennsylvania - Special Election House CD 18

Tuesday 24 April 2018   Arizona - Special Election House CD 8

Tuesday 8 May 2018    Ohio - Special Primary House CD 12

Saturday 30 June 2018  Texas - Special Election House CD 27

Tuesday 7 August 2018   Ohio - Special Election House CD 12

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Information on the first two elections has been removed due to the character limit. View it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mmVSzpm5VI1r1sufK8eYtrzmitRmnNLtpCortHRWVqk

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The third election was held on Tuesday, April 18th, in the 6th district of Georgia. Polls closed at 7 PM EST. This was to replace Tom Price, who is now the Director of Health and Human Services. All candidates from all parties were on the same ballot, and no primary election occurred to lower the # of candidates. There were a total of 18 candidates on the ballot. If someone had received 50% of the vote, that person would have been elected to Congress. Since no one received a majority, a runoff was held on June 20th. These were the candidates:

Name   Party   
Abroms, David   GOP   
Bhuiyan, Mohammad Ali   GOP   
Edwards, Ragin   Dem   
Grawert, Keith   GOP   
Gray, Bob   GOP   
Handel, Karen   GOP   
Hernandez, Alexander   Ind   
Hill, Judson   GOP   
Keatley, Richard   Dem   
Kremer, Amy   GOP   
Levell, Bruce   GOP   
Llop, William   GOP   
Moody, Dan   GOP   
Ossoff, Jon   Dem   
Pollard, Andre   Ind   
Quigg, Rebecca   Dem   
Slotin, Ron   Dem   
Wilson, Kurt   GOP   

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/GA_Page_0418.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 48-47
Romney 61-38
McCain 59-40

WINNERS: OSSOFF AND HANDEL (RUNOFF)

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The fourth election was held on Tuesday, May 2nd in the 5th district of South Carolina. Polls closed at 7 PM EST. This was the first step to replace Mick Mulvaney, who is now the director of the office of management and budget. This was a primary election, there was a democratic primary and a republican primary. As no republican candidate received 50% of the vote, a runoff was held on May 16th. These were the candidates:

Dem Primary
Parnell, Archie   
Frank, Alexis   
Murphy, Les   

GOP Primary
Connelly, Chad   
Few, Sheri   
Wampler, Kris   
Pope, Tommy   
Craig, Ray   
Norman, Ralph   
Mullikin, Tom   

Results were posted here:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/SC_Page_0502.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

D WINNER: PARNELL
R WINNERS: POPE AND NORMAN (RUNOFF)

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The fifth election was held on Tuesday, May 16th in the 5th district of South Carolina. Polls closed at 7 PM EST. This was the second step to replace Mick Mulvaney, who is now the director of the office of management and budget. This was a runoff election for the republican primary, necessitated by no one receiving 50% of the vote in the republican primary. These were the candidates:

Pope, Tommy   
Norman, Ralph   

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/SC_Page_0516.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

WINNER: NORMAN

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The sixth election was held on Thursday, May 25th, in the at-large house seat for the state of Montana. Polls closed at 10 PM EST. This was to replace Ryan Zinke, who is now Secretary of the Interior. Candidates were selected by convention, or could petition their way onto the ballot. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name   Party
Quist, Rob   Dem   
Gianforte Assaulterforte, Greg   GOP   
Wicks, Mark   Lib   

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/MT_Page_0525.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 57-36
Romney 55-42
McCain 50-47

WINNER: GIANFORTE ASSAULTERFORTE (R HOLD)


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The seventh election was held on Tuesday, June 6th in the 34th district of California. Polls closed at 11 PM EST. This was the final step to replace Xavier Becerra, who is now the Attorney General of California. This was a runoff election for the general election, necessitated by no one getting 50% of the vote in the general election. Voters were able to choose between two democrats:

Gomez, Jimmy
Ahn, Robert

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/CA_Page_0606.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

WINNER: GOMEZ (D HOLD)

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The eighth election was held on Tuesday, June 20th, in the 5th District of South Carolina. Polls closed at 7 PM EST. This was the final step to replace Mick Mulvaney, who is now the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Candidates were selected by primary elections held in May. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name   Party   
Parnell, Archie   Dem   
Norman, Ralph   GOP   
Kulma, David   Grn   
Kocher, Victor   Lib   
Thornton, Josh   American

Results will be posted here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/SC_Page_0620.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 57-39
Romney 55-44
McCain 55-44

WINNER: NORMAN (R HOLD)

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The ninth election was held on Tuesday, June 20th, in the 6th district of Georgia. Polls closed at 7 PM EST. This was the final step to replace Tom Price, who is now the Director of Health and Human Services. This was a runoff election for the general election, necessitated by no one getting 50% of the vote in the general election. These were the candidates:

Name   Party   
Ossoff, Jon   Dem   
Handel, Karen   GOP

Results were posted here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/GA_Page_0620.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 48-47
Romney 61-38
McCain 59-40

WINNER: HANDEL (R HOLD)

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The tenth election was held on Tuesday, August 15th, in the state of Alabama. Polls closed at 8 PM EST. This was the first step to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now the Attorney General of the United States. This was a primary election, there was a democratic primary and a republican primary. Since no one received 50% in the republican primary, there was a runoff on September 26th. These were the candidates:

Democratic Primary

Hansen, Michael   
McGee, Brian   
Caldwell, Vann   
Fisher, Jason   
Boyd, Will   
Kennedy, Robert   
Jones, Doug   
Nana, Charles   

Republican Primary

Strange, Luther (appointed incumbent)   
Brooks, Mo   
Brinson, Randy   
Breault, Joseph   
Moore, Roy   
Maxwell, Mary   
Pittman, Trip   
Peeples, Bryan   
Beretta, James   
Gentile, Dom   

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/AL_Page_0815.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

D Winner: JONES
R Winners: MOORE AND STRANGE (RUNOFF)
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The eleventh election was held on Tuesday, August 15th, in the 3rd congressional district of Utah. Polls closed at 10 PM EST. This was a primary to select the republican nominee for the november special election to replace Jason Chaffetz, who has retired from politics. Other parties have already selected their nominees by convention. The candidates for the republican primary were:

Ainge, Tanner   
Curtis, John   
Herrod, Christopher

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/UT_Page_0815.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

WINNER: CURTIS

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The twelfth election was held on Tuesday, September 26th, in the State of Alabama. Polls closed at 8 PM EST. This was the second step to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now the Attorney General of the United States. This was a runoff election for the republican primary, necessitated by no one receiving 50% of the vote in the republican primary. These were the candidates:

Moore, Roy   
Strange, Luther (appointed incumbent)


Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/AL_Page_0926.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

WINNER: MOORE

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The thirteenth election was held on Tuesday, November 7th, in the 3rd district of Utah. Polls closed at 10 PM ET. This was the final step to replace Jason Chaffetz, who has retired from politics. Most parties selected their nominees by convention, except for the republican party which held a primary in August. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name   Party   
Allen, Kathie   Dem   
Curtis, John   GOP   
Christensen, Jason   IAP   
Buchman, Joe   Lib   
Bennett, Jim   UUT   
Whalen, Sean   Una

Results were posted here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/UT_Page_1107.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 47, McMullin 24, Clinton 23
Romney 78-20
McCain 68-30

WINNER: CURTIS (R HOLD)

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The fourteenth election was held on Tuesday, December 12th, in the State of Alabama. Polls closed at 8 PM EST. This was the final step to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now the Attorney General of the United States. Candidates were selected by primary elections held in August and September. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name   Party   
Moore, Roy   GOP   
Jones, Doug   Dem   
Various Write-In Candidates   NPD   


Results were posted here:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/AL_Page_1212.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

This is how the state has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 62-34
Romney 61-38
McCain 60-39

WINNER: JONES (D GAIN)

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The fifthteenth election was held on Tuesday, Feburary 27th, in the 8th District of Arizona. Polls closed at 9 PM ET. This was the first step to replace Trent Franks, who has retired from Politics. This was a primary election, there was a democratic primary and a republican primary. These were the candidates:

Republicans

Allen, Chad
Dilley, Brenden
Dolgos, Stephen
Lesko, Debbie
Lien, David "Dave"
Lovas, Phil
Mack, Richard
Montenegro, Steve
Stump, Bob
Sylvester, Christopher
Van Steenwyk, Clair
Yates, Mark

Democrats

Tipirneni, Hiral
Westbrook, Brianna

Results were posted here: http://results.arizona.vote/#/federal/5/0

D WINNER: TIPIRNENI
R WINNER: LESKO

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The sixteenth election was held on Tuesday, March 13th, in the 18th district of Pennsylvania. Polls closed at 8 PM EST. This was to replace Tim Murphy, who has retired from Politics. Candidates were selected by convention, or could petition their way onto the ballot. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Party   Name   
Dem   Lamb, Conor   
GOP   Saccone, Rick
Lib   Miller, Drew

Results were posted here: https://elections.ap.org/gannett/election_results/2018-03-13/state/PA/race/G/raceid/40301

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

58-39 Trump
58-41 Romney
55-44 McCain

WINNER: LAMB (D GAIN)

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The seventeenth election was held on Tuesday, April 24th, in the 8th district of Arizona. Polls closed at 10 PM EST. This was to replace Trent Franks, who has retired from Politics. Candidates were selected by primary elections held in February. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name                  Party
Lesko, Debbie       REP
Tipirnini, Hiral       DEM

Results were posted here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/23/17263138/arizona-special-election-live-results-lesko-tipirneni

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

58-37 Trump
62-37 Romney
61-38 McCain

WINNER: LESKO (R HOLD)

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The eighteenth election was held on Tuesday, May 8th in the 12th district of Ohio. Polls closed at 7:30 PM EST. This was the first step to replace Bob Turner, who has retired from politics. This was a primary election, there was a Democratic primary and a republican primary. These were the candidates:

Democrats:

Danny O'Connor   
Jackie Patton   
John Russell   
Doug Wilson   
Ed Albertson   
Zach Scott   

Republicans:

Kevin Bacon   
Mick Shoemaker   
Larry Cohen   
Carol O'Brien   
Melanie Leneghan   
Troy Balderson   
Tim Kane
Pat Manley   
Jon Halverstadt

Results were posted here: https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/ohio/

D WINNER: O'CONNOR
R WINNER: BALDERSON

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The nineteenth election was held on Saturday, June 30th, in the 27th District of Texas. Polls closed at 8 PM EST. This was to replace Blake Farenthold, who has retired from Politics. All candidates from all parties were on the same ballot, and no primary election occurred to lower the # of candidates. There were a total of 9 candidates on the ballot. As Republican Michael Cloud received a majority of the vote, he was elected to congress. These were the candidates:

Raul (Roy) Barrera   DEM   
Bech Bruun   REP   
Michael Cloud   REP   
Judith Cutright   IND   
Eric Holguin   DEM   
Marty Perez   REP   
Christopher Suprun   IND   
Daniel Tinus   LIB   
Michael Westergren   DEM

Results were posted here: https://enrpages.sos.state.tx.us/public/jun30_329_state.htm?x=0&y=140&id=715

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 60-37
Romney 61-38
McCain 59-40

WINNER: CLOUD (R HOLD)

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The Twentieth and final election was held on Tuesday, August 7th, in the 12th District of Ohio. Polls closed at 7:30 PM EST. This was the final step to replace Pat Tiberi, who has retired from politics. Nominees were selected by primaries held in May, and could also petition their way onto the ballot. This was a standard FPTP general election. These were the candidates:

Name                  Party
Balderson, Troy       REP
Manchik, Joe          GRN
O'Connor, Danny      DEM

Results were posted here (use incognito mode): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/07/us/elections/results-ohio-special-house-election-district-12.html

This is how the district has behaved in recent presidential elections:

Trump 53-42
Romney 54-44
McCain 54-45

WINNER: BALDERSON (R HOLD)

I'm hoping Wendy Carrillo wins after Carmona's proven to be a piece of s--t, but it's probably going to Gomez.

I'm guessing a Gomez/Anh run-off.

I'm predicting a Gomez vs. Hernandez runoff. Gomez probably wins that.

I'm sticky'ing this for general 2017 special election coverage. The GA-6 one is a hot race, so I'll keep that thread up as well, but otherwise let's try and keep the generic special election coverage for this batch in this thread.

Oh, and I'm predicting Estes, the Republican, will win KS-04. Bold prediction I know. :P

Not that he's going anywhere but Arturo Carmona seems to be a sexist pig.

Yeah, someone on Atlas (Chickenhawk I think?) said that Carmona was widely disliked within the Sanders campaign. Now we know why.

Turnout seems like it's going to be very very low.

Haven't seen any polling for this, but I'm ostensibly rooting for Campoverdi.

Honestly any of the Democrats would be fine except Carmona, and maybe some of the no-names.

Early Vote:

60% Dem
27% Ind
12% Rep

35% Asian American (35% of this is Korean American)
28% Latino

60% 55 or older

6% of all registered voters have already voted. Final Turnout is expected to be between 9% and 21%.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-who-s-already-voted-in-the-34th-1491282940-htmlstory.html

Wait, so 100% of the Asian voters are Korean?

I think he means 35% of the Asian vote is Korean-American. How exactly that can be known...

With so many Democrats and only one Republican, is getting 15-20% and a spot in the runoff (to be killed, I know) too much to ask for?

It is too much to ask for, yes.

I am as well, it wouldn't hurt to have some new, (and young especially might I ad) blood in the party

Team Gomez all the way tho. Solidly progressive, not a true leftist ala carrillo and (lol) carmona.

Not really sure what Campoverdi stands for other than generic platitudes.

Would like to see Campoverdi elected. She seems like she'd make a great statewide candidate down the line.

Agreed, Gomez is easily the best option here.

Any results yet?

Not for another 2+ hours.

Polls close at 8 Pacific Time I believe?

Yeah, after learning more about Gomez he seems like the best option. Campoverdi would also be good though.

This district voted 83/14 Obama/Romney, and then 84/11 Clinton/Trump. So 15% is probably out of reach; although with so many Democrats I'm not sure that necessarily means a spot in the runoff is unrealistic, though it's definitely unlikely.

I predict it will be Gomez vs. Ahn (with Gomez being the ultimate winner). I don't think the Republican has a path to the runoff.

When do we start getting results?

Polls are still open for another hour.

Why does California have to be so far west :(

No votes in yet.

2/192
Ahn 27.9%
Gomez 26.24%
Morrison 5.51%
Results http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-april-4-election-results/

U.S. House - District 34 - Special General
Central LA
2 of 192 Precincts Reporting - 1%
Max Runoff Cands=2
Name   Party   Votes   Vote %
Ahn, Robert   Dem   3,547   28%
Gomez, Jimmy   Dem   3,333   26%
Morrison, William   GOP   700   6%
Cabildo, Maria   Dem   656   5%
Carmona, Arturo   Dem   621   5%

This district would have a latino/asian electoral battle.

Based on the wide disparity between Gomez/Ahn and everyone else in the two precincts that are in, a Gomez vs. Ahn runoff (which Gomez will probably win) seems like the most likely scenario.

^ It's only 2 precincts though. Could mean nothing.

Oh, I know.

So I guess we're not getting any more results tonight.....

Apparently Gomez supports a Single Payer, 15$ Min Wage, publicly financed elections, paid leave etc so he won't be that bad either ! Just shows how strong left the district is. The Republican has 0 chance.

There are now 6 precincts reporting, but the 4 new ones didn't provide many votes to anyone. It was a bad area for Ahn though; his total only increased by 6 votes while Gomez's increased by 69.

Robert Lee Ahn
27.49%
3,553
D
Jimmy Gomez
26.32%
3,402
R
William "Rodriguez" Morrison
5.42%
701
D
Maria Cabildo
5.32%
687
D
Arturo Carmona
5.00%
646

Yeah, Gomez genuinely seems pretty good. He would be a good person to have in the House.

In districts like this you can support communism and be elected comfortably. Especially when you know for sure that congressmen from other districts will NOT allow it to happen)))

He endorsed Hillary in a Bernie district, though.

Ohh Wendy or Kenneth would be way better but you have to make do, too many bureaucrats running & the Carmona thing totally sank the whole race.

Atleast he will support Paid leave & Medicare for all. Way better than Cory Booker I suppose !

I'm ready to call this:

U.S. House - District 34 - Special General
Central LA
26 of 192 Precincts Reporting - 14%
Max Runoff Cands=2
Name   Party   Votes   Vote %
Gomez, Jimmy   Dem   3,756   27% RUNOFF
Ahn, Robert   Dem   3,716   26% RUNOFF

Cabildo, Maria   Dem   861   6%
Carmona, Arturo   Dem   721   5%
Morrison, William   GOP   721   5%

Gomez has now barely pulled ahead of Ahn, and Maria Cabildo is now in third place, ahead of the Republican.

I suspect Ahn is the sort of candidate whose votes could be geographically concentrated, so it's still within the realm of possibility that he won't make the runoff after all. I suspect he does make it, but I wouldn't be absolutely certain.

@jfern, not that I actually care about this, but did Gomez's Assembly district vote for Sanders?

Bernie won his district 52.7-46.4

At least one Bernie staffer I know appears to be involved in his campaign, for whatever that's worth.

current 100 vote margin between the Green party candidate and the republican...
Unfortunately Campoverdi is only doing slightly better than the Candidate from the NPP(?)

No party preference.

Unsurprisingly, Gomez and Ahn will advance to the runoff.


This didn't even come close to happening. The Republican candidate came in eighth with 3.76% of the vote, lower than the Green candidate.

Republicans seem to have no bench in this district. Even in many liberal Bay Area districts they are routinely able to get 20-25% of vote (which would be enough for runoff), but - not here..

There's probably a combined effect of:

Low Republican support in the district generally
Low Republican interest because they know they can't win
Low Republican interest because Trump
A terrible candidate
Republicans voting for one of the Democrats because they know that's where the real action is happening.

Sad that the GOP candidate couldn't even beat the Green candidate in the race.

The Green candidate, Kenneth Mejia, was better than average. It's not that surprising.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few Republicans hopped on the Ahn train.  He is fairly liberal on several issues too but has small business experience and is apparently a staunch supporter of Israel.  Probably the closest person to Republican positions they could possibly get in this district.

I would imagine they would do so if they vote at all (which I highly doubt many will) but there aren't enough Republicans in the district to make a difference unless it's already very close.

OP has been updated with information on the next special election.

Republicans are not much of a factor in this district, so talking about them is pointless.

lol at Campoverdi doing way worse than even the Sexual Harasser, the True Leftist, the Green Party candidate, and the Republican.

I think the KS-04 result is going to be very interesting.

I mean Ron Estes is actually having to run ads against James Thompson, which is pretty bad in and of itself considering this is an R+14 district.

This. I think Estes just want to take it seriously and be safe.

I guess I should clarify: of course I don't think Democrats are going to win KS-04 in a special election. Still, Kansas swung against Trump, and it is where I would expect anti-Trump backlash to start showing itself. The KS-04 results could be instructive for how the competitive races in KS-02 and KS-03 will go in 2018.

It's probably the right thing to do. Special elections can be unpredictable.

I could definitely see KS-03 being competitive in a bad year for the GOP, but KS-02 seems like a stretch.

Early vote suggests this could be much closer than expected, which would fit into the post election day trend of Democratic over performance. Estes will obviously win, but the swing from election day 2016 will be noticeable.

Didn't KS-04 swing toward Trump?

I'm thinking this could be a reverse of the MA special Senate election...of 2013. Not 2010, sadly.

It was about 60-30 Pompeo in November. So, even a 15% loss will be a sort of victory for Democrats, whose base is very energized now. But Estes will, obviously, win. For Democrats to have a chance in such districts two things must happen: a very fringe lunatic Repubican candidate AND very moderate and well-known Democratic one (with crossover appeal). Neither happened in this race.

How the hell did Dan Glickman hold this seat for 18 years (1976 to 1994)?   He wasn't even a moderate Dem as he was a strong supporter of single payer healthcare.

Alexis Levinson‏ (https://twitter.com/alexis_levinson/status/850052340170227713):
Some big last minute TV spending from Rs in the #ks04 special (Pompeo's seat):

RNC - $92,000
NRCC - $67,111

Issue for Rs in the Kansas special isn't on the level of Georgia — but a lot of Rs watching race expect a much closer race than you'd assume

It's a narrative issue for GOP. #ks04 elex is Tuesday 4/11. A close race in a super R state is a bad narrative for Rs one wk before #GA06.

Just bc it's KS, doesn't mean it's exempt from nat'l trends: liberals are super fired up and Rs know they have to deal with that #ks04

And maybe more importantly, KS Gov. Brownback remains super unpopular. And that's a weight on any R running there. #ks04

Obviously this won't happen, but Dems accidentally winning here because everyone forgot about the race would be hilarious.

Could be why he lost re election in the '94 midterm...

But you'd think a candidate like Glickman would have lost in 1978(after one term) in a district this Republican rather than last nearly 20 years.

The only poll I could find has Estes up by 24 points (56-32-4).  I think GOP does just want to be safe here.  It's also good to improve Estes's margins because a large margin would limit the amount of people saying that there is a large anti-Trump wave.  however, since this is a red district, GA-06 will be the real test.

Cook shifted this from Safe R to Likely R yesterday.

Sweating like a dog!

Hey, remember when Dick Cheney went to "South Memphis" to campaign for a Republican in a special election in MS-1?

I think the NRCC is worried about margins. Getting a close result in a seat like that could build talk of an anti-Trump wave. Scares off potential challenger recruits, makes incumbents give some thought to retiring rather than run a tough race.

Cook just moved KS-04 from Safe R to Likely R.

Something's up here. This might end up being embarrassingly close for Republicans.

Trump should make a campaign stop for the Republican candidate. After all, he did win the district.

Fun Fact: This was Ted Cruz's best CD in the primary/caucuses. Got 62% of the vote here, even better than in WI-05.

What would a "good margin" for a democrat be in this district? Anything under 20?

Paul Davis only lose the district by 6.6% in 2014 so something single digits.

Dave Weigel‏
NEWS: Dem Jim Thompson’s campaign in #KS04 says the NRCC ad, which hits him on abortion, is getting pulled for including false info.

Sad!

What in the world did the GOP do to worry about what could be an unusually (and embarrassingly) closer than usual race?

I mean it takes a lot of effort to start worrying about Kansas.

I'm still extremely skeptical Dems could win this. This is a game of margins

Well yeah. If this were KS-03 then it would be a different story.

Ron Estes is having to ship in Lyin' Ted to try to rescue his collapsing campaign?  Sad!

By the way I'm loving having a special election every Tuesday. We should just elect the House this way.

Just saw that registered Democrats are only 7 points behind the Republicans in the early vote.  They were more than 30 points ahead in November of last year.  Is this really going to be a single digit race?

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Special elections, if you look back at the ones in the last years of GWB and the ones with Obama (such as that one in New York City that the Republican won and Scott Brown), can be upsets and big surprises, and can become nationalized since there is just one election to focus on.  Now I don't know if the Democrats will win any of these, but the fact that they are competing in red districts says something's going on.

The Pub will win like by 10 points and will dramatically underperform Trump. But it won't be a close result.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/7/1650828/-Shock-upset-in-the-making-GOP-admits-Kansas-should-not-be-in-play-but-Kansas-is-in-play

An overwhelmingly white red state is safe Republican, no different than Kander in Missouri. They always make noises about considering a moderate Democrat, but will come home in the end.

Estes only winning by 7-10% would be huge and should scare the hell out of Republicans if it happens.

Honestly this is the type of open seat that could cause an upset and be winnable provided the Democrat had longer to campaign, and money was actually being spent on him. Republicans are dirt in the state, the only reason Democrats aren't making the big gains they normally would in any other state is because they're dirt in Kansas too. But in 2018 with an open governor's seat and some other statewide offices, just maybe.

It seems like Kansas has been on the cusp of realigning for a while now.  Maybe a fully Republican-controlled federal government is what does the trick?  Even being within 10 in this part of the state would easily extrapolate to a statewide Dem win.

Oh I totally agree with you on this. :P

The point isn't whether the Dems will win, it's how close they can make the margins. A significantly boosted Democratic turnout in a safe Republican district like this is a result worth cataloging. The specific results of any individual special election aren't that important in terms of their relation to next year's midterm, but if the situation plays out that Democrats massively overperform in the special elections across the board compared to the 2016 general, from Georgia, to Montana, to Kansas, to South Carolina, etc., then that's a much stronger indicator that a wave could be in the making come 2018.

Speaking of SC-05 (Mulvaney's seat), has anyone heard anything about Democratis fielding a credible candidate there? The district has a fairly high floor for Democratic performance (even if Clinton did poorly there).

There are 3 Democratic candidates.  Parnell worked for Goldman Sachs, hopefully he isn't the nominee.  The other two are veterans, and complete political unknowns.  We could do worse.

Mulvaney always won that district with underwhelming margins but that may just be because its Mick Mulvaney rather than the district being particularly competitive.

Kander is not a moderate. If he and Hillary had been elected, he would have voted with Hillary 99% of the time.

Pretty much any Democrat is guaranteed 40% in that district due to the black population.  It's getting above 45% that is very difficult.

I guess in the same way that Collins is not a moderate, then.

Kander is less of a moderate than a Evan Bayh & is to the left of Donnelly.  He didn't run as an uber centrist, there were distinct undertones of running like a subdued liberal & he did surprisingly well.

Kander did better than the much more conservative/moderate Chris Koster, and did so against an incumbent. Sounds to me like running as a moderate isn't everything.

We don't know how the race would have panned out do we? Kander deserves credit for running so far ahead of HRC too & it is not always hey the other candidate is bad but a myriad of complex factors.

Elections aren't decided by 1 issue. I still think empathy, the ability to connect with voters emotionally, candidates personal honesty perception, the ability to turn out the base etc also play a pivotal role.

People don't vote on Economic & Social Score only. An issue close to the heart like honesty, corruption, war-mongering, marijuana, abortion etc could totally turn the votes from a candidate someone agrees with 90% of the time. Honesty, Authenticity & trustworthiness have massive cross-over appeal & can cut across some "small" policy differences given how politicians are these days.

 
Well it helped that he got huge swaths of voters to disregard his F rating from the NRA with this little gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wqOApBLPio

For the record, the worst performance I can find for Republicans since they took the seat in 1994 was in 2000, when Todd Tiahrt won by *only* 12 points.

Kander did so well because he ran the best campaign of any Democratic Senate candidate in 2016 and pretty clearly would've won had he not been running in a Republican wave year where the Democratic Presidential nominee lost the state by nearly 20%.  Koster probably would've also won in even a mildly Republican-leaning non-wave year (i.e. a reverse 2012), for that matter.  We would've still lost the AG and LG races, but I don't think they'd have been blowouts either were it not for the wave. 

On a different note (and this part isn't at all directed at Maxwell), as Ebsy noted elsewhere, it's not really accurate when some folks here act like Kander only did well because Blunt ran a lousy campaign.  Yes, Blunt took the race for granted for a while, but he woke up as the cycle continued.  He still didn't run an amazing campaign, but he didn't run a horrible one either once he started taking Kander seriously.  Kander was a liberal who ran an incredibly strong campaign who ran against a Republican incumbent who ran a campaign that was on par with Richard Burr's 2016 re-election campaign (i.e. a bit lazy and rather unremarkable, but hardly some sort of disaster).  Blunt does strike me as a pretty uninspiring guy, especially when contrasted with someone as likable as Kander (who like Schweitzer has a real knack for articulating liberal views in a way that appeals to conservative voters).  The 2016 Missouri Senate result had far more to do with the quality of Kander's campaign than it did with anything Roy Blunt did or didn't do.


He only won by like 3% in 1996, IIRC.

That's true if you only look at Congressional results.

Wasn't 1996 closer than 2000?

Yeah, Rathbun damn near won it in 1996.

What I meant was that Sebelius won the district's current boundaries in 2006 and likely did in 2002 as well.

@alexis_levinson
Ron Estes got some last minute $ from House Rs per FEC filing - Reps. Lynn Jenkins, Tom Emmer, Jason Smith, David Rouzer donated #ks04

@jmartNYT
No TV, but i'm told @CLFSuperPAC is spending $50K on live GOTV phone calls to all past R primary voters in lead up to #KS04

Nothing to see here!

Phenomenal & even that maybe under-appreciating gem - His whole background, candour, seemingly honesty & charisma really makes the ad stick out !

I'm going to make a very bold prediction on KS-4
50% (D)
47% (R)
3% (L)

Brownback is extremely unpopular, which would act to suppress Democratic defections and drive up their turnout on election night, while creating the potential for some moderate registered republicans to actually be voting dem as a rebuke to Brownback. Obama no longer being president also means that Republican turnout overall may go down, and Trump being president will drive turnout of Democrats up.

The Pub will win by 10 points. The dem nominee should then run for some statewide offices in KS, he would have a non negligible chance to win.

I'm hoping it's somewhere closer to Brownback's 6.6% win 2014. A margin around there would:

1. Scare Republicans in competitive districts away from Trump's agenda. Repealing Obamacare would be even deader than it is now and it would make tax reform even more difficult.
2. Harm Republican recruitment efforts, while boosting Democratic recruitment.
3. Convince some Republicans that it would be better to retire than face a competitive reelection in 2018. Open seats are always easier to pick up.

Brownback only won by 3.8% actually. If Republicans only held this seat by single-digits, that would be a huge scare to Republicans for the reasons you mentioned, but here's my prediction:

Estes (R) 54%
Thompson (D) 42%
Rockhold (L) 4%

Brownback might be completely toxic in the state, but it's only good enough to elect better Republicans, not Democrats, at least not yet.

Being optimistic for the final result:

Estes (R) - 54%
Thompson (D) - 43%
Rockhold (L) - 3%

A closer loss for Thompson would probably set him up for some other kind of office, and of course scare the crap out of Republicans.

What time do the polls close today?

Early voting ended at noon.

Final prediction before tomorrow:

Ron Estes (R) - 53%
James Thompson (D) - 44%
Chris Rockhold (L) - 3%

Also, does anyone have any idea where one can find the final early vote statistics for KS-04? Tom Bonier of TargetSmart posted some a few days back but I haven't seen any numbers since then.

I say:
Estes - 53%
Thompson - 43%
Rockhold - 4%

As a Wichitan, I know by any mean this is a hell of an uphill battle. Here's what Thompson has going for him:
-Insane fundraising numbers (for the 4th district)
-Strong grassroots support in Wichita's young professional community (we'll see if there are enough "new Wichitans" to propel him to victory)
-He's strongly pro-gun
-The field operation is incredibly strong, and there are thousands of volunteers on the ground and on the phones
-Estes hasn't really been campaigning much; his office has sat around empty for a while just before the election
-Estes somehow has less energy than Jeb Bush or Ben Carson, the guy is sooooo boring
-Paul Davis only lost the district by a few points, and Estes is strongly linked to unpopular Brownback

Here's what stands in his way though:
-This district bleeds red through and through-most Dems lose by 30
-Ted Cruz remains very popular with the large Evangelical population
-Abortion ads will hit Thompson hard, even though they're false; Abortion is even more of a fault line in Wichita than most places thanks to the Summer of Mercy and then years later, Dr. Tiller's killing
-Estes was the former county treasurer and current state treasurer, so people know him
-Will Black and Latino Democrats in Wichita turn out? There was a big turnout dropoff in 2014 and even from the presidential race to the congressional race in 2016

  Looking at Estes's website you would think Obama was still president, no mention of Trump that I could find, either for or against. Any sense of whether he would be fairly Trump friendly or not as much?

I predict:

Estes 57%
Thompson 39%

I hope the Democrat does better, but I don't see it.  The district is too red.

For the hell of it:
Estes - 48%
Thompson - 46%
Rockhold - 6%

I know it probably won't be this close, but I at least have the right to dream for that old western populism to make a resurgence.

@jonshorman
>> TRUMP has recorded call for Estes, KS Republican national committeeman Mark Kahrs tells me #ksleg #KS04

Bringing out the big guns.

Prediction:
Ron Estes (R) 50%
James Thompson (D) 36%
Chris Rockhold (Ltn) 4%

Implying you predict 10% of all ballots are invalid

Yes, I just realized.  Very stupid of me.

Estes 54%
Thompson 42%
Rockhold 4%

Cook just moved this race from Likely R to Lean R: (http://cookpolitical.com/story/10306)

()


Here's the transcript of that robocall:

()

He really said "big league"...

I'll predict Estes wins 52-44.

No... maybe you're thinking of KS-03 where Romney won by 9. This district went from 61-36 Romney to 60-33 Trump.

If this were an open seat in KS-02, it would be winnable for Democrats. If it were KS-03, it'd probably lean Democrat at this point. But it's neither.

Going to go ahead and say Estes only wins by 5 or 6.

Prediction
Estes 52%
Thompson 45%
Rockhold 3%

This reminds me of 2014 with all the hysteria over kansas congressional seats. Estes wins this by 15

Estes will win, but by less than 10. Even if they're playing it safe, Republicans seem to be sweating over this a little too much if Estes was on track to cruise through by something like a 15 point margin.

Crystal Ball moved this to Likely R

Estes wins 51-44.

From Safe R?

Yes

This strikes me as a reasonable prediction

Source (http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article143857629.html)

Yeah, I don't believe that.

lmao if a Republican internal only has Estes up 1 point...

I guess there's the possibility Republicans are trying to play it up so a single-digit win for Estes doesn't look bad, but never doubt the incompetency of Kansas Republicans.

It's to scare folks into voting.

Interesting a Democratic internal from last month had Estes +24

http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/kansas-democratic-congressional-candidate-feuds-with-party (http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/kansas-democratic-congressional-candidate-feuds-with-party)

A lot can change in a month, especially in a special congressional election.

Part of me thinks this is actually close, and part of me is remembering that Orman was supposed to come close or win, but ended up losing by a lot (although he still did better than "Generic D"). No idea which is right.

Just saw a tweet that that the early vote was 48-40 Republican.

Either way it's probably why they're running around screaming like the sky is falling.

Thompson strikes me as a really good candidate--he seems almost Tester-esque in his approach...

Estes seems slimy af and just looks like a GOP tool.

I'm hoping that--whatever the outcome--Thompson stays involved, perhaps running for Kansas statewide office or a rematch in 2018.

Was that the Ted Bonier tweetstorm from earlier this week?

Do a lot of people in Witchita read the Kansas City Star? Probably not.

Isn't Wichita the biggest city in Kansas?  I know it's still a medium sized city, but it's a bit odd when the biggest city in a state is heavily Republican.

KS-GOV is ripe for the taking for the taking in 2018, if KS Ds can't then they mind as well close up shop.

I find that R+1 poll pretty suspect, though a single digit race at this point wouldn't be crazy. I expect something around R+10 at the end of the day.

Actually, it was moved from likely to lean R. 

My prediction is about +15 for Estes. The reason I say this is because of the redness of the district and that poll someone cited earlier of Estes at +24. I also think the Libertarian narrowly misses getting 5% of the vote.

Of course, I could be horribly wrong, but I think with the GOP putting so much into the election in the final days and, like I said before, with the district being pretty red, Estes will win by a large margin.

I think the city of Wichita itself is more of a toss-up city, with the area outside the city which makes up about 25% of the counties population pushes Sedgwick County to be a very reliable Republican County.

There's a supposed GOP internal floating around claiming that they saw Estes +1. That +5 poll was from a while back I think.

Does anyone have a live results page?

Does anyone else think it's possible that internal poll is right an there could be a huge crossover vote from reps who are sick of Brownback/local rep leadership?

I don't doubt the +1 internal, but I still expect Estes to win by mid single digits

Yes, in fact one of the main questions I am going to have answered tonight is which faction of Republicans are turning out, moderates who defect or Brownbackers who won't. In fact, the Kansas republican civil war is what made me make my bold prediction in the first place, in spite of the republican lead in early voting.

If this race is less than a 10 point win for Estes it signals trouble for the GOP in the upcoming special elections ( not sure about 2018) and maybe VA Governor

Is there website that will have a live results page for this election?

What time do polls close today?

City proper of Wichita has a GOP mayor and voted 49-40 for Trump over Hillary.

8 PM EST

You can find them at decisiondeskhq.com

I imagine AP runners will also be there for the results. Though I haven't seen an actual AP results page, kansas.com (The Wichita Eagle) will more than likely have a feed of these results.

The AP results page and other general info have been in the OP for close to a week now.

Any reports on turnout?

Not sure on live stuff, but yesterday The Kansas City Star had the Kansas Republican Party Director Clay Barker predict 20% turnout or lower.

One source says:

"I just spoke to a Sedgwick County election official, who described turnout as 'steady, but not overwhelming.'"
https://twitter.com/daviddesola/status/851848885819637761

Useful chart from 538 on importance of KS-4 in context:

()

I'd be careful about reading too much into the results here. Don't be too quick to assume that Democrats are headed for massive victories over the next two years if Thompson overperforms here. It's too soon to make that conclusion.

If Dems can win in this ultra-republican seat, it's difficult to see a house seat that they can't win.

True - Estes has been a disastrous candidate, possibly worse even than any of the GOPers running in Georgia's 6th.

As I said before, the results of a single special don't tell us much, but a the trend of the margins across them all can be more indicative of a potential wave.

a single digit loss for dems would energize the base everywhere, imho.

this race was a non-starter anyway and no one has really cared until a day or two ago.

There's definitely are some registered republicans voting for him, but I doubt this.

When there's a bad national environment, normally competent candidates look like hapless fools and perfectly average candidates appear to walk on water.

If the race ends up within single digits, then Thompson will have had crossover appeal, but I don't know how to quantify "lots" in this case.

Trump tweeting about this will definitely help the Democrats.

Why, the district voted for him by like 27 points.

It shows that even the top Republican is rattled by a lost seat in Deep Red Kansas.

if Democrats felt like being DIRTY TRICKSTERS, they would do a fake robocall with someone who does a mean Sam Brownback impression, with Fake Brownback giving an endorsement to Estes. That would be  Tricky Dick Tricky

Come help phonebank for James Thompson!

http://www.votejamesthompson.com/phonebank (http://www.votejamesthompson.com/phonebank)

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  4m4 minutes ago
We expect 70%+ of the #KS04 votes to come from Sedgwick County -- home to Wichita. Trump won this county 56-37% in November.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  3m3 minutes ago
Thompson needs to run up the #KS04 score in downtown Wichita: precincts 105-122, 306-310, 607-609 and 615. Clinton won these 62-28%.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  2m2 minutes ago
Clinton won these two dozen counties by 8,000+ votes -- a small prize in a district she lost by 76,000. So Thompson needs a turnout spike.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  1m1 minute ago
What does Estes need in #KS04? Maintain 2016 turnout levels in Wichita suburbs and small surrounding cities in Sedgwick County.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  24s24 seconds ago
Some Estes precincts I'm watching in #KS04 are 214-228 in the east, 410-425 in the south, 506-539 in the west and 622-623 in the north.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  2m2 minutes ago
Watch smaller surrounding #KS04 cities, where Trump raked in votes -- like Derby, Afron, Haysville, Morton, Ninnescah, Salem and Sherman.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  1m1 minute ago
Those Wichita suburban precincts and smaller  cities in Sedgwick County gave Trump almost half his 2016 margin of victory in #KS04.

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk  1m1 minute ago
Other counties that matter are Butler, Harvey, Cowley and Sumner -- which account for one in five #KS04 votes. The other 12 are too small.

ALL THE LINKSSSSSS

Sedgwick County results page:
http://www.sedgwickcounty.org/elections/election_results/SpecGen17/index.html

AP results by County:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_county/KS_US_House_0411.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

KS SoS website results:
http://www.sos.ks.gov/ent/kssos_ent.html

DDHQ results:
https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/kansas-4th-congressional-district-special-election/

Here's how Trump did in each county, according to the results here on Atlas. The # of precincts in each one, per AP, are listed in ()'s:

Barber (23): Won, 83%-12%
Butler (41): Won, 69%-24%
Chautauqua (15): Won, 83%-13%
Comanche (5): Won, 82%-12%
Cowley (59): Won, 66%-28%
Edwards (15): Won, 79%-17%
Elk (11): Won, 83%-12%
Greenwood (19): Won, 76%-17%
Harper (16): Won, 77%-15%
Harvey (38): Won, 58%-34%
Kingman (28): Won, 76%-18%
Kiowa (12): Won, 83%-11%
Pawnee (5): Won, 72%-22%
Pratt (12): Won, 74%-20%
Sedgwick (257): Won, 54%-36%
Stafford (24): Won, 79%-16%
Sumner (40): Won, 72%-21%


Polls close in less than 90 minutes.

If the race is within 10, Thompson is probably winning Sedgwick County.

Davis lost by 6 without winning Sedgwick.

Scratch that, reverse it, I meant if Thompson is winning Sedgwick the race is probably within 10.

Surprised more people aren't posting in this thread right now.

Hoping people keep the results in context. A D+15 swing for instance is hard for me to take as a "bad result." That being said, it saddens me that the GOP can pull off upsets like Scott Brown in Mass. and not the Dems.

I think I'm starting to annoy even myself with my 'jokey' replies here, but I think this one is a fairly funny reply to this.

From the Old T.V show 'Cheers'
Sam Malone: "Woody, next time you order beer, be more specific than “lots.”"

to be fair, massachusetts has a decent chunk of "business" republicans who are more than willing to vote against democrats when they have a decent republican to vote for.

That's true. But I want Dems to be able to pull off upsets too. I feel like the GOP is the upset party, except for some rare instances like the Kathy Hochul old seat in NY, etc.

I guess the Democrats winning here depends on how 'upset' Republican voters are with the GOP.

(((Harry Enten)))@ForecasterEnten
Rough guide of how well Dem will need to do in KS-4 by county to win. Based off 2016 prez vote. *Would be shocking if he comes close to this

()

^ That doesn't really make sense. Thompson needs to at least come within 2 points in every county to win? There's no reason he needs that in the counties in the district that were >80% Trump.

He clarified:

(((Harry Enten))) @ForecasterEnten  1h1 hour ago
Let me clarify again (cause I'm being unclear), the center is what you should be looking at. Updated column heads.

()

Polls closed

Link?!

So is Cowley sort of a bellwether county here?

EDIT: Never mind. I finally see what Enten means. I think.

Where do you see results already?

There isn't any results, he's lying.
http://www.sos.ks.gov/ent/kssos_ent.html

We might be waiting for a little while, folks.

AP doesn't have any either.  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/KS_Page_0411.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

Fake news?

It's a super close race though. Tied in fact. (0-0)

All this hype and it will end up being a blowout, I am not getting my hopes up.

My prediction: GOP by 12

OMG

First (tiny) results show Thompson leading by a wide margin:

()

Just sit tight everyone

Decision Desk HQ @DecisionDeskHQ  1h1 hour ago
FIRST RESULTS SEDGWICK (EARLY)
Thompson leads with 14226 to 8563

That's 61-36-1 lololololololol

Obviously it wont stay this way but it's fun while it lasts.

I don't trust DDHQ as far as I can throw them after their incorrect calls in the D Michigan/Missouri Primaries. I'll stick to AP (by county), which does not show anything yet.

These are early ballots, by the way.

Wow, if this is the early vote it means that huge % of registered Republicans voted for Thompson.

It's not just DDHQ, numbers match the Sedgwick County site:

http://www.sedgwickcounty.org/elections/election_results/SpecGen17/index.html

All of these ballots are out of Sedgwick.

Mother of God...

Just because they got a call incorrect doesn't mean there numbers are. I keep a weary eye on their calls as well though.

(((Harry Enten)))@ForecasterEnten  1h1 hour ago
Thompson needs to win Sedgwick by like 10 to win the race. He's up over 20 points in early vote. Still very early.

Those states were super close anyway. Only a couple thousand votes. As a matter of fact, Bernie led in Missouri all night until the very last precincts reported, giving Hillary a ~5,000 vote lead.

Okay, but it's probably just a lucky early precinct.

Any idea what percentage of Sedgwick is counted? It was 70% of all votes cast in 2016.

Dave Weigel‏ @daveweigel  1h1 hour ago
Thompson campaign tells me that its #s from Sedgwick County early vote are "higher than expected." #ks04

This could just be an anomaly, a very Democratic-friendly precinct, but if this is anywhere near the actual result in Sedgwick, it's huge.

lmao

This is the early vote, it is from the entirety of Sedgwick County.

The link I'm using is this one. This one has results.

http://www.sos.ks.gov/ent/kssos_ent.html (http://www.sos.ks.gov/ent/kssos_ent.html)

Butler County reporting, 54-43 Estes
https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/851952864775876613

These results are only early ballots?

How many votes should we be expecting total in this race? This is likely early vote and not a precinct; there are 25,000 votes counted already. This could be a quarter or more of the turnout in already, so I don't think we should discard these prelims as a heavily Democratic precinct or whatever.

Yes

Posted this earlier, but you'll probably enjoy it

https://youtu.be/N3-SW11BoOk?t=5m8s

If it means anything, 275,000 votes were cast here in 2016...

Wasn't the early vote registration counted as something like 48%-40% Republican favored? That's a MASSIVE crossover vote.

69-24 Trump; 11% of CD's votes in 2016 - with Sedgwick combined that was 81% of all 2016 votes.

That just makes these results even more insane.

I have a gut feeling that Thompson will win.

I wonder if this could be the Democratic version of Bob Turner winning Anthony Weiner's district

Current tally with some early vote from Sedgwick and Butler:

Thompson (D) - 14,553 - 60.9%
Estes (R) - 8,973 - 37.5%
Rockhold (L) - 341 - 1.4%

I kinda thought the Libertarian would have a better showing.

Tom Bonier‏ @tbonier  1h1 hour ago
Well, wow. It appears Thompson won the EV/AV in Sedgwick 61%-36%, while the turnout was 42% Reg Dems, 44% Reg GOPs. #KS04

My butthole just clinched with joy. Surely this can't be right? Is Thompson picking up every unaffiliated voter?

Kyle Kondik‏ @kkondik  3m3 minutes ago
More
 Well at the very least this is a considerable moral victory for Dems - and perhaps an actual victory.

It could be that the Democrats cannibalized most of their votes through early voting, but if that's not the case, Estes could be in trouble. Again, though, these are hypotheticals. We'll know for sure soon enough.

Were there any reports on Election Day turnout (low, medium, high...?)

Seems like a good sign, no?

STOP GETTING MY HOPES UP

A swing from Trump +45 to Estes +11? Yeah.

Hey Democrats, here's a sign you don't need to be a Blue Dog to win in rural districts.

FIRST AP RESULTS:

April 11, 2017 - 08:21PM ET   (i) = incumbent      = winner      = runoff   
U.S. House - District 4 - Special General
South Central
County   Precincts   
J. Thompson
(Dem)   
R. Estes
(GOP)   
C. Rockhold
(Lib)
Total   1/620   
14,226
62%   8,563
37%   325
1%
Barber   0/23   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Butler   0/41   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Chautauqua   0/15   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Comanche   0/5   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Cowley   0/59   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Edwards   0/15   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Elk   0/11   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Greenwood   0/19   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Harper   0/16   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Harvey   0/38   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Kingman   0/28   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Kiowa   0/12   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Pawnee   0/5   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Pratt   0/12   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Sedgwick   1/257   14,226
62%   8,563
37%   325
1%
Stafford   0/24   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%
Sumner   0/40   0
0%   0
0%   0
0%

Yeah, I expect the Election Day returns to come crashing down on Thompson, but this is nice to see so far.

It's going to be close.

SoS still doesn't have Butler's results listed, but I'm not betting on DDHQ getting the numbers wrong.

Who is this friend? Is he Trump's anyomous birth certificate source?

EV has me skeptical Sedgwick is no Johnson County but Trump is the Republican that can make large R counties like Duval, Oklahoma, and Maricopa competitive.

If Dems have cannabilized to a large degree and this comes down to the wire, then Sumner County (72-21 Trump) may make the difference. It's the only other county where at least 3% of the 2016 vote is located.

That's the thing though, a lot of these votes are coming from Republicans based on the early vote partisan registration. That's why the numbers are so insane.

The reported Butler results are easily verifiable:

http://maps.bucoks.com/elections/public/G06.php?election=38#103

Estes up 62-35 in Barber's 1st precinct

This might sound odd but could the Trump/Pence robocalls and Cruz visit help election day vote topple this...jw?

Barber County
Trump - 82%
Este - 62%

Ok thanks.

Not to rain on all the Democrats' hopes here, but didn't Trump get massacred in the early vote in Florida, North Carolina, st al, only to slaughter Clinton even worse in Election Day voting?

(((Harry Enten))) @ForecasterEnten  1h1 hour ago
Early vote from Barber has Estes +27. Should be something like +43 Estes in final results if Estes wants to win.

How can it be Democrats cannibalizing themselves if the partisan breakdown of the EV slightly favored Republicans?

Barber was 82-13 Trump, so this is a 42-point swing assuming Barber County as a whole is 62-35.

(switching to SOS data. AP is slower.)

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 2 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   14,270   61%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   329   1%   
    
R-Ron Estes   8,642   37%   

1 Sedgwick + 1 Barber are in.

Consistent with the swings with the other counties so far.

Stop getting me all excited, people. Now I have to commit to sitting at my computer for the next few hours pressing refresh instead of, you know, eating and doing taxes.

Doesn't the district lean very strongly in registration/primary vote toward the Republicans?

We're reporting these results faster than either website

Yes, but Clinton's campaign had a massive early vote operation, which probably cannibalized much of their Election Day vote.  Did Thompson have anything similar going on?

Yes. I expect Estes to dominate the ED vote big time, but I am now quite curious about the what the final margin will end up being. Looks like a fair amount of Republicans crossed over.

He lost the early vote in both, yes, but I wouldn't say he got massacred. The early vote was about 6-7% more D friendly than the eventual results, IIRC.

Lmao, this.

Is this really happening?

I've missed this high.

We're more motivated. :)

If this seat is actually even competitive, then Democrats look poised to win control of the House and maybe even (somehow, despite the map) the Senate in the 2018 midterms.

Haven't been this excited since November 8th...

Eh, Senate is a stretch

It's a really unique feeling. Might as well enjoy it while we can.

I don't know for sure, but I'm running the assumption that Democrats tend to concentrate heavily on early voting

There is a path to winning the senate. It's called forcing out McCaskill for Kander in Missouri, and winning a three-way (McMullin as Indy) in Utah.

Can I just say that Sedgwick County desperately needs a web designer?

I'm getting too excited as well. :P

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk  
Early returns in Sedgwick County show strongest Trump precincts coming in weaker for Estes. Strongest Clinton stronger for Thompson. #KS04

Ryan Struyk‏ @ryanstruyk
GO - Trump 68%, Estes 56%
DB42 - Trump 67%, Estes 57%
410 - Trump 67%, Estes 49%
GY01 - Trump 70%, Estes 53%
531 - Trump 67%, Estes 53%

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk
Some core Dem precincts in Wichita, still very early:
116 - Clinton 89%, Thomp 97%
117 - Clinton 90%, Thomp 98%
118 - Clinton 82%, Thomp 94%

If that's reflected here, assuming what we have is representative of all the early vote, we should see a 0-1% Thompson win :P

Could be a barn-burner, folks.

Possibly upset Beto in TX? If Thompson wins this I wouldn't rule it out of the realms of possibility.

In hindsight, now that Thompson might actually have a real shot at this...

()

Now I'm sitting here getting all liquored up instead of doing my at-dusk exercising.

Could there be a more fitting drink for me to have?

()

I'll believe it when I see it with TX after Hillary did worse than Obama '08 in terms of % of the vote despite maxing out the urban areas.

I mean, if Kansas-04 is swinging this hard against Trump, and assuming Trump doesn't right the ship and up his approvals, anything is possible.

I bet the DCCC regrets not investing heavily in this race.

Really? What was FL? I recall the EV there being ugly for Trump.

 From that observation, I'm starting to suspect Estes is toast.

It'll be close, perhaps my bold prediction was not as bold as I thought.

Thompson localized the race at made it more of a referendum on Brownback than on Trump or Congressional Republicans. I don't think ties to the national party would've helped all that much.

the EV in fl wasn't so bad for trump.

he got beaten in the last week, as usual, but not even close to obama territory and needed much too long.

It will be close, but Estes will win. But he is not off the hook in 2018.

Well any Beto win would come from a suburban defection. Also it's not fair to compare Obama's +6 or +7 win to Hillary's +2 win and say she did worse. Relative to national trends she did much better than Barry. Still I'd still say TX is at likely to lean R even of Thompson wins.

If I recall correctly, Dems only had a net EV advantage of a point or two - but people read into this as being good considering the net Dem advantage they had in 2012 was less (or non-existent?) in early voting and Obama still eeked out a win + believing the losses in D registration over the past four years were merely Romney '12 voters finally flipping their registrations.

I still think Estes will squeak this out, but this is simply embarrassing!

Some precincts voting nearly 100% Thompson. lol

This is going so sloooow

I believe Clinton started out about 6% ahead of Trump in FL, so again, that would have made the EV roughly 7% more Democratic than the eventual results. I have no idea if that will be the case with this race, though. I don't want to jump to conclusions too quickly.

I can understand that...Trump brought a lot of nonvoters out of the woodwork. But without Trump on the ballot, they don't get out. A bit like nonvoting Obama supporters.

What if Ds end up winning KS-04 and MT-AL but lose GA-06 what message would that send to the DCCC?

i don't think the old, "Hey kids, it's Nancy from SF!" would've helped that much.

They staying out helped the expectations game.

Are Kansas primaries open or closed? The reason I'm asking is that if they are closed, that could explain why Thompson did so good with registered R's in the early vote.

"Special elections are special."

Rural voters are far more elastic than their suburban counterparts?

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk
Precinct 607 in NW downtown Wichita so far:

2016: Clinton 57%, Trump 31%

Early return today in #KS04: Thompson 85%, Estes 15%

Butler showing up on the SOS website, Thompson still at 61%

literally?

Butler finally coming in...54-43 Estes.

Races like these matter just as much.

Good lord that's brutal.

They're closed, but places like Sedgwick aren't necessarily going to have such lopsided numbers of Democrats registered as Republicans because of the dominance. Yes, they do exist I'm sure, but it wouldn't be like it is in super-majority GOP counties where 30-40% of your Dems are voting in the GOP primaries. The increase in the share of Dems registered as Reps or vice-versa exponentially increases with the percentage of the vote of the majority party.

Candidate quality matters and you can't win 'em all.

Cobb County Republicans are a bunch of pretentious losers. But we knew that already.

Edwards going 74-24 for Estes, with 9/15 in.

Weaker than Paul Davis who got 30% there, but FAR ahead of Hillary.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 12 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   14,704   60%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   351   1%   
    
R-Ron Estes   9,381   38%   
    
Back to Top

Yeah, KS-04 is populated entirely by direct descendants of Gumby.

Edwards County reporting, Thompson now at 60%

If Thompson wins here, which is beginning to look more likely with each passing minute, it'll also show the strength of grassroots like Our Revolution. The DCCC didn't enter into this race until the twilight hour.

79-16 Trump

Edwards was 79-16 Trump, but Thompson needs a bigger swing than that in other counties to win this.

The usual blacks did not turnout or voter suppression. I-85 conspiracy theories.

And the county is <1% of the district.

With Edwards County coming in, Thompson's percentage is down by 0.8%.

If he can maintain huge swings in Sedgwick, Butler and Sumner, he's likely going to be OK. Those three counties were 85% of the 2016 vote.

Might not be a bad strategy in some places. Let the grassroots lay the strategy and the groundwork, and the DCCC can pitch in at the end to help seal the deal.

Lol

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk  1h1 hour ago
In Mulvane, one of those crucial small towns near Wichita for Estes. Trump won 65-25% in November. Estes is BEHIND 64-36% in early returns.

Oh. My. God.

Pawnee is fully in, 71-29 Estes. It was 72-22 Trump in 2016.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 17 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   14,722   60%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   351   1%   
    
R-Ron Estes   9,425   39%   
    
Pawnee: 71% Estes, 74% Trump. Not encouraging for Thompson.

We might just make it race

I guess there's something glorious about the fact that a Berniecrat might win in the literal home of Koch Industries.

Decision Desk HQ‏ @DecisionDeskHQ
Thompson won early votes in Harvey 1043 to 703

Pawne was 117-18 for Pompeo and it's only 44-18 for Estes.

Guess Leslie Knope couldn't deliver it for Thompson. Shame.

... it's less than 1% of the district.

Doesn't she live in Indiana?

Very nice!

So the farther away from Wichita you get, the less anti-Trump the vote is.

58-34 Trump (60-40 Thompson)

That's why she couldn't deliver it for Thompson. :P

That's not where the votes are, though.


Pawnee's the name of the town in Parks and Rec.

pretty sure thompson won't win (kansas is unable to kill even one republican in a really lousy situation) but the general competitiveness is a great sign for dozens and dozens of closer races.

If Thompson wins, he'll be the most vulnerable House Democrat in 2018..so he shouldn't be too comfortable. Estes is a bad candidate. Estes may run for KS governor in 2018, if he loses, but if he wins this congressional seat, he could face a primary challenge.

I still don't think Thompson will win but this should scare reps

More votes coming in from Sedgwick. Now:

James A. Thompson             ......   17189 / 59%
Chris Rockhold                ......     430 /  1%
Ron Estes                     ......   11397 / 39%

Gotta love those 18 Dems.

Woah, are these Sumner numbers for real?

If Estes can't win a Safe R congressional seat, he's not gonna run for governor.

Sumner county's coming in, race now 58-41 Thompson

Sumner was an error, it's actually 52-46 Estes, but it was 72-21 Trump.

Maybe Estes can be our Martha Coakley.

Not according to the SoS's website, they have one precinct reporting with Estes up 181-160.

58-40

(((Harry Enten)))‏ @ForecasterEnten  1h1 hour ago
Early vote from Sumner County has Estes + 6... Overall, he wants a margin of about 24 from Sumner. Early vote tends to lean Dem.

Also, more of Sedgwick has come in, now it's 59-39 Thompson.

It's like "300" but with 18 Kansas liberals, lol

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 20 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   17,848   58%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   461   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   12,471   41%   
    
Sumner: 52% Estes, 72% Trump
Sedgwick: 59% Thompson, 36% Clinton
Edwards: 76% Estes, 79% Trump

56-42

"THIS. IS. KANSAS."

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 32 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   18,776   56%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   511   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   14,093   42%   
    

What just dumped?

I don't think Thompson can pull it off.

AP has Harvey at Thompson 59 Estes 40

Estes is dead as a rock. I'm calling it.

Now 61-37 in Butler (69-24 Trump) with one-quarter of precincts reporting.

If Thompson wins, he might as well change his name to Joseph Cao, but it's cool that he has a shot now.  Still, I'm not holding my breath that he'll actually pull it off.

It's starting to come down to the wire now.

Kingman County.

The more counties come in, the worse Thompson does (obviously). Regardless, if he keeps dropping, there isn't much room for him to win.

The race is now 55-43. Just a minute ago it was 58-40. Bad sign.

Kingman came in for Estes

Kingman just came in heavily for Estes. 71-27 with 17 of 28 precincts reported. Trump won this county 76-18.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 49 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   19,067   55%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   533   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   14,879   43%   
    
Outside of Sedgwick, the counties that are beyond just 1 precinct don't have Estes doing that badly. Weaker than Trump, but not terrible.

Estes probably pulls it out.

This feels like Kay Hagan 2014.

I think Estes will win but it'll be closer than it has any right to be. Overall a good night for Dems, but sadly not a great night.

butler seems to be the only MAJOR pro-republican place with a lots of votes in the district so this is a essential for Estes.

What share of Sedgewick is in?

Is it possible for Sedgwick to carry the district for Thompson all by itself?


PRECINCTS COUNTED - TOTAL

PRECINCTS COUNTED - TOTAL       ...... 0036 of 0257
              
Precinct Reported 0036 ,Eligible Precinct 0257
                    

http://www.sedgwickcounty.org/elections/election_results/SpecGen17/index.html

Yeah.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 65 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   20,728   54%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   606   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   16,932   44%   
    

2 precincts out of 257

Looks like Thompson is overperforming by a massive amount in Sedgwick (Wichita)... and just a little bit everywhere else. There is just way too much vote outstanding here for him to pull this off.

Cowley results trickling in, Estes winning 54-44 there. Trump won it 66-28 in 2016.

regarding the numbers, sure, but estes still gets a loooooooooooooooooot of votes there, so unlikely.

I mean it makes up 70% of the votes in this district so I'd say yeah.

If I had to guess, between one-third and one-quarter. We don't know for sure because of how early vote is counted - only 2/257 precincts fully reporting according to SoS.

Enten said Thompson needs to win Sedgewick by around 9 to have a chance at pulling this off.

Cowley votes showing up: 54-44 Estes (66-28 Trump); 16/59 precincts reporting

Thompson's winning Harvey so far by 12. If he stays ahead there, he still has a chance, but I think Estes probably wins narrowly.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 71 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   22,133   54%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   651   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   18,029   44%   
    

Harvey results coming in, Thompson 55-43. Trump won there 58-34.

What's it at now?

Nate Cohn‏ @Nate_Cohn  
In done precincts, ev is 39% of total vote in Sedgwick
Estes running a net-27 pts better on eday.
If true, would mean Thompson+8 in Sedgwick

Nate Cohn thinks that Thompson is ahead 8. So this is probably going down to the wire.

59-39, Thompson.

PRECINCTS COUNTED - TOTAL

PRECINCTS COUNTED - TOTAL       ...... 0036 of 0257
             
Precinct Reported 0036 ,Eligible Precinct 0257
                     
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL 
                     
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL     ......  295294 /100%
             
Precinct Reported 0036 ,Eligible Precinct 0257
                     
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL 
                     
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL          ......   29075 /100%
             
Precinct Reported 0036 ,Eligible Precinct 0257
                     
BALLOTS CAST - BLANK 
                     
BALLOTS CAST - BLANK          ......       1 /100%
             
Precinct Reported 0036 ,Eligible Precinct 0257
                     
U. S. Representative 4th District 4th District 
                     
James A. Thompson             ......   17189 / 59%
Chris Rockhold                ......     430 /  1%
Ron Estes                     ......   11397 / 39%
WRITE-IN                      ......      42 /  0%

http://www.sedgwickcounty.org/elections/election_results/SpecGen17/index.html

NYT showing that he's winning the county by 11%

Comanche county has all it's votes in, gone for Estes 74-24, Trump won this county 82-11

Comanche fully reporting: 74-24 Estes (82-12 Trump)

Comanche just dumped. 278-90 in favor of Estes.

Thompson's % keeps dropping.   I think there's too many small counties left.   Estes probably wins this

Either way, this is going to be very close. Which means Democrats have already won.

Kiowa's in and done, gone for Estes 80-17 (Trump 83-10). Estes has gone up one point, race is now 54-45 Thompson

Thompson's lead dipped below 4,000.

This looks like it's going to be close, but I'm going to be a pessimist and say that Estes pulls this off.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 88 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   22,313   54%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   679   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   18,732   45%   
    

Kiowa fully reporting: 80-17 Estes (83-11 Trump)

Thompson seems to running way, way ahead of Clinton and Davis in suburban Wichita (Sedgwick) and only slightly so in the rural precincts.

they are not....those counties are over and counted early.

they are important now but not in an hour or so.

if thompson delivers in the big 3-4 counties and ofc most of all in Sedgwick, he wins.

i still don't think it happens but the bulk of tiny counties isn't the problem here.

53.4-44.9% as of right now

Honestly it's all about Wichita now. Thompson is not doing as well as he needs to be in rural areas.

It's quickly turning into a nail-biter, but the fact we're even describing it as one should be seen as an accomplishment for Thompson.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 104 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   22,422   53%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   690   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   19,063   45%   
    

53.1-45.2%

Before anybody makes any call one way or another, let's remember that Sedgwick is barely reporting anything outside of EV. We won't know what any of this truly means until we see at least a few dozen more precincts from there dump.

Edwards fully reporting: 78-21 Estes (79-16 Trump)

Am I missing something or is everyone missing the fact that Sedgewick appears to be largely out and Thompson is romping there? Even given the Democratic League of early voters, I'm not sure why there's so much pessimism among Democrats right now.

This could've been less of a nail-biter if the DNC actually funded money for Thompson's campaign.

Enten says Thompson needs +9 in Sedgwick to win.

Edwards finished tallying. Estes wins there 78-21.

It looks like Butler still has 30 precincts left to count too,  it mostly comes down to those two counties.  

those tiny tiny tiny counties are atm over-represented right now by FAAAAAR and much more republican anyway.

Democrats are pessimistic creatures.

Because of the 2016 Presidential election results.

I guarantee you even if Thompson loses by a razor-thin margin they'll say "well, looks like populism failed here."

We're having some occasional flashbacks of election night.

Don't forget Harvey County. Thompson is crushing it there.

I feel like as a party, we collectively have PTSD

it is effing kansas, which doubled down on brownback even while it seemingly hates the guy and holds together anyway.

and EV is a bad indicator as 2016 has shown.

Dude, look at the numbers coming from the rural precincts. Estes is doing just fine out there.

17/23 reporting in Barber: 71-27 Estes (82-13 Trump)

I see two possibilities. The rural counties carry Estes over the finish line, or Wichita and surrounding burbs betray Republicans and elect Thompson.

It all comes down to the election day turnout in Sedgwick and the surrounding counties. If the election day vote doesn't give Estes much of a boost in those counties, Thompson might still pull this off. Otherwise, Estes probably pulls ahead.

Yeah, thanks DNC. Such an effective party.

51-48 Thompson

51-48 Thompson... his margin is down to ~1,600. Still not much out of Sedgwick though. Butler is looking pretty loyal to Estes.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 130 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   24,892   51%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   804   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   23,239   48%   
    
    

Somewhere just dumped, and the lead has been cut to 1,500 for Thompson.

I really wouldn't count Thompson out given what is outstanding (Wichita mainly) and what has come in

Sedgwick is still almost completely out

Butler gave Estes a bump, he's up 63-35 there now. But Thompson is still up 56-43 in Harvey, with more votes in.

Butler

Just an update: 60% of the precincts outside of Butler, Sedgwick and Sumner have reported. This probably means more like three-quarters of their votes are in already.

As of right now:

50.9 (Thompson)
47.5 (Estes)
1.6 (Rockhold)

The precincts with the most out in Sedgwick tend to be more GOP than what's already in.

Yeah, the votes are still outstanding in Sedgwick. If Thompson keeps a good enough lead there he'll win.

21% in
Thompson 50.9%
Estes 47.5%

() (http://s54.photobucket.com/user/kyle444444/media/Kanasa_3.png.html)

What are the key counties for tonight?

There's evidence that plenty of Republicans defected to Thompson, so who knows.

I'm reminded of election night...

"Miami is still out,"

"Cleveland is still out,"

"Detroit is still out,"

Still nothing out of Stafford, Pratt, Harper, Elk, Greenwood, and Chautauqua counties. They make up ~5% of the vote.

Edit: Chautauqua comes in at 79-20 Estes with 5 out of 15 reporting.

Sedgwick updated, county now:

James A. Thompson             ......   20900 / 57%
Chris Rockhold                ......     559 /  1%
Ron Estes                     ......   15091 / 41%
WRITE-IN                      ......      49 /  0%

The PTSD is too real...

Chautauqua just dropped about 225 votes: 79-20 Estes (83-13 Trump). That's probably most of the votes out of there.

James Thompson (Democratic)    50.5%   28,658
Ron Estes (Republican)    47.7%   27,054

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 199 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   28,646   51%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   937   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   27,105   48%   
    

Estes probably has this. Thompson doesn't seem to be padding to his margin in Sedgwick at all in terms of actual votes.

I'm increasingly thinking that Estes pulls this one out, but the fact that it's this close is terrifying.

Local news:

https://twitter.com/KWCH12/status/851970046876426240


...

I assume Democrats lose this later in the night, but wow.

Sedgwick just had a dump.   Thompson's numbers dropped 2%.  

yeah, i also totally wonder why the DNC is not spending massively in GOP+ 30 or something Kansas races.

Elk coming through for Thompson.

95-10, but still.

Elk County dropped, Thompson wins 86-14.

Thompson won Elk County

It was a mistake. Estes 358-Thompson 90.

Elk was wrong, lol

Nvm, Estes won 78-17 there. Votes weren't updated yet.

It looks like Thompson is going to lose this one.

Elk looked like another brief error, going for Thompson than Estes. Shocked the crap out of me, though

Ouch for Thompson

Lee Fang‏Verified account @lhfang  3m3 minutes ago
 Campaign finance reports in #KS04 show almost entire GOP leadership sending funds to Estes, while Dems gave almost nothing to Thompson.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 210 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   28,741   50%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   952   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   27,489   48%   
    

at this point, thompson would need a MASSIVE sedgwick win and i am not trusting kansas of all places enough to pull this off.

well, going to be a great showing anyway....congratulations, grassroots, i am impressed and hopeful.

Thompson up by less than 1,000 votes now.

https://twitter.com/pmiller1693/status/851971019657162752

Thompson running well ahead of Davis in Wichita's Davis-Trump precincts. Good sign.

It's gonna come down to the HSS column. This is KS-04 we're talking about here. 2018 might be a D wave.

Estes has this, don't expect margin in Sedgwick and especially Harvey to stay like this. And he's down less than 1300 votes so far.

Cowley just finished.

Kingman dumped, down to just about 600 votes.

Is Thompson really similar to Manchin?

Estes is doing 25% better in Election Day Vote in Sedgwick

Looks like Thompson is going to get Fairfax'd.

only if this outrage and this government incompetence is holding up for another 18 months.

I feel like I'm two refreshes away from a 1,000 vote Estes lead.

Trump wins again!

He's a Berniecrat. He even did an AMA on the Sanders subreddit a couple weeks ago.

49-49 right now

Tied race

Yup... Thompson's lead has been whittled down to 265 votes.

Thompson needs a massive boost out of Sedgwick otherwise the smaller rural counties will erase whatever is left of his lead easily.

Because they can't smell opportunity when it's crammed up their nostrils

What counts as a moral win here if you're a Democrat? Estes +7? Estes +4?

200 votes now.

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 275 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   30,394   49%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   1,012   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   30,129   49%   
    

Less than double-digits.

Estes just took the lead.

Any outcome at this point would be a moral win. Estes should've won by at least 20.

It's over.

And Estes is in the lead. Let's hope Thompson keeps this in single-digits.

Sadly, looks like probably so to me.

An interesting aspect of this is that it does seem pretty clear that Republicans seem to have held up much better in rural areas than in the Witchita suburbs. That supports the suburbs-anti-trump-revolt idea that is floating around. If Democrats can make gains capitalizing on an anti-trump backlash, it will be in districts like GA-06.

This was a symbolic victort nonetheless. Will probably spark a lot of confidence for Dems when it comes to GA-6 but especially MT-AL.

this district is sooo republican, single digits would be a disaster.

Single digits

Estes takes the lead in the SoS count:

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 298 of 620
Candidate    Votes    %    
D-James A. Thompson    30,590    49%    
     
L-Chris Rockhold    1,032    2%    
     
R-Ron Estes    30,708    49%    
 

Pratt takes Thompson back up 50-49


Just kidding..

Sedgewick vote in?

There is still hope!!!

This was an error.

IMO it already is a moral victory.

Even though Thompson will probably lose, a lesson here should be taken into context by Democrats: a left-wing populist message was able to make a normally Safe R race into a nail-biter, and a bit more of a push from the party itself probably could've made the difference here.

Well thanks Democrats for blowing a shining opportunity.

About a quarter.

Assume all positive Thompson results outside of Sedgwick is an error until further notice.

Thanks Trump!

Pratt fully reporting: 64-34 Estes (74-20 Trump)

It's still genuinely shocking they had to defend this district at all.

Oops missed the east side of the district! Here are the current results.

47% in

Estes 49.3%
Thompson 49.0%

() (http://s54.photobucket.com/user/kyle444444/media/Kanasa_4.png.html)

United States House of Representatives 004
Precincts Reporting: 310 of 620
Candidate   Votes   %   
D-James A. Thompson   31,143   49%   
    
L-Chris Rockhold   1,063   2%   
    
R-Ron Estes   31,743   50%   

Estes is in the lead now, but waiting for the rest of Sedgwick before making any call here.
    

No it's not. Thompson still has a substantial lead in Sedgwick. It's only over if that county narrows substantially.

Hopefully Democrats see this and actually get involved in Georgia and Montana.  We're tired of being cucked!

Seems like Harvey is trending away from Thompson. Bad news.

Stafford all in now.

Estes up just shy of 1,000.

The fact that it came so close shows that a bigger push (and more money, especially) could've made the difference. That's the lesson to take from this, and if the DCCC comes back tomorrow and says "well, the populist message failed here, let's keep focusing on suburban districts" then they'll continue to lose golden opportunities like this one.

Kochs keep this district in their clutches.

I still think it's an accomplishment it wound up this close. Good news for Jon "Solo" Ossoff

Lol you gotta be kidding me... this was not a shining opportunity. Let's not act like this is fertile territory for Democrats. The fact that this is even somewhat close is reflective of Trump but mostly Brownback's failures.


Again... pay attention to where Thompson is outperforming Clinton and Davis, and to where he's not.

Stafford is done.

And our assumptions are based on Sedgwick narrowing substantially :P

To be clear, Estes is likely gonna win by 6+. There was no opportunity here for Dems except for a moral victory. The opportunity in GA-06 (and in MT-AL), on the other hand, is very real.

Two-thirds of all outstanding precincts are in Sedgwick.-

the DNC atm is not caring about being populist or not but about winable races.

KS is the longest of longest shots.

And there's the Estes 1,000 vote lead.

Thompson's edge in Sedgwick has fallen with every election day precinct reporting.  The election day vote is tied there, at best.  And if RI says what's out in Sedgwick is more Republican-leaning than what's in, he would know.

They've been plenty involved in Georgia. Quist has a much better chance of winning in Montana than Thompson ever had here, and the DCCC starts a big push there he can definitely win.

But the election day vote from Sedgwick that is in so far is a totally different story than the early vote.