Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[Tintrlvr]

Anyone have a rough estimate of how many votes are out still in Broward County? Enough to close the gap prior to recount or unlikely?

We don't know, and Broward County's head of elections has said publicly (yesterday, I think) that she also doesn't know (indicative of the level of extreme incompetence in her office). Ignoring the undervote debacle, there would need to be around 45,000 votes left just in Broward for Nelson to tie, although we know there are some uncounted in Palm Beach also, so he might be able to get by with 35,000 in Broward and 12,000 in Palm Beach, e.g. Those numbers don't seem unrealistic at all (e.g., they would leave Broward and Palm Beach with turnout numbers around average for statewide while right now Broward is somewhat below average and Palm Beach in the range of average), but who knows.

And that is before provisionals, which are mostly uncounted except in a few rural counties, though Nelson should not expect to gain more than around 2,000 net votes from provisionals statewide.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/ncarper/status/1060614489773666305

Don't talk about that.

[Tintrlvr]

Is it now close to certain Jeff Denham and Young Kim have lost?

I don't think we've gotten any ballot updates since election night. I think it's close to certain Denham loses but would be less confident about Kim (and also Walters). I think their opponents are favored but there's a lot of uncertainty in those two races.

[Tintrlvr]

Wait so the 25K error is 100% Nelson voters?

The part of the county with the undervote is the area in FL-24 (and exactly coterminous with FL-24). It's one of the most Democratic patches of Broward County and heavily black, routinely in the 80s or even 90s for the Democrats. Not 100% Nelson but probably close it.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1060642052646625281

Also, within Broward County (posted by RI earlier):

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/1060688348321378307

Didn’t the Rs also have +10 ID advantage in the early ballots across the board? So his bucket B shouldn’t be McSally-favorable.

[Tintrlvr]

How many votes are there left in Broward?

Someone thought earlier tonight that the earlies were done and there were less than 10k absentees left. If so, it would be bad news, means Nelson would need to hope the undervotes were a machine issue that gets fixed in the hand recount (which will happen regardless as a matter of law now). But I haven’t seen confirmation of that anywhere outside of Atlas.

[Tintrlvr]

I'm sorry, they are oddly under the impression that Walters and Kim won in CA:

"Mimi Walters [Republican, Calif.-45] ran a great campaign, won a very tough race in a tough district. She was outspent by almost $3 million. Young Kim [Republican, Calif.-39] was one of our biggest expenditures in Orange County. I think she will be a future superstar of the party, the first Korean-American woman ever elected to Congress."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/09/democratic-republican-majority-house-election-2018-222400

It's amazing how many in the political media, who's job it is to cover congress, have no idea how the different state's voting processes work.

This was an interview, so the quotation is from a Republican political organizer, not Politico themselves. Still, it's pretty incompetent for him to be talking about Walters and Kim as if they actually won; either he's just spinning, or, despite being a lead political organizer for the Republican Party, he doesn't know how vote-counting works (perhaps indicative of how poorly organized the Republican campaign was).

[Tintrlvr]

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).

[Tintrlvr]

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?

“Only if they’re Republicans.” — Republicans

The breakdown of democratic norms among Republicans, both in the party establishment and in the broader general population, is that complete. They have no interest in democracy as an institution whatsoever.

[Tintrlvr]

Trump calling for a new election in Arizona?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1060993836984324096

He has no idea what he's talking about, but he's only making things worse and setting the groundwork for him to dispute his own election in 2020.

He knows exactly what he's doing.

And you know he’ll call Sinema “the illegitimate Senator from Arizona” every time they clash over the next two years, too.

[Tintrlvr]

Looks like Democrats will have a 45-8 majority in the CA congressional delegation and an 11-1 majority in the NJ congressional delegation. Pretty impressive consolidation of federal representation in these two states.

Probably going 46-7 in 2020. Im honestly shocked with the burb stomping that Hunter didn't go down or atleast come closer and that Mcmurray came closer than najjar most likely.

The only R who might lose in CA in 2020 is Valadao. Hunter will probably be forced out at some point (whether a retirement in 2020, failing to make the top two in the primary to an R challenger or resignation before then), but he won’t lose reelection to a Democrat. That district is not there yet for the Dems.

[Tintrlvr]

The Navajo batch from today scared me a bit they countered the trend we've been seeing of McSally doing worse with ballots later on. The ones out of that county have been trending more favorable to her by a huge margin. Yea its only one county but it shows such a abnormal trend is possible elsewhere.

Navajo County is weird because nearly everyone who lives there is either a Mormon Republican or a Native American Democrat. So oddities with Mormon or Native voting patterns (e.g., Natives don’t vote by mail because they’re less likely to have a mailing address) will show up there but are irrelevant elsewhere (except in Apache County, which has the same dynamic but more Natives and fewer Mormons).

[Tintrlvr]

Young Kim campaign goes full Trump. Saying any new batches that are too Democratic means there is foul play. They must know that things coming up won't look too good.



https://twitter.com/YoungKimCD39/status/1062130986291318784

Such a shame that a palatable Republican with a potential future is selling their soul.

Yup. After the report about McSally being asked to allege voter fraud and refusing, it’s obvious that this statement was ghostwritten by either the RNC or the White House. Sad.

[Tintrlvr]

Salt Lake Tribune still thinks McAdams will win, but it's looking better for Love than it did before.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/11/13/gehrke-math-doesnt-look/

https://twitter.com/RobertGehrke/with_replies

That was before today's disappointing update from Salt Lake City. There are over 30,000 ballots left in Salt Lake City, but McAdams needs to win them by a bigger margin in the coming days to offset Love's huge margins in Utah County. While Utah County only has about 5,000 votes left, Love won 74% of the last batch. McAdams won the latest batch of Salt Lake City by about 6 points.

https://twitter.com/hellofasandwich/status/1062466360628850688

Wow not great. Mia might win this

In the latest StLC Update

McAdams GAINED 5,059
Love GAINED 4,722
The Votes came from a Democratic Stronghold.

McAdams is TOAST.

The Salt Lake County update was not really that disappointing for McAdams. It could have been better, but he's still on track to win even if that result is repeated at all remaining counts in SLC. McAdams is currently ahead by about 1,350 votes. If Love wins 75% of the 5,000 remaining Utah County votes, as she did in the latest batch, she'd gain a net of 2,500 votes and lead by 1150 votes. If McAdams then wins 53% of the 30,000 remaining SLC votes, as he did in the latest batch, he'd gain a net of 1,800 votes and lead by 650 votes. (There might still be a few rural votes out but not more than net 200 votes or so for Love.) So McAdams is still favored, albeit very narrowly and the race will probably go to a recount.

[Tintrlvr]

I haven't been following the California dumps that closely.  I know it's going to be tough for Kim and Walters (though I think both still have a shot), but does it still look like Cox is going to win Orange County?

The King county dump did have a net gain for Valadao, but it wasn't too great. We'll see.

To talk about this topic, even though it was a mistaken response -- there are 7,788 votes left in Kings County. There are 22,072 votes left in Kern County. Do we know what portion of Kern County is in CA-21? I think it's around 45%, which would mean about 10,000 ballots for CA-21, but hard to be certain. If we assume the 2016 Presidential figures control the remaining late ballots as they have in the recent dumps, that puts [TJ] Cox narrowly ahead of Valadao with all the votes in (ignoring Fresno since it's so small but should mildly boost Cox as well). There's also the fact that the counties apparently have very different types of ballots left - the lion's share of Kings County's remaining ballots are late VBMs, but Kern County weirdly is mostly provisionals (around 16,000, which seems like a lot to me but I think that figure is all provisionals that will be counted, i.e., does not include unverified ones). If the provisionals, which I don't think have been counted in either county yet, are even more Democratic than the late VBM ballots, which doesn't seem implausible, Cox may be favored at this point.

[Tintrlvr]

It seems like even if they're underestimating Utah County ballots remaining, it would have to be a major underestimate to make a difference; Love would need about double the margin she's projected to gain from the remaining votes in order to take the lead in the estimated count.

Of course, the SLC estimates could be off in her favor, too.

[Tintrlvr]

The dam broke in California:

https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/1062203602331226112

Interesting history there:

1998: 1990 incumbent-protection gerrymander holds up
2000: The 1990 incumbent-protection gerrymander collapses in a Presidential year as the state changes from a swing state to a Democratic-leaning state
2002: New incumbent protection gerrymander. One new D seat but no seats change hands
2004: Incumbent-protection gerrymander holds
2006: One R seat from the 2000 incumbent-protection gerrymander flips to the Ds
2008-2010: Incumbent-protection gerrymander continues to hold other than the one prior deviation
2012: Non-partisan redistricting commission tosses the incumbent-protection gerrymander, replaces it with a map emphasizing fair and competitive districts. Ds gain many seats
2014: One more D gain in a year that is R-leaning overall nationwide, but the state moves in the opposite direction from the country
2016: No changes in a Presidential year where preferences are locked in, but lots of movement beneath the surface where previously safe R seats move close to being competitive
2018: Nearly all remaining competitive R seats flip to the Democrats, Republicans reduced to just a handful of safe seats plus Valadao
2020: (likely Valadao loses, Ds hold on to everything else, based on historical patterns)
2022: New map may result in some current R or D seats becoming more competitive. Depending on who is President and their popularity, there could be significant movement one way or the other but based on the history, I wouldn't want to be a Republican...

[Tintrlvr]

They're not certain about how much is left either

Do we have some rough numerical estimate at least? There would need to be at least 10K to have the slightest chance of flipping the result (and probably more like 15K).

This article from yesterday says "nearly 1,000" previously rejected absentees are left to count in GA-07 in Gwinnett. That seems like not enough for Bourdeaux to take the lead (but maybe enough to make it close enough for a recount to have a plausible chance of changing the result) if those ballots strongly favor her (as controversial ballots usually do favor the Democrats). I think all of the provisionals were counted today, but it's not 100% clear to me that the provisionals are done. I've seen articles from a few days ago that said there were "several thousand" provisional ballots to count in GA-07 but only 1,252 were counted today -- but maybe previous reporting overestimated the number of provisionals.

https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/democrats-search-for-votes-before-georgia-election-results-finalized/yNspgifhm1NsnCXxVQRjiN/

[Tintrlvr]

Also, lol:

https://twitter.com/DrewGodinich/status/1062546740337770497

If you read the article the tweet links to, you can see this wasn't an entirely stupid strategy on Walters's part. The Republicans' goal with the gas tax repeal campaign was not necessarily to actually repeal the gas tax (though they would have liked to) but to try to put something on the ballot that would to convince Republican voters to come out to vote when the Senate race was D v. D and the Republican gubernatorial candidate was a sacrificial lamb. By donating to the gas tax campaign, Walters clearly hoped to buoy her own reelection hopes. Indeed, she probably did by some small degree; the gas tax repeal passed in Orange County with 55.6% of the vote as of right now, meaning it certainly won decisively in her district, even if it failed statewide. It wasn't enough to save her candidacy but it probably was not a bad investment (and maybe better than lighting money on fire with pointless last-minute TV advertising).

[Tintrlvr]

Starting to think Nate McMurray may win NY-27. He's winning absentees OUTSIDE OF ERIE AND NIAGARA with 60%, which is more than what he needs to close that margin. I especially think Erie and Niagara are friendlier.

Where is the updated count available? I had written this one off.