Oregon 2018 GE Mega-Thread

[NOVA Green]

Ok--- am extremely frustrated and dissatisfied with the State of the GOV / Statewide Election Board in the 2018 GE...

I have posted on multiple places about the OR- Nov '18 GE in Oregon, and there isn't any single location on this section of the Forum to post comprehensive data, let alone results, regarding statewide election results throughout the US, let alone Oregon.

Fine....

We now have enough data to say that 1,873,891 Oregonians have officially cast ballots vs 2,763,105 Registered voters (67.8% Turnout)....

Meanwhile on the Oregon Secretary of State website, we have 1,908,073 (69.1% Turnout), hence the 34,182 difference (Which likely we won't see until the official vote canvass when it comes to party REG)

https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/unofficial-ballot-return-nov-2018.pdf

Ok--- now that the overwhelming majority of the ballots have been cast in Oregon, time to see what the numbers indicate....

Let's start with the RV Vote Share by County within Oregon...



Now let's look at where the votes are distributed by County, considering the overwhelming majority of Oregon Votes have been counted...



Now let's look at where we saw the shifts between Registered Vote Share vs Actual Vote Share...



So what does this tell us?

1.) Multnomah County experienced a significantly higher % of the statewide vote share than it's Registered Vote share- +0.8% (19.4% of RVs in OR vs 20.3% of all ballots---rounds to 0.8%).

This is especially significant as it is now only the largest County within the State, but also the most Democratic County within Oregon in most Statewide Elections.

2.) We see a similar pattern in suburban Portland Counties:

Washington County (RV= 13.0% vs Actual '18 Votes= 13.1%)...  +0.1% increase

Clackamas County (RV= 10.5% vs actual '18 share= 10.7%)...    +0.2% Increase

The former is a recently heavily Democratic County, and the latter tends to be a bit swingier, since roughly 1/3 of the County is more rural, small-town with some Republican Exurban areas thrown in as well.

3.) Two counties in the lower Willamette Valley experienced a significant increase in vote share in 2018:

Benton County: (2.1% of RV vs 2018 2.4% vote share)        +0.3% increase

This County has the highest % of young voters in Oregon, as well as a significant % of knowledge sector workers.

Lane County: (9.4% of RV vs 2018 9.7% vote share)                     +0.3% increase

Although it does have a large University, it also has a significant population in the Eugene-Springfield Metro area not associated with the U of O.

Both of these Counties are traditionally Democratic strongholds at both the Federal and Statewide level.

4.) Deschutes County: (5.0% of RV vs 2018 5.3% vote share)                 +0.2% increase

This is one of the fastest growing counties in Oregon that includes a mixture of retirees from throughout the region, as well as younger folks attracted to the "outdoor lifestyle" and political mix from extremely liberal Bend to extremely Republican Redmond.

Where did vote share shrink?

1.) Marion County: (7.3% of RV vs 2018 6.4% actual vote share)                      - 0.8% decrease

This one surprised me a bit considering the extent of the drop in vote share, and I suspect it might level out slightly since there are still some ballots out there on the County site, not showing up in the Statewide Turnout site yet.

Still, Marion County has a mixture of the extremely Democratic leaning Salem, with one of the highest % of Latinos of any larger city in Oregon (20%), Republican leaning Keizer, the historically Latino farmworking community of Woodburn, which is increasingly a bedroom community for Suburban PDX and folks that work in Salem-Keizer, as well as some very heavily Republican smaller town and rural communities.

2.) Linn County: (3.1% of RV vs 2018 2.9% of actuals).          -0.2% Decrease

Heavily Republican County, with Albany being narrowly PUB and places like Lebanon and Sweet Home overwhelmingly 'Pub, as well as other smaller communities and rurals.

3.) Douglas County: (2.8% of RVs vs 2018 2.7% of actuals)     -0.2% Decrease

Another heavily Republican stronghold, mixture of older and WWC pop.

4.) Umatilla County: (1.6% of RV vs 2018 1.3% of actuals)       -0.3% Decrease

Heavily Pub County in NE OR--- large Latino population

5.) Additional counties with decreased vote share: Coos, Josephine, Klamath, Jefferson, and Malheur.   All of these lost 0.1% each from their RV % compared to 2018 actuals.

These are all heavily PUB counties at all levels of elections, although Coos County has sufficient Ancestral DEM roots where we do see US-SEN and US-REP DEM candidates perform well in many elections.

Now, let's look at the breakdown of Registered Voters by County in Oregon from October 2018.



Now let's look at the total vote by Partisan Registration by County from the data posted 11_07_18 AM (Final Statewide numbers have yet to be published by County), so this will likely change slightly once all of the votes are certified.



Ok--- so key thing to note is the vote share of 3rd Party / Independent / NAV is significantly smaller in terms of actual ballots received, compared to the DEM/REP parties. This is not surprising, especially in a Midterm election, as well as considering that Oregon is also an Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) State.


Now let's look at how the Miscellaneous RV vs Election vote Share was carved up by DEM / PUB in Oregon....

The purpose of this is to provide visual representation of which Party gained overall Vote Share by County from all of those REG IND/NAV/3rd Party, who lose a huge chunk of their potential vote share....

So for example, Baker County is 36.4% Registered other, but only 26.2% of Registered other actually voted.... that leaves 10.2% of the entire potential County Vote Share by Party up for grabs....

So REG DEMs increase their vote share of the  by + 1.8% D and REG PUBs increase their overall total county vote share by + 8.4%     (Net Pub vs DEM gain of total potential RV Vote Share = +6.6 R),



Many of you are likely, where the heck are you going with this NoVa GREEN???

Well, naturally to look at *Where* voters showed up to vote in OREGON by Party Registration, compared to the overall Registered Voting Population by Party Registration, and then to see if we can potentially assess a hypothetical scenario when it comes to the only Statewide Partisan election in Oregon, namely the OR-GOV election of 2018...

Let's look at the DEM-REP-OTHER Vote by County now that most of the Votes are in...



Wow--- in theory these numbers should be horrible for a Democratic Candidate for Governor, especially in an off-year election...

These numbers are actually extremely similar to OR-GOV numbers by County in the 2016 OR-GOV election, except that overall Brown performed better in most Counties in '16 than in '18.

I could run through individual counties, but you can all check out the numbers yourself on Atlas without me needing to do a compare/contrast map....



Still, Brown only won by +7.1% D in '16, and currently is looking like she will win OR-GOV by at least +6.2%, despite losing massive drop-offs in downstate Oregon Counties between '16 and '18...

There were only a few things holding the line in Oregon against a "Liberal Republican" like Knute Buehler:

1.) Massive turnout in Multnomah County, where quite frankly DJT is extremely unpopular, and for Pubs to win at the statewide level, need to do something more like the 2016 PUB SoS candidate:

DEM: 229,218    (62.0% D)
PUB: 103,088     ( 27.9% R)
OTHER: 37,179   (10.1% Other)

2018: (74-22 Brown) vs 2016: (73-22 Brown)

2.) Holding Strong in the Suburbs of Washington County (2018: 55-39 Brown vs 2016: 55-39 Brown).

3.) Lane County: 2018 (55-38 Brown) vs 2016 (55-39 Brown)....

Etc....

So tons more data out there, but obviously massive Turnout in DEM strongholds in OR, especially in places that are less likely to vote in off-year elections, made a massive difference between a decent margin Brown win vs a +2-3% DEM win....

More to come....

[NOVA Green]

So, while I'm waiting for the Weekend to perform a more detailed analysis of OR prelim election results until the final Statement of the Vote Cast is Certified, etc.... here's an easy free data point from the OR Secretary of State's office regarding the overall turnout by age bracket in the 2018 GE vs the 2014 GE election....



Elections are won and lost at the margins, and although without getting into individual precincts and cities matched against Census Data, these numbers do appear to indicate that turnout increased significantly among 18-35 Year old Voters, which likely is a direct result of AVR....

These number might well have added +1-2% to Brown's margins in the OR-GOV election....

[NOVA Green]

A few new vote dumps in Oregon per County Websites:

Multnomah County: 376,537 Votes     (11/9/18 16:09 PM PST)   

Multnomah County:  378,320  Votes (11/13/18 16:14 PM PST)   + 1,783 TOTAL Votes


OR-GOV---- 371,516 Votes (11/9/18 16:09 PM PST)

DEM- 274,081 (73.8%)    PUB- 82,443  (22.2%)   OTHER-  14,992 (4.0%)       TOTAL- 371,516

+ 191,638 D  (+ 51.6% D)

OR-GOV---       373,287 Votes (11/13/18 16:14 PM PST)                      +1,771 TOTAL Votes

DEM- 275,503 (73.8% D)  PUB- 82,701 (22.2%)  OTHER- 15,083 (4.0%)                                       TOTAL- 373,287

+ 192,802 D      (+ 1,164 D RAW VOTE GAIN).

More to come....


         

[NOVA Green]

So although we don't have any additional ballots in Oregon on the SoS website in terms of Total Votes, it looks like Kate Brown (DEM-Incumbent) is now at 50.1% vs Buehler (R)- 43.7%... +6.4% DEM with 2.9% of voters supporting Independent Patrick Starnes who has some 52.5k Votes (2.9%), who bombed out after he flubbed a key OR-GOV debate, and endorsed Kate Brown after ~50k Votes had been cast for him....

So OR-State SEN District '26 is still a + 258 REP lead, so unless there is some weird delay in vote counts, it's looking like a PUB hold even in a recount scene....   (Oregon does not equal Florida).

OR State REP Districts, flipped what we had to, but the way Oregon Districting law works, makes it pretty difficult to Gerrymander a District "Communities of interest and all that stuff"...

Back soon...

[smoltchanov]

Ideological classification of newly elected state Senators and Representatives (especially Republicans as Democrats are almost uniformly liberal now in Oregon)?

[PJ]

Ideological classification of newly elected state Senators and Representatives (especially Republicans as Democrats are almost uniformly liberal now in Oregon)?

Democrats aren't "uniformly liberal" in the state legislature. State Senator Betsy Johnson, who blocked automatic voter registration the first time it was up in the legislature and has referred to voting as a "privilege," is so acceptable to republicans that they opt not to run candidates against her in a district that Trump won. There are also relatively moderate democrats like Caddy McKeown who represent Trumpy WWC areas.

Most of the democratic pickups are most likely going to be standard liberals. The pickups were in places that vote democratic at the federal level (Wilsonville, West Linn, Hood River, Ashland) that are now being more consistent with their up-ballot results. This does not mean moderates lost. The losing republican in West Linn, Julie Parrish, was one of the most anti-tax obstructionists in the legislature, and her loss was generally considered an upset.

A notable moderate winner (since you seem to be interested in that) was republican Cheri Helt in Bend who replaced Knute Buehler. She'll be represented an Obama-Clinton that is swinging left federally. She won because her opponent Nathan Boddie turned out to be a POS who sexually harassed staffers and made homophobic comments and then refused to drop out after the state party pulled their support. Democrats opted to run a candidate on the Working Families line, Amanda LaBelle, but then she dropped out a couple days before election day after it was revealed she's been arrested for fraud. Helt will be an opponent of the teacher's unions, but also attended March for Our Lives as a supporter, will probably try to act like a moderate a la Knute Buehler, but she'll definitely be vulnerable if democrats can run a real candidate.

EDIT: NOVA Green thank you for starting this!

[Chinggis]

Back soon...

Hey NOVA Green, just wanted to say your Oregon county analysis thread is one of the greatest pieces of research I've ever seen on this forum. Will you ever finish that?

[smoltchanov]

Ideological classification of newly elected state Senators and Representatives (especially Republicans as Democrats are almost uniformly liberal now in Oregon)?

Democrats aren't "uniformly liberal" in the state legislature. State Senator Betsy Johnson, who blocked automatic voter registration the first time it was up in the legislature and has referred to voting as a "privilege," is so acceptable to republicans that they opt not to run candidates against her in a district that Trump won. There are also relatively moderate democrats like Caddy McKeown who represent Trumpy WWC areas.

Most of the democratic pickups are most likely going to be standard liberals. The pickups were in places that vote democratic at the federal level (Wilsonville, West Linn, Hood River, Ashland) that are now being more consistent with their up-ballot results. This does not mean moderates lost. The losing republican in West Linn, Julie Parrish, was one of the most anti-tax obstructionists in the legislature, and her loss was generally considered an upset.

A notable moderate winner (since you seem to be interested in that) was republican Cheri Helt in Bend who replaced Knute Buehler. She'll be represented an Obama-Clinton that is swinging left federally. She won because her opponent Nathan Boddie turned out to be a POS who sexually harassed staffers and made homophobic comments and then refused to drop out after the state party pulled their support. Democrats opted to run a candidate on the Working Families line, Amanda LaBelle, but then she dropped out a couple days before election day after it was revealed she's been arrested for fraud. Helt will be an opponent of the teacher's unions, but also attended March for Our Lives as a supporter, will probably try to act like a moderate a la Knute Buehler, but she'll definitely be vulnerable if democrats can run a real candidate.

EDIT: NOVA Green thank you for starting this!

Thanks! My prevailing interest in US politics may be characterized by 1 word: "mavericks" (of any sort). As i wrote many times: when you (like me) observe situation from far away, and it's (mostly) doesn't influence your daily life - you have very little interest in 2 "well organized armies of party loyalists". It's simply  extremely boring. Hence - "nonstandard" politicians only (moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and so on). Once more - thanks!

[NOVA Green]

Thanks y'all for jumping into the mix.

I don't pretend to be an expert on Oregon Politics, let alone at a detailed level when it comes to electoral results in various State House & Senate Districts for Statewide Elections, especially when it comes to the fast growing Metro-PDX part of the State.

Although I do have a comprehensive precinct data set for OR-'88 PRES in my collection, among many other Oregon items that are now incredibly difficult to obtain ('80s/' '90s precinct maps stand out), when it comes to fully matching the political and Social-Demographic changes that I have seen with raw data naturally becomes an extremely complex endeavor.

Still, Oregon is actually an extremely complicated State Politically that over the past Decade has voted overwhelmingly Democratic at the Presidential and US-SEN level, but even at the Us-House levels, we see tight races in a few CD's that DEMs barely flipped in the '90s.

Meanwhile Oregon still continually reelects popular 'PUB to State House and SEN races, despite massive swings towards DEMS in their communities.

Ultimately the success and survival of the PUB Party in OR at the Statewide level was a testament to the suasion that Liberal and Moderate PUB's can maintain, evoking the historic legends like Tom McCall and Mark Hatfield....

Obviously I'll do a deeper run once the OR-SoS certifies the results, and the plant that I work at will be idled, but it's interesting that Oregon *didn't* swing hard DEM, for many of these Statewide elections....

Saw something on TV at 6:30 AM on Local News involving delays of vote counts because the workers at the top floor of one of the high rises in downtown PDX, were going through visual inspections on large flat screen TVs for Provisional ballots flagged by OCR software as having a follow-up visual inspection and review....

Now, really these remaining ballots won''t really swing most elections, but I am curious if anyone out there has any additional data regarding Hood River and MultoCo districts, since it appears that this might well likely be an additional pickup in the OR-SEN.

[NOVA Green]

Back soon...

Hey NOVA Green, just wanted to say your Oregon county analysis thread is one of the greatest pieces of research I've ever seen on this forum. Will you ever finish that?

Thanks Chinggis--- appreciate the feedback.

Actually what I have been considering doing is basically upgrading the data to include 2018 Election Results, and flesh out some of the places in much more detailed level of analysis than I did on my first pass-through.

1.) Since then I have been able to obtain much more precinct level data, including some more historical data-sets.

2.) When I first started the project, some of the earliest Counties I started looking at involved a much less detailed level of analysis than many of the later Counties.

3.) As I developed the project, I started incorporating greater detail about the historical character of the various communities that have contributed to the Political Geography, and additionally started to incorporate more visual elements to break up what in some of the earlier renditions extremely long "Text Blocks", which although it might be fine within the context of an academic paper, does not easily translate into something where folks can scroll through read the text, check out the Graphs, etc...

4.) One of the items that was lacking in some of my earlier pieces was going into greater detail about the Social-Economic representation of various places.

5.) For many of my earlier County posts, I neglected to more fully explore Statewide level election results, how people voted for Citizen Ballot Initiatives and Referendums, which adds an additional component....

For example, how has support for Abortion Rights and LGBTQ equality changed over the Years?

How has Environmental Initiatives been supported in various places?

How have Voting patterns regarding Immigration Issues changed?

Obviously items such as Taxation Policy, and Financial related items tend to play much differently in Oregon, but interestingly enough many Oregonians that might typically vote 'Pub on these types of issues appear to have not supported various 'PUB candidates on the Statewide level.

[NOVA Green]

Here are a few results from OR State SEN & House districts in 2018...

OR-State SEN 2018 MAP:\



OR-State SEN--- Metro PDX

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=21880

OR State HOUSE 2018 MAP

Oregon MAP



Metro Salem MAP



Metro PDX MAP:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=21883

Maps look crap, but still more to come....

[NOVA Green]

So, before starting to delve into the wealth or Oregon Precinct results available for 2018, I decided it would be interesting to look briefly at the Oregon State House and State Senate elections and compare against the previous elections for those districts.

Firstly, the Democrats maintained a Super-majority in the State Senate, holding an 18-12 majority in the State Senate.

OR- Senate district #26 (Hood River County and Parts of fast growing Exurban SE PDX portions of Clackamas County was a near pickup with only ~ 200 Votes separating the two Candidates.



Secondly, Democrats gained (3) States in the State House, maintaining their super-majority going from a (35-25 D) majority to a (38-22 D) Majority.

Let's take a deeper look at the results....

1.) First let's look at the OR-State Senate Results in 2014 and 2018 and then the Swings between 2014 and 2018 for those races that were contested by both major political parties in both elections....

The numbers are broken down as DEM-REP for elections contested by both Parties, and for Elections not contested by one of the major parties a Dem-REP-Other number appears with a 0 representing the Major Party not contesting the Seat.

Additionally the color coding Socialist Red, means that DEMs won the Seat, and a European Conservative Blue represents PUBs won the seat.

2014--- Oregon Statewide Map--- (Not Metro PDX)



So looking at this map, obviously there are certain places that in a normal Mid-term election, might well have been targets of Republican pickups, especially with lower turnout among DEM base voters, and the Election being localized as more of a Statewide Election without Trump on the ticket.

SD #3: Medford / Ashland and Rural South JackCo might have looked interesting, considering that the DEM only won it 52-44 in 2016, and it was an open seat.

Still Medford, although it is the largest City in Oregon to vote for Trump, actually swung against the PUB PRES compared to 2012 support for Romney (This was heavily driven by major swings among more affluent and educated voters in East Medford).

Senate District #8: (Corvallis/Albany/ and heavily PUB parts of rural LinnCo) might have been a long-shot pickup, considering that Albany traditionally tends to vote PUB for both Fed and Statewide Elections, college students in Corvallis might have lower voter turnouts in a Non-PRES Year).

Senate District #11: (Heavily DEM precincts in NE Salem and heavily PUB precincts elsewhere) might have been competitive, especially considering that the most Democratic precincts in the district are heavily Latino parts of Salem, where turn-out in an non-pres year election according to Atlas CW, might be expected to be significantly low).

For the DEMs, the only real pickup opportunity in this map was OR- Senate District #26.

Now let's look at the results by State Senate District in "Downstate Oregon" in 2018:



So what do we see here?....

State Senate District #10: We see the PUB Senate Minority leader Jackie Winters almost voted out (46-54 R), despite running unopposed in 2014 by a DEM and bagging 87% of the Vote, and having a strong reputation as a Liberal Republican in a heavily Democratic part of Marion County.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Winters

State Senate District #13: Looks a bit closer than expected, despite including the marginal Republican City of Keizer, and heavily PUB rurals, and slivers of Exurban PDX.

State Senate District #26: Almost falls, we'll get back to that later.

Now let's look at the swings between 2014 and 2018 for those OR-State Senate Districts contested by both major parties in both 2014 and 2018...



So, we see a relatively minor swing in OR State Senate District #3 (Ashland/Medford/So JackCo) towards the DEMS.

No swing in OR SSD # 6 (Heavily PUB rural LinnCo, fairly PUB rural LaneCo, but enough heavily DEM parts of Metro Eugene-Springfield to keep things inelastic.

Massive swing in OR SSD # 8 (Corvallis-Albany and rural PUB LinnCo)--- +19% DEM swing !!!

So the interesting thing here is that the Benton County portion of the district is heavily DEM, with Corvallis being one of more Democratic Cities in Oregon, and the next largest community being North Albany (Marginal PUB), the Linn County portion of Albany +10% Trump and overwhelmingly PUB rurals elsewhere within the district (Excepting Uninc East Corvallis portion of LinnCo).

Both Linn and Benton added about 5k votes for this election (SSD between '14 and '18....

Benton went from (64-35 D) in '14 to (73-25 D) in '18.    +19% D Swing
Linn went from (42-57 R) in '14 to (48.6% D- 48.7% R) in '18.   +15% D Swing

It appears that Democrats convincingly won the City of Albany for a Statewide contest for the first time in (), and most significantly the Linn County portion of Albany.....

SD #11: (NE Salem, Woodburn, and large sections of rural Marion County).

+ 12% DEM swing....

This will be an interesting race to look at once I get a chance to look at precinct level results, since there is pretty large Latino population within this District, and I'm curious about *where* the swings happened....

SD #12: (Hood River County, small # of voters in East MultCo, heavily Exurban PDX ClackCo) +13% DEM swing....

This District almost flipped, and interestingly enough it includes what used to be a heavily Republican Exurban part of Metro PDX (Happy Valley) not to mention Sunnyvale, etc, which used to be strongly PUB parts of ClackCo, but started to swing heavily against the PUBs in PRES elections between '12 > '16....

More to look at here, once I get a chance to check out precinct results.

METRO PDX:

2014 State Senate Results:



2018 State Senate Results:



2018 State Senate Metro PDX Swing Results:



Not much to see here, considering almost all of the districts did not face any Republican competition in either/or 2014/2018....

The +10% DEM swing in State Senate District #15....

This perhaps not particularly surprising considering that it is heavily based around the City of Hillsboro, although it does include more rural and Exurban areas such as Forest Grove and North Plains....

Hillsboro is a hidden story about the massive shifts in Democratic voting patterns in Washington County Oregon (Pop 100k+).

The Corp HQ of Intel is based in the City, and includes the best world class semi-conductor Fabs in Oregon, with perhaps the exception of B-2 or B-3 fabs in HP-Corvallis....

Hillsboro is only 59% Anglo, 11% Asian, and 23% Latino....

It will be extremely interesting to look at precinct level swings in Hillsboro in 2018.

Enough for OR-State Senate, next stop OR-State House....

[NOVA Green]

Now time to look at the OR-State House Election Results from 2018, and contrast against performance in 2016....

Here are the results for OR State House Races in "Downstate OR (Excepting Metro Salem and Metro PDX).

2016:



The first thing that stands out on this Map is how many potential PUB flips there were in "Downstate Oregon:....

Obviously OR House District # 9, 11 & 14 obviously jump out as potential PUB pickups in "Downstate OR:....

Fine... let's look at the results in "Downstate Oregon" State House results in 2018:



Hmm, these numbers don't actually look that bad for DEMs in "Downstate Oregon"....

So fine what do the swings show between 2016 and 2018 by Downstate House Districts where both of the Two major Political Parties contested both elections?



This map is perhaps much more fascinating than the OR-SEN map, since we actually have a direct compare/contrast for every OR-State House district between '16 and '18 in a fairly high turnout election....

The first thing that stands out here are:

1.) The Significant swings towards DEM OR-House Candidates in the major population centers of the Rogue River Valley in Jackson/Josephine Counties....

LD #5 we can likely ascribe to high Democratic Turnout in an off-year election within Ashland.

LD #6 starts to become more problematic, considering that Medford was a +10% Trump town in '16, albeit slightly shore of a majority of the vote ( Need to double-check numbers)...

If Medford starts to become a Democratic City, then Jackson County will become a LEAN DEM County, and let's put it this way, it's not too long before Curry and Josephine Counties start to become more like toss-up Counties...

Now, let's roll through some of the other State House Districts in Downstate OR...

OR HD #7: +19% DEM SWING..

I get that there are parts of rural Lane County that are LEAN DEM, and most of the Douglas County parts of the District that are Overwhelmingly PUB, but it's one of those instances where it appears that overwhelmingly small-town and rural Timber Country swung heavily DEM for a Statewide Candidate...

OR HD #9: +4% DEM Swings....

Includes an Ancestral DEM area of Coos Bay/ North Bend, Reedsport, and Florence, and some areas out in the hills between the Southern Oregon Coast and the Coast Range....

OR HD # 14: +18% DEM Swings....

(West Eugene and Junction City, and some Rurals)....

Outer West Eugene has historically been a fairly PUB part of Eugene, and Junction City is an historic Mill Town + RV MFG jobs.... Without looking at exact swings within precincts, it still is likely the case that these results are likely a mixture of increased DEM swings in West Eugene, combined with Obama '08 / Trump '16 WWC Voters coming home....

OR HD # 15:  (Albany plus rural LinnCo).

One of the largest swings in the OR House between '16 and '18....

Part of it is likely the DEM hit a floor in '16, and there was a huge bounce back in '18.

Still, Albany, Oregon has long been on my radar as a place that will increasingly start to swing heavily Democratic, as Younger and Working-Class Families are forced to relocate to cheaper places to live as the cost of housing has exploded over the past Five Years within the Linn-Benton County economic community.

We see additional crazy DEM swings in House Elections in Downstate Oregon, from HD # 59 (Wasco and Jefferson Counties)... + 16% DEM

Roll down into HD # 53: (Rural Deschutes plus places like Black Butte, and the other elite retirement resort communities)....  +22% DEM

There were a few bright spots for PUBs in the 2016 > 2018 State House Election swings in Downstate Oregon...

DEMs saw their losing margins decrease by 29% in Bend between 2016 and 2018....

This was an election in HD # 54 that should have been a DEM pickup in a wave year, but the DEM candidate basically caused a huge % of voters to vote 3rd Party, although the PUB only won with 54% in a District which logically should have flipped in 2018....

OR- HD-32 is something that deserves further examination, but it's really looking this might be one of the only parts of the State where Buehler was able to gain some action on down-ballot elections....

Now let's look at Metro-SALEM 2016-2018:

2016:



2018:



2016 to 2018 Metro Salem Swings:



So.... here we start to see more interesting data develop...

In every State House District in Metro Salem, we saw a ~ +10% DEM swing between 2016 and 2018, with the exception of House District #20....

Now let's take a look a Metro PDX House Districts:

2016:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=21887

2018:



2016 > 2018 Election Swings:



So what do we see here???

The Republican Party is now eliminated from representing any OR-House Districts in Metro-PDX after this past election....

Their last House Districts in Metro PDX (HD # 26 and HD #37) were eliminated.

Additionally places like HD # 40 and #51 in precisely the types of Exurban State Senate Districts that PUBs need to be competitive in, and additionally when you see +19% D swings in HD # 30, +10% D swings in HD # 35, +14% in HD # 39, +13% in HD #33, it's no wonder that Knute Buehler likely suffered heavily as part of being associated with a Toxic Republican brand, where even the Exurbs of Metro PDX are starting to vote DEM on Downstate ballots, despite the relative popularity of their "Moderate PUB Represenatives..."...

Dominos have yet to fall for the Republican Party in Oregon, unless they start to grow a pair and effectively become an independent party from the National Republican Party, since it's pretty clear that the Emperor has no Clothes, and that Oregonians running under a Republican banner are schills for a much deeper and darker agenda....

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I was super excited and impressed by the Oregon results, as a former Oregonian myself. The state Democratic party has gotten REALLY good, and their pre-election GOTV push was phenomenal. I was up there a few days before the election, and the ground game was even better than the much better funded efforts I've seen canvassing Orange County. I truly think that made the difference, and is the explanation for at least a couple percentage points of the Metro PDX turnout bump.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The results of these elections were by far the worst results in the nation. The Worst Governor of our state in the past 60 years got re-elected .

[NOVA Green]

Ideological classification of newly elected state Senators and Representatives (especially Republicans as Democrats are almost uniformly liberal now in Oregon)?

Democrats aren't "uniformly liberal" in the state legislature. State Senator Betsy Johnson, who blocked automatic voter registration the first time it was up in the legislature and has referred to voting as a "privilege," is so acceptable to republicans that they opt not to run candidates against her in a district that Trump won. There are also relatively moderate democrats like Caddy McKeown who represent Trumpy WWC areas.

Most of the democratic pickups are most likely going to be standard liberals. The pickups were in places that vote democratic at the federal level (Wilsonville, West Linn, Hood River, Ashland) that are now being more consistent with their up-ballot results. This does not mean moderates lost. The losing republican in West Linn, Julie Parrish, was one of the most anti-tax obstructionists in the legislature, and her loss was generally considered an upset.

A notable moderate winner (since you seem to be interested in that) was republican Cheri Helt in Bend who replaced Knute Buehler. She'll be represented an Obama-Clinton that is swinging left federally. She won because her opponent Nathan Boddie turned out to be a POS who sexually harassed staffers and made homophobic comments and then refused to drop out after the state party pulled their support. Democrats opted to run a candidate on the Working Families line, Amanda LaBelle, but then she dropped out a couple days before election day after it was revealed she's been arrested for fraud. Helt will be an opponent of the teacher's unions, but also attended March for Our Lives as a supporter, will probably try to act like a moderate a la Knute Buehler, but she'll definitely be vulnerable if democrats can run a real candidate.

EDIT: NOVA Green thank you for starting this!

Apologies PJ for giving you short thrift earlier, as you attempted to explain to our Russian Colleague the intricacies and complications or Oregon Downstate Ballot voting patterns....

Although I didn't extensively follow the OR House District in Bend with the level of detail that you have, what is true is this:

1.) Oregon has extremely weak organized institutional party structures compared to most States in the Union.

2.) Even at a County level "Party Machines" do not dictate what candidate will be selected for local offices.

3.) Oregonians tend to vote for their individual State House and Senate members, based upon the Individual and not the Party Label, as part of a more traditional style of American Representative Democracy.

4.) The large number of Registered voters that are not Democratic nor Republican exemplify this fact, as is the extremely large % of Oregonians that will vote for 3rd Party Candidates, if we feel that either of the major party candidates does not represent our interests....

5.) This phenomenon is especially pronounced in Presidential Elections and OR-GOV elections, not to mention voting patterns in heavily Democratic parts of Oregon for Greens/Socialists/Libertarians, and an alternate scenario in heavily Republican parts of Oregon for Constitutionalists/ Libertarians, etc...

6.) I had OR-SEN Minority Leader Jackie Winters on my potential OR-SEN flip district, because although she is a fairly Liberal Republican representation Salem (Democratic City in the Mid-Valley), who frequently crosses party aisles to vote with OR-SEN DEM Majority, I wasn't sure she would be able to hold up in a "Wave Election"....   She won 54-46 after running unopposed in '16, but I'm really curious what will happen in 2020....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Winters


Jackie survived the '18 OR-DEM Wave, but what will happen in her district in 2020 when Trump is on the ballot, along with an OR-US-SEN election, in what will likely be a very high turnout election in Salem, which has one of the largest Latino Millennial populations of any large city in Oregon?

[NOVA Green]

I was super excited and impressed by the Oregon results, as a former Oregonian myself. The state Democratic party has gotten REALLY good, and their pre-election GOTV push was phenomenal. I was up there a few days before the election, and the ground game was even better than the much better funded efforts I've seen canvassing Orange County. I truly think that made the difference, and is the explanation for at least a couple percentage points of the Metro PDX turnout bump.

Thanks Michael Bloomberg and Old School Republican for your comments...

The subject of the OR-GOV results and Turnout is an interesting conversation, which obviously deserves further discussion.

We now have three elections in a row, six years of back-to-back two year elections (2014, 2016, and 2018) of data.

2014: Kitzhaber (D) vs Dennis Richardson (R) where Kitzhaber's financial conflict of interest items involving his Wife were first starting to hit the News, with many ballots already cast:

(49.9% D- 44.1% R).... +5.8% D

Dennis Richardson (PUB-Current OR SoS) represented Southern Oregon Counties of Jackson / Josephine in the State Legislature, ran against the architect of the Oregon Health Plan (Kitzhaber-DEM) in what was a relatively low turnout Mid-Term election, with 3rd Party Voters capturing 6% of the Vote....

2016: Kate Brown (D) vs Bud Pierce (R) in a Special Election, where the Democrats and Republicans alike in the Oregon State Legislature removed Kitzhaber from Office (Or basically gave him an option to resign or else)....

Bud Pierce has his own issues, since he endorsed Trump back in May '16 in order to win the PUB Primary, when the writing was on the wall, and then did a bizarre flip-flop in Sep '16...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Pierce

(50.6% D- 43.5% R).....   +7.1% D

2018: Kate Brown (D) vs Knute Buehler (R)

50.1% D- 43.7% R .... (+6.8% D)



Still, Newt Buehler actually performed quite well in the places he needed to in "Downstate Oregon".... believe I posted something to that effect from what I was hearing in the Warehouses, and Factories of "Downstate OR", where I posted something about Five Months back about how this election might well be closer than polling might represent.

Still, Metro PDX numbers stand out if we compare 2014/2016/2018 OR-GOV numbers....





So what we obviously see here is that overall OR-GOV RAW VOTE numbers in '18 were pretty close to '16 GE numbers in MultoCo, dropped a bit in WashCo, and dropped less in ClackCo...

Now let's look at the overall OR-DEM shifts in GOV between '14 and '18....



We see the Democratic Candidate for GOV in MultCo go from 70.0% DEM ('14) to 72.9% DEM ('16) to 73.9% DEM ('18)....

OK--- fine 'PUBs can win OR statewide elections with these kinds of numbers (Maybe???    )

Washington County....

This is obviously where the 'PUBs start to run into major problems....

DEM GOV numbers went from 51.5% in '14 to 55.0% in '16 to 55.5% in '18....

Needless to say 'PUB numbers have been collapsing...

The fascinating enigma about the whole Buehler campaign as part of an OR-GOV rebranding is that these in order to win Statewide, Knute would have needed to perform extremely strongly and shift margins in places like West MultCo and WashCo, etc....

Anyways, more to come on the OR-GOV election, but these are some of my initial perspectives....

[NOVA Green]

So... 2018 OR-GOV ELECTION:

There was a reason why I sent out an alarm call about the OR-GOV election in Summer of '18, because of what I was seeing on the Valley Floor, as well as potential impacts for Buehler to hit the numbers he needed to hit in Suburban PDX (And Similar areas Downstate such as swings in DEM leaning Upper-Middle Class precincts of Salem, Corvallis, North Eugene, East Medford, etc... running as a "Liberal Republican")....

What we see are the following Statewide OR-GOV overall % and Margins....



In theory it shouldn't be that difficult to move a few % swing points to win a GOV race....

The concept of "elastic and inelastic" voters in Oregon that Nate Silver promoted back in the days to define various States of the Union (Reading this Nate---- Mate--- we know you lurk here ) is actually somewhat "bullocks" in that we can observe significant swings within the Statewide breakdown, within various Counties, Precincts within different neighborhoods of the Medium-Sized Cities of Oregon, etc... especially when it comes to PRES, SEN, HOUSE, GOV, OR-STATE OFFICES, OR STATE SEN, OR-STATE HOUSE, and then of course ballot election results for various items that we get a chance to vote on as part of direct democracy....

So anyone who has been following any of my OR election threads, should obviously have a decent understanding of which counties are heavily PUB and heavily DEM in both FED and STATE elections, so I hope not to have to provide tons of explanations on that front....

What we need to first look at are the swings by County between '14 > '16, '16 >'18 and even '14 > '18 in OR-GOV Elections....

Let's start with the swings between 2014 and 2016....

Y'all will need to right click on the images and open in a new window to see the % numbers.



Now let's look at the swings between 2016 and 2018...



Ok--- let's just look at the swings between 2014 and 2018, since both were midterm elections...



What does this tell us?

1.) The 2014 to 2016 Swing Map is interesting, but perhaps not remarkable considering that the  OR-2014 GOV race was a relatively low turnout affair (By Oregon standards), and there was the additional factor of a former Two-Term DEM GOV, who was relatively popular in Downstate OR caught up in a potential conflict of interest scenario.

A.) We observe some interesting swings towards the DEMs in parts of Southern Oregon, most significantly in Jackson County, which is a relatively high growth part of Oregon, and where most of the population lives in the Medford > Ashland I-5 Corridor.

B.) Swings in parts of the Eastern Columbia River Valley, especially Umatilla County, might potentially be explainable by a relatively large Latino Population, many of whom are not US Residents, but there are a growing number of Millennials coming of age who are Latino.

C.) Drop-Offs in DEM GOV support in Coos / Douglas and even rural Lane Counties, might be explainable by Trump's popularity in parts of the District, since he first showed up in OR during the PUB 2016 Primary and held a major rally in Eugene, where he show-cased the loss of Timber jobs within the region.

D.) Still the remarkable thing about the results were the major swings in the voting "Breadbasket" of Oregon, namely Metro Portland, where there was a crazy +4.0% swing towards the DEM-GOV nominee, and an insane +7.0% swing towards the DEM-GOV nominee.

2.) The 2016 to 2018 Swing map is also interesting....

A.) PUBs gain ground virtually everywhere, except for the largest population centers of Oregon.

B.) Metro PDX--- DEM gains slow down between '16 and '18 in Multnomah and Washington Counties. Still even a +0.9% D swing in MultCo and +0.6% D swing in WashCo, translate to a significant increase in raw vote margins, especially considering these Counties have some of the highest totals of "New Registered Voters" between '16 and '18.

C.) Mid- Willamette Valley.... This is actually one of the most fascinating aspects of the      
2018 OR-GOV election, especially within the Metro Salem Area.

Marion County (Salem & Burbs), as well as Polk County (Which includes West Salem and is technically part of the Census Metro Salem Area), saw some pretty insane swings, especially for a Mid-Term election.

This is obviously something where precinct level analysis can help assist on...

My theory at this time is that Buehler's late campaign ads attacking Kate Brown as a "creature from Salem (Politician), went completely flat among persuadable Indies, many of whom are employees of the State of Oregon, helped create these swings. Still, there are a lot of question marks when it comes to Marion in particular.

3,) OR '14 to '18 GOV swing Map is an attempt to look at the overall swings by County, where OR-GOV Statewide results have been pretty darn consistent between '14 and '18.

A.) Look Carefully at Metro PDX--- especially Multnomah and Washington Counties....

A +4.6% GOV swing in MultCo between '14 and '18 and a +7.6% swing in WashCo, really belies the Media narrative the Buehler was a "different kind of Moderate Republican who could win over Metro-PDX Swing voters".

Those numbers are devastating for any PUB attempting to run Statewide, and look more like a PRES or SEN election than an OR-GOV election.

B.) Marion County---- What the heck is going on there??? Will need to examine in further details and one of the more surprising results of the election.

C. Jackson County gains make sense (+0.8% D), as do Deschutes numbers (+5.9% R), since the former has increase of new population/voters and the latter was Buehler's old stomping ground.

D.) Most other Counties in Oregon were really bad news for DEMs, especially since they were already starting with a pretty low floor in many of these heavily PUB GOV Counties...

4.) One item I neglected to address thus far, was that these OR-GOV-18 numbers were likely impacted by a 3rd Party Candidate who dropped out shortly before the election (But after many voters had already cast their votes).

Patrick Starnes received almost 50% of the 3rd Party Vote, and after he dropped out endorsed Kate Brown (That's the downside with Vote-by-Mail / EV models)....

http://oregonvotes.gov/voters-guide/english/votersguide.html#Patrick%20Starnes

Here's a Map of 3rd Party Votes by County in the '18 GOV Election:

[PJ]

Yeah Marion County results were very intriguing and make me somewhat optimistic for that area. Winters will hopefully be targeted more aggressively next time. Notable factor about Deschutes County: While Buehler won it 52-42, it also voted for McCleod-Skinner over Walden by a slim margin. So while democrats fumbled down ballot, there's still cause for optimism here in the future. I'm less sure of Jackson County as a whole, it voted for Walden by about a five point margin.

[NOVA Green]

Yeah Marion County results were very intriguing and make me somewhat optimistic for that area. Winters will hopefully be targeted more aggressively next time. Notable factor about Deschutes County: While Buehler won it 52-42, it also voted for McCleod-Skinner over Walden by a slim margin. So while democrats fumbled down ballot, there's still cause for optimism here in the future. I'm less sure of Jackson County as a whole, it voted for Walden by about a five point margin.

Regarding Marion County:

It's actually a bit of a big deal in OR for Statewide Elections, and even bigger deal in OR-CD-05, representing 7.3% of Registered Voters in Oregon, and 32.4% of the 2018 CD-05 Vote Share (As I'm sure you are well aware, just stating it for those not so familiar with Oregon Political Geography)...

Now let's talk about Automatic Voter Registration and Overall Size of the Electorate.

Marion County= 182,521 RVs in OCT '16
Marion County= 201,743 RVs in OCT '18

DEMs held a narrow voter REG edge heading into the 2018 GE (30% D- 29 % R - 41 % OTHER).

DEMs held a narrow voter REG edge heading into the 2016 GE (33% D- 32% R- 35% OTHER).

If we look at the overall Voter Turnout by Party REG in Marion County in the 2018 GE, we see tgat 72.5% of REG DEMs voted, 75.8% of REG PUBs voted, and 26.3% of REG Others Voted.

This raises the interesting question of what will happen in Marion County for PRES 2020 Election, assuming Trump is on the ballot, *and* we saw significant swings towards the DEMs between '14 and '18 in the OR-GOV elections, Major swings towards the DEMs within State House and Senate Races in parts of Marion that include Metro Salem....

Here's a link to one of my first OR-2016 GE Posts (And one in most need of major upgrading)...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5409873#msg5409873

Detailed precinct level analysis of Marion will likely help tell the larger story, especially when looking at down-ballot voting patterns, in a County, where the largest City (Salem) typically is 40% of the Vote Share, Keizer (~ 10%), and then you start getting in places like Woodburn, and start drilling even further down in UNINC METRO, Smaller Cities, and Rurals....

Deal with Jackie Winters is that although she has a Republican Senate Minority Leader Status, she actually has a pretty decent record for a REPUBLICAN of supporting Progressive Legislation in OR-SEN...

https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/10832/jackie-winters#.XAn0wWhKjIU

I will leave her voting record for others to dissect, but her support for Criminal Justice Reform when it came to the criminal records for those convicted of possession of hard drugs, and expunging the records of those convicted of Minor Possession PCS- (Insert Hard Drugs), who had a Felony on their record, and steered drug addicts towards mandatory substance abuse diversion programs was huge.

Support for overall Health Care Reform in Oregon... good in recent years.

I strongly suspect that her obligatory role as PUB OR-SEN Minority leader on issues such as Guns, Abortion, and the Environment to protect the delicate OR-PUB coalition between a heavily small-town rural and large but decreasing PUBs from Urban/Suburban/Exurban PDX plus similar communities all the way down the I-5 Corridor to the Cali border, is likely going to cause her to lose reelection in 2022.

Still, time will tell....

JACKSON COUNTY:

This has been one of the major OR Counties on my flip list for many years...

Key is DEMs flipping Medford....

This is a traditionally PUB City experiencing extremely high population growth, much of it driven by Californian Expats (Especially Older folks).

Link to my Medford post on the OR-GE '16 Thread....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5483203#msg5483203

I will have to explore in further detail comparative precinct level results from '08 > '16, but although I would be extremely surprised to see Jackson County overall Vote for a DEM in Statewide OR election in 2020, I would not be surprised at all to see it flip DEM for PRES in 2020, and certainly DEM for US SEN in '20 (Merkely won here 50-42 in '14), but additionally flip in OR CD-02 to DEM against Greg Walden....

Deschutes County

Looks like it is likely gone for the PUBs at a FED level with Trump running in 2020.

Trump won with (46-43 R) results with the massive number of 3rd Party voters being DEM leaning voters.

Merkley won +8% in 2014....

County voted against Walden in '18....

*** What will happen in 2020 where Trump will likely significantly under-perform his 2016 results among a versatile mixture of extremely Democratic Bend (50% of County Vote Share), heavily Republican Redmond (Fast Growing City for folks that can't afford to live in Bend). ***

Key things to watch are swings in the Upper-Income Educated Retirement Resort Communities in places like Sunriver and Black Butte

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5419852#msg5419852

Knute barely won Deschutes with 52% R running as a "Liberal / Moderate Republican" in his own backyard, bombed in the Upper-Income traditional swing parts of Metro PDX, Salem, Eugene, etc...

What does that say about Deschutes County in the era of Trump???

Just my Five Cents fwiw....