2012 Non-Presidential Primaries Thread (6/12 - AR runoff, ME, ND, NV, SC, VA)

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Some key California races.

Prop. 29 tobacco tax - California has one of the lowest cigarette taxes, and hasn't raised them in 14 years, but Big Tobacco is spending a ton of money to defeat it like the last Prop. Tossup.

2nd place US Senate - Who gets to lose to DiFi in November? I hope it's a real Democrat.

And then there are various elections where we already know which two presumably be on the November ballot, but tomorrow can be a judge of the level of support they have. Stark vs. Swallel. Berman vs. Sherman, and so on.

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2nd place US Senate - Who gets to lose to DiFi in November? I hope it's a real Democrat.

Feinstein is already not a "real Democrat"? Both Democratic and Republican loonies (especially on partisam sites, but occasionaly here too) continue to amaze me and make me laugh...

OK, she's no Manchin, but she's pretty disappointing compared to Boxer, she's not. Or Sherrod Brown, who represents a much more conservative state.

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OK, she's no Manchin, but she's pretty disappointing compared to Boxer, she's not. Or Sherrod Brown, who represents a much more conservative state.

Nevertheless, she is quite reliable moderate-liberal Democrat. No one will mistake her for a Republican. And by my standards there is no really conservative Democrats in Congress anymore (just as there are no liberal Republicans) - even Boren is moderate-conservative (especially when compared with really conservative Democrats of the past)

Manchin is pretty right-wing, so whatever.


California polls have closed, but nothing seems to be reporting yet. It could be a slow night, 55% are expected to vote absentee.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/

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Usually in California it's heavily Republican areas that report first, but the results in so far seem a bit bay area heavy. Sadly the Republican endorsed candidate Emken is in a clear 2nd place for US Senate. Prop. 29 is passing, but it had better be if it's heavily bay area results so far.

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Results are really early.

In CA-15, Stark is trailing to Swalwell in early results. There's a 3rd candidate with a good chunk of the vote too. They'll likely both be on the November ballot.
 
In CA-30, Sherman is leading Berman. They'll definitely both be on the November ballot.

For Presidential primaries, Obama is at 100% (what happened to my write-in damn it), Romney is 81%. American Independents and Greens have close races. Johnson is leading the Libertarian primary, and Rocky Anderson is leading Peace & Freedom.

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More conservative areas reporting. Prop. 29 is down to 52.7%. It'll be sad if Big Tobacco has yet another victory in California. We have one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the country. It's currently failing in Los Angeles county, which is not a good sign.

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It turns out the SOS results are really slow. Stark is up 45-35 in the Alameda county results.

http://www.acgov.org/rov/current_election/1717.htm

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California polls have closed, but nothing seems to be reporting yet. It could be a slow night, 55% are expected to vote absentee.

I wonder how postal voting will work with election-day registration if it passes?

http://www.thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/01/493486/california-election-day-registration/

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If they did same day registration, they'd probably give you a provisional ballot at the polls.

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And here is why the blanket primary can be bad. CA-31 is considered a tossup, but the 4 Democrats are trailing the 2 Republicans.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-congress/district/31

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More conservative areas reporting. Prop. 29 is down to 52.7%. It'll be sad if Big Tobacco has yet another victory in California. We have one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the country. It's currently failing in Los Angeles county, which is not a good sign.

You also have pretty much the lowest smoking rate in the country. I'd rather have fewer smokers & lower taxes than vice versa.

Well, raising cigarette taxes certainly isn't going to increase the smoking rate.

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More conservative areas reporting. Prop. 29 is down to 52.7%. It'll be sad if Big Tobacco has yet another victory in California. We have one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the country. It's currently failing in Los Angeles county, which is not a good sign.

You also have pretty much the lowest smoking rate in the country. I'd rather have fewer smokers & lower taxes than vice versa.

Well, raising cigarette taxes certainly isn't going to increase the smoking rate.

Just point out California is probably Big Tobacco's least favorite state. It doesn't matter what laws you have, at the end of the day what matters is demand.

Why wouldn't they hate Utah more?

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Prop. 29 is at 50.1%. Most of the bay area is in. The SoCal counties where it's failing (which include LA county) are mostly not in. I think it's hosed. The one hope for it is that maybe it's the more conservative areas of LA county reporting. I can't really see it passing statewide while failing in LA county.

Big Tobacco has prevented California from raising cigarette taxes in 14 years, and they are only about half the nationwide average now.

And here is why the blanket primary can be bad. CA-31 is considered a tossup, but the 4 Democrats are trailing the 2 Republicans.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-congress/district/31

Meanwhile, the reverse is happening in the neighboring 8th district, which has a Republican incumbent:

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-congress/district/8

There are Republicans in 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th there. Not exactly the reverse.

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Prop. 29 is now trailing for the first time.

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CA-31 is certainly an upset. Turnout combined with the undemocratic nature of the top 2 primary system screwed the Democrats there. The other cases where a party got shut out were not upsets.

Here's the list

CA-08 - Democrats ran, but 2 Republicans advanced
CA-31 - Ditto

CA-30 - Republicans ran, but 2 Democrats advanced
CA-33 - Republican candidate, but a Democrat and an Independent advanced.

In addition, there was 1 district (CA-23) where no Democrat ran, and  several districts where no Republican ran.

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I wouldn't infer too much about November from the June results here in California. Only 24% of registered voters voted. Wisconsin had over half the voters we did yesterday.

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Prop. 29 might pass after all. It's up to 49.6% (up from 49.3% Wednesday). It's trailing by 37,000 votes. The SOS says that there are over a million ballots left to be processed.

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New York also has congressional primaries on the 26th.

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New York also has congressional primaries on the 26th.

Which have the potential to send the most radical politician in New York to Congress. Should be crazy.

Who's this?

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And Hatch will thrash Liljenquist the same day, so a return to regularly scheduled, sane programming.

Correct.

In case anyone had doubt, BYU came out with a poll today with Hatch up big, well over 50%. They did a bunch of hypothetical scenarios on how undecideds would break, and his average margin of victory was 29 points. Don't expect Liljenquist to even hit 40%.

Oh well, it would have been too crazy if the second most senior Senate Republican joined the most senior Senate Republican in being primaried.

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Calling the NY GOP Senate Primary for Wendy Long.

Also calling my NY-19 for Julian Schreibman. It's a landslide

Might be a little early for that.

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Looks like the alleged ''threat'' of Charles Barron taking NY-08 was a bogus one. Either that, or David Duke's endorsement nuked him. He's getting clobbered 3-1.

Yeah, that one is over.