CA-50 Special Election Busby vs. Bilbray

[Sam Spade]

The infamous "papers" remark will cancel out the damage done by the McCain fiasco.

Bilbray: 49%
Busby 46%
Griffith: 3%
Libertarian: 2%

54% votes for GOP leaning candidates in a district that went 55% for Bush.

This race says as much about the November '06 elections as  Chandler and Herseth's '04 victories predicted in Nov '04 election.

Even though I said Bilbray by 2 in the earlier thread, I think your prediction is probably better. 

Here's what to look for:  About 12:00 EST, the absentees will start coming in.

My prediction is that if Bilbray is only by 5% in those, he will probably go down.  If he's up by 5-10%, we will see a close race, but edge Bilbray (more with a greater percentage).  If he's above 10% in an absentee lead, it's over with.

[Sam Spade]

In CA, the absentees are usually counted before polls close or first, whichever.

They are usually dumped one county at a time.  Since CA-50 is entirely within San Diego County, they are all dumped at once (the results above).  It looks strange how they've numbered it, but that's how it is.

As I said earlier, I'm about 90% sure Bilbray will win, as these results seem to indicate a Bilbray win of about 4%, based on voting patterns in the last primary.  In order to make sure that something doesn't change or these results are not accurate, I reserve certainty on any prediction at this time.

Interestingly enough, this absentee number is the exact same absentee number Busby got in the first primary.

[Sam Spade]

Interestingly enough, this absentee number is the exact same absentee number Busby got in the first primary.

Exact same? Odd. Any chance of it being an error then?

Nope.   It's the percentage number, not the actual vote total.

[Sam Spade]

Results in California are coming slower than molasses.

100 out of 500 precincts (20%)

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
24786
50.52%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
21269
43.35%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2108
4.30%

PAUL KING - LIB
895
1.82%

[Sam Spade]

Slight bump for Busby...

124 out of 500 (24.8%)

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
26637
50.02%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
23461
44.05%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2215
4.16%

PAUL KING - LIB
945
1.77%

[Sam Spade]

151 of 500 precincts (30.2%)

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
28568
49.67%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
25605
44.52%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2340
4.07%

PAUL KING - LIB
998
1.74%

Problem is, these are probably Busby's best precincts we're getting right now.  The closer in we go, the more GOP it will become, I would predict, just based on the knowledge of the area.  I have been wrong before, though. 

[Sam Spade]

178 out of 500 precincts (35.6%).  Slight tick up for Bilbray.

At some point, I'm going to stop reporting and call it a race, but not just yet.

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
30683
49.80%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
27383
44.44%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2489
4.04%

PAUL KING - LIB
1063
1.73%

[Sam Spade]

The problem with this race is that this district has such a weirdly scattered precinct selection.  If votes are coming in regionally, we could suddenly see a massive uptick for Billbray if Encinitas reports, or one for Busby if parts of incorporated San Diego report.

Actually, it's the opposite of what you're thinking here.  The closer towards the coast you are and the more money you have, the more likely you are to vote for Busby and vice versa.

In the scheme of things, Carlsbad should be slightly favorable towards Bilbray, though.

Encinitas and Solana Beach are going to be the Busby strongholds.

The further you go away from the coast, in general, the more favorable it will be for Bilbray.  La Jolla is the Bilbray home base.

The little secret that I know is that the polling center where they're counting votes here is in the Encinitas/Solana Beach area.  Therefore, that area should report first and the further from the area should report later.  Absentees don't count in this observation.

[Sam Spade]

Another vote dump (nearly even split this time)

214 out of 500 precincts reporting (42.4% reporting)

I am pretty close to calling this one.

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
33468
49.59%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
30190
44.74%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2688
3.98%

PAUL KING - LIB
1139
1.69%

[Sam Spade]

Another vote dump (another slight Bilbray tick)

232 out of 500 precincts reporting (46.4% reporting)

Once we get up to 60%, I'm quitting for the night.  I'm also calling the race.  Bilbray will most likely win by somewhere in the range of 2%-4%, depending on exactly which precincts have yet to be counted.

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
35505
49.67%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
31955
44.70%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2827
3.95%

PAUL KING - LIB
1193
1.67%

[Sam Spade]

Another vote dump and probably the last for me tonight.

255 out of 500 precincts reporting (51.0% reporting)

Bilbray wins by 2%-4%, more towards the 4% now I'm thinking. 

Color me underimpressed.  As I said in the first special election, Busby's GOTV did not wow me.  It still doesn't.  She really didn't pull any more (1%-2%) than Kerry did in 2004 in a open Congressional election, since I think it's fair to say that most, if not almost all of Griffith's votes (endorsed by the Minutemen) came from potential Bilbray voters.

I'll be starting off with this one in Likely R for the general election in November in my next list.

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP
37593
49.66%

FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM
33945
44.84%

W. GRIFFITH - IND
2931
3.87%

PAUL KING - LIB
1237
1.63%

[Sam Spade]

What website has the election results for this race?

http://www.sdvote.org/election/congress.xml

[Sam Spade]

The last vote dump has pushed the margin up to Bilbray +5.11% at 56% of the precincts in.  The Bush margins around the edges seem to be holding up better than I thought they would.

I am thinking the final margin may be more in the 5%-6% range than than the 2%-4% range, now.

That is probably all for tonight for me, ciao..

[Sam Spade]

I'm calling it a night. I am dissapointed that Busby did not win, but I'm not suprised. This can be viewed as victory for the DCCC anyway. The NRCC spent millions on defending a seat which should have been won outright!

There are no Pyrrhic victories in politics, MAS, sorry.

Besides, this was 1 of only 9 open seats the GOP has to defend this year where Bush got less than 59% of the vote in 2004.  Spending money here was the correct move on the NRCC's part.  Incumbents can handle themselves, but open seats often can't.

[Sam Spade]

A couple of simple observations:

1.  Comparing this to the 2004 results between Cunningham and Busby is useless and blatantly partisan as well.  The partisan baseline is 2004 Bush numbers in the CD, adjusted.  If you want to mellow out any potential foibles in using one number, add 2000 to it and do the same thing.  This is what you gauge House seats with, especially open ones.

The simple fact is that Bilbray held onto the Bush baseline numbers fairly well, much better than I thought he would.  Leakage occurred mainly to third-party candidates, especially Griffith, but leakage to third-parties hurts much less than leakage to your key opponent.  It appears that here, which may not apply to other places, dissatisfied Republicans chose to protest by going the third-party route.

2.  It is interesting to note that Busby and Young, the two Democrats in the race, got 45.06% of the vote in April 2006.  She got 45.46% percent, an increase of 0.4%.  The Republicans spent a lot of money here, but so did Busby, who got nearly $4 million in campaign funds from outside sources.  A rather pathetic uptick for that type of money, imo.

3.  It is hard to predict whether the race would have been closer pre-Busby's now well-known dumb remarks.  It is therefore a little harder to place this race in a national contest as I might have been able to do earlier.  Still, if this is a harbinger of things to come, there is simply not the momentum as of June 2006, for the Democrats to be considered the favorites to take back the House.

4.  Busby really was a third-tier candidate, frankly.  Conditions almost turned right for her, but I think she probably lost her one chance at it.

[Sam Spade]

If every CD in the country voted precisely the way they voted for President in 2004, the Democrats would lose seats in Congress... they would lose a lot of seats... I think about 23 to be precise (insert partisan jab at gerrymandering here).

That's the reason why you calculate it against the deviation away from the mean, which will remove a few of those CDs and add others to the Dem list.

At present using this model, for example, there are 22 CDs with a Bush percentage of less than 50% against the mean.  I don't know the number of Democratic ones, because I haven't calculated it out.

Still, Bush 43, as a very polarizing figure, makes him almost the perfect gauge, or probably the most perfect we're going to get in a while.  Back in 1990s and 1980s, Presidents like Clinton and Bush 41 are a little bit harder to pigeonhole, as they won many Democratic or Republican CDs on the way to larger popular vote victories.

[Sam Spade]

TX-32 is held by Pete Sessions and is totally safe.  It was only close last time because of the redistricting and him facing Martin Frost.

The open seats in the House this year are as follows:

GOP

Bush 2004% @ >50% against mean
CO-07
IA-01

Bush 2004% @ 50%-55% against mean
AZ-08
CA-50 (now filled)
NY-24
WI-08
IL-06

Bush 2004% @ 55%-60% against mean
MN-06
NV-02
FL-13 (this one is close, I only have whole numbers here, not percentages)

Bush 2004% @ <60% against mean
CA-22
CO-05
ID-01
NE-03
OH-04
TN-01
TX-22
OK-05

DEM

Bush 2004% @ 45%-50% against mean
OH-06
IL-17

Bush 2004% @ 40%-45% against mean
HI-02
MD-03
OH-13

Bush 2004% @ >40% against mean
MN-05
NY-11
TN-09
NJ-13

Lack Congressional Data
or enough Congressional data to make wild guesses.  Both are Republican open seats.

FL-09 - I think both this and FL-11 were 55-45 CDs in 2004, but I don't have percentages here.
FL-11 - Read FL-11.