2010 Primaries Thread (It's all over now, baby blue)

[Torie]

I watched on C-SPAN some of a Marshall Cunningham "debate," with this odd enabling media chick moderator, who seemed to just gush over everything either of them said, wetting her pants. Very odd. Anyway, Marshall will be shredded in the General if she wins the primary. I am quite confident Burr is rooting for her.

[Torie]

Looking at the county returns in Utah (mostly absentees), Lee is winning in most places, including vote heavy counties like Utah and Washington, along with Salt Lake. I suspect that he will win, unless today voters go a different direction. Lee is just a lot smarter than Bridgewater, and deserved to win.

Is there a link to the AP results?

Great news about Scott winning, and winning big. That might be the best news of the primary season so for the GOP. Good job Charleston, a city that I love anyway. 

[Torie]

A slug of today votes just came in, and it was about evenly split between  Bridgewater and Lee. This might be a long night. Critically, Lee won the absentees in Utah County handily, but with the today votes, they were split. Bridgewater could not survive if he were thrashed in Utah County. Apparently he won't be.

Lee is thrashing Bridgewater in smaller but still significant Washington County, down in Utah Dixie, where his ancestor John D. Lee lived who led the slaughter of the Francher party in the Mountain Meadows massacre, and has thousands of descendants, including this particular Lee.

[Torie]

This might be a long night.

Pretty much this. I've personally switched my support to Lee(although Bridgewater has the cooler last name ), so the fact that he's winning thus far makes me happy, but we'll see. It'll be interesting, seeing just how split Utah's Republicans are between establishment and Tea Party.

True, but the two big counties that Bridgewater is carrying, Davis and Weber, and disproportionately in, and substantially disproportionately in. The lead in Salt Lake County is see sawing, but basically skin tight.  It may well be that Lee wins because of big margins in Dixie.

[Torie]

And no today precincts are in (all 38 of them), in Iron County (Cedar City), where John D. Lee and the MMM killers lived, which was then the "capital" of Dixie. I wonder by what margin Lee carries that county. That might generate a 1,000 vote pad all by itself, if my little historical theory plays out here.

Addendum: 13 of Iron's 38 precincts just came in, and Lee  carried them 3-2, generating a 450 vote margin.

[Torie]

A bit more of Dixie came in, and Davis has shot its wad, and Lee has a 2,000 vote lead now. He is going to win, unless Bridgewater has pockets of strength in Salt Lake which have not come in yet, which I guess is possible, if Bridgewater is winning the wealthier precincts (I have no idea if he is), of which Salt Lake has a considerable number, and those substantially disproportionately remain uncounted. Bridgewater is going to need to win Salt Lake County by a few thousand votes to win, assuming Utah County stays even, and I assume that it will, since that county is pretty homogenious.

Addendum: Most of the rest of Weber just came in, and that cut Lee's margin down to 1,500, and Bridgewater very narrowly carried the latest smallish batch of votes from Salt Lake. He needs to win in Salt Lake uncounted precincts by a bit more than very narrowly, maybe like 55-45, or 57-43, or something like that.

[Torie]

Well a bunch more precincts in Utah County just came in, and they were not even. Lee carried them by maybe 55-45. This race is now very close to a call. Salt Lake counted a few more precincts, and Bridgewater again carried them, but again very narrowly. Not enough.

Lee has a 4,000 vote margin now, with a bunch more of Dixie left, in case Salt Lake surprises, as a pad. That is why it is very close to a call.

[Torie]

Bridgewater needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat in Salt Lake now to have a chance, but so many precincts are out in Salt Lake, and because I don't know enough about the lay of the land there (and that place is the most heterogenious in Utah), that I don't quite want to call it yet. Someone who knew more could, perhaps. Weber has all of its precincts in (the other modest pocket of strength for Bridgewater relatively speaking), so Lee has a remaining small pad yet to come in, in Dixie (maybe a couple of thousand vote margin or something like that), so Bridgewater needs to carry the remaining half of Salt Lake votes by about 6,000 or something. That is a very tall order.

[Torie]

Yes, and another 150 precincts came in from Salt Lake, and Bridgewater carried them by about 52-48, far short of what he needs, and Utah County still has about 80 precincts out, and there is no reason to believe that Bridgewater will get any margin from those (and probably lose them by about 1,000 votes), and Dixie still has about 1,000 vote pad left for Lee. It's finally over. I am calling it for Lee.

[Torie]

Well, this certainly is exciting. Bentley is winning by a wide margin, it's Roby by a landslide, and Sewell is up 53-47 with a big chunk of Jefferson county in, so Smoot is clearly done for.

The Byrne v Bentley race had a huge urban-rural split, one of the most dramatic in a primary that I have ever seen.

[Torie]

It looks to me like Moran is going to win. The county Wichita is in, is largely already in (Sedgwick County), which Tiahrt carried massively. He seems to have largely shot his wad. Am I missing anything?

Addendum: I see that my better, beat me to the punch by a minute or two. 

[Torie]

Am I missing anything?

Outside of it not mattering?

I don't like Tiahrt much, so yes, it matters to me! 

[Torie]

Who are supposed to be the strongest candidates in the general for MI-1 in both parties?

[Torie]

Upton looks like he is going to win. Thanks heavens. It would be awful if he lost. He is an excellent congressperson. I wonder what was going on there. Is this another tea party thing?

[Torie]

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Sounds ominous. The GOP is trying hard not to take control of the House it seems.

[Torie]

Heh, Tiahrt won Johnson County.  Still probably not enough - but note my last post yet again.

Color me confused. The top line in this race say Total   1781/3316, suggesting that about 1600 precincts are out, but when I look at the individual counties, I have trouble getting to 500 out, if that much. If it is that low, then Tiahrt may well win, since about 70 precincts are out in Sedgwick.

[Torie]

Well the top line precincts out number must be a typo or something. Sedgwick is all in, and Moran has a 3,000 vote lead. A few small counties are not in at all, and it may matter a lot where they are, since this race seem driven by geography to a substantial extent, which is not surprising between two competing congressmen.

[Torie]

So, we have 28 precincts left and Benishek leads by 36 votes.  Let me see what's left.

Alpena (1) - Benishek +5% so far
Arenac (3) - Allen +3% so far
Bay (3) - Allen +3% so far
Charlevoix (1) - Allen +33% so far
Dickenson (7) - Benishek +54% so far
Iosco (4) - Benishek +14% so far
Mackinac (1) - Allen +3% so far
Presque Isle (3) - Allen +1% so far

Any guesses?

How many registered voters are in the precincts that are out? The tea party man would seem to have the edge, given Dickenson, but some precincts sometimes tend to be have a lot more voters than others. How many precincts are in, in Dickenson, and what is the raw total in the GOP primary? That may give a clue about the size of the uncounted precincts.

[Torie]

Sumner   0/42   

Sumner is just south of Wichita and in the T man's district. Just saying. Moran leads by 1,000 votes or so. Sumner in case you all are not aware of it, has the highest wheat production in the United States of any county, or did when I read this factlet about 20 years ago or whatever. It is wheat fields from county line to county line, with very little interruption.

[Torie]

The teabagger should have the edge based on that.

The Tea Party guy is up by about 400 now, with 4 precincts still out in Dickenson. It looks close to over now, absent arithmetic errors.

[Torie]

Riley and Butler have done their thing. So it is Reno v Sumner, with a few other small counties out (where are they located?), with Moran up by 1,700.

[Torie]

[Torie]

Hays is the town where that horrific murder occurred, about which Truman Capote wrote in his major novel, In Cold Blood. I just thought I would add some local color. The killer said it was a real nice family, and he really liked them all, until the moment he cut all their throats. The guy seemed to have some emotional issues I guess.

[Torie]

A big batch of Moran's counties just came in including part of Reno - he's up almost 6K.

Yes, it is over. Moran just won. Most of Sumner also came in, so the T man is out of cards.

Well we still have the "black precincts" phenom as Spade described it. Whatever.  Maybe the jurisdiction of Kansas includes the moon, and it has a lot of precincts.

[Torie]

A big batch of Moran's counties just came in including part of Reno - he's up almost 6K.

Yes, it is over. Moran just won. Most of Sumner also came in, so the T man is out of cards.

Well we still have the "black precincts" phenom as Spade described it. Whatever.  Maybe the jurisdiction of Kansas includes the moon, and it has a lot of precincts.

The black precincts comment refers to another race.

Oh, I assumed it was a reference to black as in black holes -  a cosmic term.

By the way, Greenwood is still out, all out, all 19 precincts, and it is in the T zone. Does it have enough voters to close a 6,000 vote gap? Er no. Maybe a 500 vote gap - at best for the T man.