Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[Tintrlvr]

I am in line to vote at my precinct in Brooklyn. It’s one of the only precincts in NYC where Jill Stein beat Donald Trump, to give a sense of the politics. Easily over an hour line, mostly outdoors in the light rain and well after rush hour. I’ve never seen it like this; the line was much shorter at the same time in 2016. That said, we have no real competitive elections on the ballot beyond city initiatives, which I have to guess are not driving voters to the polls.

[Tintrlvr]

Heavy rain in NJ. Will it affect turnout?

The rain is supposed to be over by 2-3 so it’s only during the lowest-turnout part of the day anyway.

Finally voted. 1:15 wait. My precinct had a shorter wait than some others at the same location so some were waiting for closer to 2 hours. The outdoor line was shorter when I left, partially because it was later and partially because light rain had turned into a downpour. Rain should be over by the evening rush, though.

Edit: I wrote in Adem Bunkedekko (the narrow primary loser) instead of my congresswoman so won’t count to the national GCB result.

Edit2: This is in Brooklyn, if not clear from my previous post. No competitive races here.

[Tintrlvr]

Light turnout here in CA-25.  This is a very democratic area in Lancaster but Democrats don't vote. Katie Hill will need to win Santa Clarita and keep it close in Simi Valley to pull an upset. If she doesn't, Steve Knight wins. I can only report about the turnout here in Lancaster but I did noticed Democrats being competitive in Santa Clarita from talking to friends.

I'm not sure how much you can gain from this considering how much of California is now VBM.

Right; I'd expect on-the-day turnout to seem really low everywhere in California compared to historical patterns for people used to voting in person.

[Tintrlvr]

The NC House results on CNN are nuts. I wish they had the county breakdown.

The Ohio results on NYT are even nutsier. Dems leading some seats that weren't even supposed to be competitive (OH-15, OH-16) but getting crushed in OH-01? Probably the most frustrating part about House race reporting is the difficulty in getting county-by-county results, which would I think reduce a lot of the confusion about results.

[Tintrlvr]

Looks like Spanberger won; she pulled ahead of Brat, almost all votes have been counted.

73% in and Brat is more than +2 on CNN.   

Where are these figures coming from?

CNN   https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/results/senate

NYT has 94% in with Spanberger ahead by 0.2%. They're way ahead of CNN on that one.

[Tintrlvr]

Steve Schale just posted that Broward has 150,000 votes left to count. Right now, Scott's up 55,000. This race is still close but not looking great for Ds, and the governor's race is worse. It's too early to call FL. I have to assume there are provisionals etc.

150,000 is *probably* not going to deliver a 55k margin for Nelson, but it's also unclear what exactly is outstanding elsewhere. Dade is supposed to have some outstanding, too. And, as you said, there will be provisionals. I think Florida won't be called tonight and may need to rely on the provisionals for the result.

[Tintrlvr]

Politico is further ahead of CNN, and Beto is now up by 200,000 votes.

https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/texas/

The difference seems to be Harris County. NYT/CNN don't have it, Politico does.

I think Cruz still wins in Texas but it will be close and depends to some degree on the on-the-day votes, which may be more R or more D than the early votes that are 90% of the ballots counted as of now.

[Tintrlvr]

What's up with NJ-3?
McArthur up 62-36 according to CNN, 25% of votes counted.

Only Ocean County thus far, the more Republican part of the district. Nothing reporting from Burlington County, the more Democratic and larger part. But those Ocean numbers are probably not surmountable for Kim unless his margin in Burlington is unusually large (or the margin in Ocean comes down).

[Tintrlvr]

Who is independent Sam McCann? Currently winning Pike County in the Illinois gubernatorial race and also doing really well (like 20%+) in some adjacent counties.

[Tintrlvr]

Uh... the Democrat is currently leading by nearly 40 points with 20% in in UT-02 (not UT-04). Error?

[Tintrlvr]

Unfortunately it doesn't look great for Slotkin at this point, despite her strong second NYT poll.

If you look at the Senate/Governor results, you'll see Ingham County is mostly still out but Livingston County is basically done. So Slotkin still has room to recover.

Longjohn is beating Upton right now, though, by around 4 points with 49% reporting, and Stevens looks like a relatively safe bet to win over Epstein (up by 8 points with 50% in).

[Tintrlvr]

I mean I know it splits SLC, BUT HOW IS THIS HAPPENING IN UT-2

UT-03 is surprisingly close as well. I guess Mormons went relatively D in House races. Not enough for more than maybe one D gain but still an impressive result.

[Tintrlvr]

I don't think this is up anywhere yet, but Rossi is going DOWN. He's currently trailing by 15 (!) points. Early returns in WA tends to skew conservative/incumbent.

http://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/CongressionalDistrict8.html

Yeah, that's a terrible result for Rossi. Seems very likely Schrier wins. Also bodes well for the Orange County seats I think...

[Tintrlvr]

De Leon is only 3 points behind Feinstein in the early California returns.

[Tintrlvr]

Governor Race in Wisconsin is extremely close, 96% of Milwaukee reported  

The WOW counties are also all in. Remaining votes are scattered, some in the Driftless, a bunch in La Crosse, some in Dane, some in the Walker-friendly eastern small cities, some in random rural counties. Given how close it is, tiny, heavily D Menominee could also make the difference when it finally decides to drop.

[Tintrlvr]

What is the box score on the governors?   How many were up and what flipped?

Ds have gained 4 so far (Michigan, Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico). Iowa and Wisconsin are nailbiters but Dems currently lead. I'd say the Ds are favored in Wisconsin while Rs are favored to regain the lead in Iowa based on what is out. Maine looks virtually certain to go D but has not been called yet. No results have been reported in Nevada yet. So anything from D+4, likely +5 to D+8.

Edit: Forgot about Georgia. Sizeable R lead with a lot counted. Some of the most Democratic parts of the state, including I think the entire city of Atlanta, have not reported yet, but it seems to me almost certainly not enough to make a difference in the winner even if the result tightens significantly.

[Tintrlvr]

Kevin de Leon easily won Lassen County. That is hilarious!

Republicans are clearly voting for de Leon. He's winning the entire Central Valley. I don't think it will be enough, especially given the large undervote, but he is doing much better than I expected.

If de Leon beats Feinstein on the back of Republican votes, I think the top two system is going to be repealed.

[Tintrlvr]

One thing that I think should be heartening for the Democrats from this result is that this looks like a pretty durable House majority. There are very few seats that they won in very Republican territory (really only Kendra Horn's shock victory in OK-05 comes to mind) that would be vulnerable in 2020 or guaranteed losses in a Republican wave, while the Democrats have a number of opportunities where they came close this year with weaker candidates or where attention was not focused to build on the majority further in 2020.

[Tintrlvr]

James only took 8% of the black vote in MI.

But he still managed to keep Stabenow within single digits. He is the first Republican to come within that range since Spencer Abraham in 2000.

Overall, though, this election has been a bizarre one. Democrats picked up the House, as many expected, but they have lost three seats in the Senate and did not do as well in many of the gubernatorial and state level-races. Bright spots for Democrats, I would say, include the victories of Kelly and Davids in Kansas and the upset in Oklahoma-5. But Donnelly, Heitkamp, O'Rourke, McCaskill (presumably), and even Nelson (also presumably) losing, along with the gubernatorial putdowns in Georgia and Florida, are the bright sports for Republicans.

Yeah I agree with all of this besides Davids(not really a bright spot it was expected) and Texas . Texas raises fire alarms for the GOP. AG and LG are within 5 and Beto is within 3. Beto was expected to lose and he probably overperformed.

I think TX is more about Cruz's quality as a candidate then anything significant long-term.

The Democrats came within 5 points or less of winning *five* more House seats in Texas, which would have taken them to a *majority* of the Texas House delegation. They didn't manage it, but I wouldn't want to be the one to tell John Carter, Kevin Marchand, Michael McCaul, Will Hurd or Chip Roy -- or, for that matter, Pete Olson, Dan Crenshaw, Roger Williams or Ron Wright, who all won by less than 10 points -- to relax, don't worry, this will all blow over, they're safe long-term, it was just about Cruz.

This wasn't just about Cruz.

[Tintrlvr]

Carson City dropped in Nevada. Heller wins it 54-41, which is a slight underperformance on margin compared to Trump-Clinton (Trump won it 52-38). Nothing to indicate anything but a Rosen victory thus far.

[Tintrlvr]

Other rural counties in Nevada, Heller is also slightly underperforming Trump. He's winning Eureka 84-10, Trump won it 85-9; Lander 76-17, exact same as 2016; Nye, 65-28, Trump won it 68-26; Esmeralda 75-14, Trump won it 78-15; Storey 63-31, Trump won it 63-29. All points to a 3-4 point Rosen win. Nye is especially good for Rosen because most of the population is exurban Las Vegas so a swing to her relative to Clinton indicates a similar result in Clark.

[Tintrlvr]

One favorable county result for Heller: 66-33 in Douglas, up from 62-30 for Trump. But that is only a 1-point improvement on Trump's margin when he's eroding around 2 points on the margins elsewhere. And of course Trump lost by 2 points so he needs more than 1 point of gains relative to Trump to win.

[Tintrlvr]

Storey: 63-31 Heller, down from 63-29 Trump

[Tintrlvr]

OMG. At 98% in, Evers is UP narrowly again. And most of the outstanding precincts are in La Crosse County.

Yup. The city of Green Bay came in for Evers. Evers has this, I think. Most outstanding votes are in La Crosse, Portage and Calumet with a tiny smattering elsewhere. Calumet is a Walker county but La Crosse and Portage are both Evers counties, and I think even Calumet alone couldn't net Walker 3,500 votes.

Unclear if the rumored missing 50,000 Milwaukee County ballots got counted, but obviously if not they could cushion Evers's win.

[Tintrlvr]

Yeah, people here feeling very optimistic after that Washoe number.

If by "feeling optimistic" you mean realizing that the race is over and can be called, yeah.

Yeah, Rosen wins Washoe 53-44. That's the race. Don't even need to see Clark, no way Heller overperforms enough there to make up for it considering Washoe only went to Clinton 46-45 and Heller is underperforming Trump in the rural counties, too.