Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[Vega]

Andy Kim's lead in NJ-03 has expanded, he's now up more than 1% (around 3,500 votes). I think it was the remaining Willingboro votes, which he didn't end up needing to take the lead because of absentees but did pad his margin. There are now no precincts outstanding, though maybe a handful of absentees and provisionals. Seems like that race should be called; 1.1% is a significantly wider margin than any other uncalled race outside of California and UT-04 (where a lot of ballots remain to be counted).

Congratulations to the real first Korean-American congressperson!

Some guy was elected in Southern California in the early 1990s... I think in Riverside?

Jay Kim, who was a very real Korean-American, but served a portion of his term on house arrest.

[Nyvin]

People all over the internet are putting WAY too much effort into determining whether or not it's a "wave".   Who cares?

[colincb]

I'd say there's a 90 percent chance Scott will win. The margin is just too large.

Yeah, we're looking at 90% Scott victory and 90% Sinema victory

90% Sinema victory. AZ looks pretty much over.

75-80% Scott. The critical issue to be resolved is the undervotes. I'm not convinced it's ballot design.

[Virginiá]

People all over the internet are putting WAY too much effort into determining whether or not it's a "wave".   Who cares?

I just can't help but want to interject. It's like I am looking at a car but yet can't understand why every once in a while someone comes by and says its a bicycle. It just seems like it's so obvious it should speak for itself.

[lfromnj]

Is Scott still favoured to win?

I’d say it’s 95% Scott wins.

They may be out of votes by now.

It's 50/50 at this point given what we know. The trajectory isn't favorable to Scott.

lol
out of votes recounts dont flip until hundreds.
Hand recount is just a waste of time and money.

[GeorgiaModerate]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

As soon as the words "net loss" appear, the "wave" argument becomes problematic. 

Normally, the party that doesn't control the presidency loses. This is within the normal range. It is not as strong as the shifts in 1994, 2010, both in terms gains and total numbers of seats.  The gain was a bit better than 2006, by one seat, but the total seats are much lower; in that one the winning party gained 6 Senate seats. 

I'm still of the view that it wasn't a blue wave, but something else altogether that doesn't have a pre-determined term.

What do you make of people claiming it was a red wave?

They're idiots?

[GeorgiaModerate]

I'd say there's a 90 percent chance Scott will win. The margin is just too large.

Yeah, we're looking at 90% Scott victory and 90% Sinema victory

90% Sinema victory. AZ looks pretty much over.

75-80% Scott. The critical issue to be resolved is the undervotes. I'm not convinced it's ballot design.

This is about where I am, too.

[Gass3268]

There might be more votes in Broward than we currently know of, because Team Nelson is suing in federal court that they allow more time for counties to turn in their unoffical vote counts.

https://twitter.com/SamanthaJoRoth/status/1060920524048662533

[lfromnj]

There might be more votes in Broward than we currently know of, because Team Nelson is suing in federal court that they allow more time for counties to turn in their unoffical vote counts.

https://twitter.com/SamanthaJoRoth/status/1060920524048662533

Of course they gonna sue but Nelson is doomed anyway. Pathethic FDP

[Brittain33]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

As soon as the words "net loss" appear, the "wave" argument becomes problematic. 

Normally, the party that doesn't control the presidency loses. This is within the normal range. It is not as strong as the shifts in 1994, 2010, both in terms gains and total numbers of seats.  The gain was a bit better than 2006, by one seat, but the total seats are much lower; in that one the winning party gained 6 Senate seats. 

I'm still of the view that it wasn't a blue wave, but something else altogether that doesn't have a pre-determined term.

What do you make of people claiming it was a red wave?

Likewise,if the term "net loss" is used in regard to the House, it isn't red wave either. 

J.J., you may be interested to learn that 100% of the House is up for election every two years, while only 1/3 of the Senate plus special elections is up every two years, and Democrats went into this election with something like a 75% share of Senate seats. If that gets knocked down to a 65-35 win, well, you can tell yourself what you like about what “net loss” means, but I think other posters here will draw their own conclusions.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Even if the margin narrows to 13k votes it will be very hard for Nelson to win



He has to win more than 19000 of the 25000 votes then to win and that means he will have to win over 75% of the undercount

[lfromnj]

Even if the margin narrows to 13k votes it will be very hard for Nelson to win



He has to win more than 19000 of the 25000 votes then to win and that means he will have to win over 75% of the undercount

yeah people want false hope and its funny.

[YE]

If the margin narrows down to around 10K due to provisionals, the possible error may very well put Nelson over the finish line.

[JG]

Even if the margin narrows to 13k votes it will be very hard for Nelson to win



He has to win more than 19000 of the 25000 votes then to win and that means he will have to win over 75% of the undercount

I mean, if Gillum has 25k votes more than Nelson in that county, doesn't it mean the the undercount might be superior to 25k since I would assume most Gillum voters would have voted for Nelson? How do DeSantis's and Scott's compare to each other in that area?

[Brittain33]

Even if the margin narrows to 13k votes it will be very hard for Nelson to win



He has to win more than 19000 of the 25000 votes then to win and that means he will have to win over 75% of the undercount

I mean, if Gillum has 25k votes more than Nelson in that county, doesn't it mean the the undercount might be superior to 25k since I would assume most Gillum voters would have voted for Nelson? How do DeSantis's and Scott's compare to each other in that area?

At this point we don't know if it's an undercount or an *undervote* caused by bad ballot design. If it's the latter, well, statistically we know how 99% of those votes would have gone but there's no recourse.

[SLA8]

I'm more and more convinced it's an undervote (although I was floating the possibility of the undercount yesterday). The recount will catch it and dispel our doubts, but as many have said FL-SEN looks like it's Scott's race to lose.

[Gass3268]

Another Nelson lawsuit in FL:

https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1060930501098258432

They might have appoint given that Former Rep. Patrick Murphy had his ballot rejected:

https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1060932595880546305

[Landslide Lyndon]

What the heck is going on with Utah? Are they going to finish counting by Thanksgiving?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I highly doubt the undervote/provisional ballots are alone enough to pull Nelson ahead.

But people keep insisting that the regular vote is completed.  People have been suggesting that for the last two days, and yet vote from Broward keeps coming in.  Is there any reason to believe they have actually completed counting their regular early and VBM ballots (or at least completed submitting them to the state)?

This FL Department of Elections website suggests they haven't:
floridaelectionwatch.gov/CountyReportingStatus

That site shows the Broward early and VBM count as still incomplete.  And the website IS being continuously update, because they keep adding to the count of counties that have completed their provisional ballots.

I don't know why anyone would be confident that we have any idea how many votes are still outstanding.

[Dr. Arch]

What the heck is going on with Utah? Are they going to finish counting by Thanksgiving?

They'll get back to you eventually. 

[Badger]

35+ seats in the house
At least a 7% popular vote victory
Net loss in senate of 2, maybe even 1 depending on Florida despite the worst possible map
7 governors mansions gained
This is a wave my friends

As soon as the words "net loss" appear, the "wave" argument becomes problematic. 

Normally, the party that doesn't control the presidency loses. This is within the normal range. It is not as strong as the shifts in 1994, 2010, both in terms gains and total numbers of seats.  The gain was a bit better than 2006, by one seat, but the total seats are much lower; in that one the winning party gained 6 Senate seats. 

Going from the numbers on atlas's results page for the Senate, Democrats won the popular vote in Senate races Nationwide by 10 million votes and 10 percentage points. Granted, a large chunk of that has to do with California being a top 2 race between a pair of Democrats, but even if one were to give every single one of De Leon's votes to the Republican column - - which I believe we can all agree is completely ludicrous, but just for sake of argument - - Democrats still won by over 4 million votes and more than five percentage points Nationwide. In reality, only assessing the appropriate share of de Leon votes, and some Feinstein votes as well I assume, to the Republican column and there was at least as big wave in terms of percentage points in raw boats as in the house.

If the house was a wave, then the Senate was too. The results were obviously not as good for Democrats because of the increasingly undemocratic shift towards hard-core Republican rural States and strongly democratic Urban States, but then again if the house wasn't so damn gerrymandered oh, it would have easily been over a 60 seat pickup for the Democrats as well.

So yeah, Republicans we're safe from a complete f****** in the house by gerrymandering, and our saved by the fact places of North Dakota and Wyoming have as many senators as New York and California. But in terms of which way the wind is blowing, this was a disastrous year for the Republicans. Institutional and structural advantages save them. They will probably need to do much better for the Electoral College save Trump again in 2020.

One more point about the Senate. It's undemocratic nature was not particularly a problem in the good old days of just 20 to 30 years ago when places like The Dakotas would elect Democrats to the Senate and places like New York or California would elect Republicans. However, that only versus Urban / Suburban divide now makes the Senate essentially a nationwide gerrymander. Add the filibuster in with it, and it just shows how f***** up our system of government is.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Whether you're a Nelson supporter or not, I don't understand why anyone is so keen to say that there's no need to verify the votes. Don't people, as a general principle, want people's valid votes to count?

[fldemfunds]

I highly doubt the undervote/provisional ballots are alone enough to pull Nelson ahead.

But people keep insisting that the regular vote is completed.  People have been suggesting that for the last two days, and yet vote from Broward keeps coming in.  Is there any reason to believe they have actually completed counting their regular early and VBM ballots (or at least completed submitting them to the state)?

This FL Department of Elections website suggests they haven't:
floridaelectionwatch.gov/CountyReportingStatus

That site shows the Broward early and VBM count as still incomplete.  And the website IS being continuously update, because they keep adding to the count of counties that have completed their provisional ballots.

I don't know why anyone would be confident that we have any idea how many votes are still outstanding.

Exactly. They haven't done VBM or provisionals yet. As Dan Smith (FL politico) noted, there are 20k overseas ballots to count as well (and another 20k yet to be received, some of which will come in before the deadline 10 days after the election date). It isn't JUST the 23-25k undervote issue. Nelson's going to be within 5,000 or so before we event get to those.

Down 15,000 now with another 2,000 not transmitted (down 13,000), an undetermined amount of VBMs in Broward, another 20,000 overseas ballots (registration breakdown on Dan Smith's twitter feed), another 20,000 or so unreceived ballots (not all will be received, but the reg breakdown favors dems here as well), the 25,000 undervotes, AND the general craziness of handcounting that tends to favor democrats (because miscounts distributed evenly across all counties leads to more votes being correctly documented in bigger counties).

[fldemfunds]

The cognitive dissonance that must be overcome in order to claim that voter fraud is rampant in one breath and that we should stop counting and verifying ballots in another is enormous.

[Gass3268]

What the heck is going on with Utah? Are they going to finish counting by Thanksgiving?

They'll get back to you eventually. 

I read that the Governor is super pissed at Utah County.