NATIONAL SENATE/HOUSE RESULTS THREAD (LATE RESULTS/POSTMORTEM)

[Torie]

Himes is finally leading in CT-04.

Torie - Care to guess the net number of seats Republicans lead in right now?

I am overwhelmed. So no.   Any seat that you want me to look at?

[Torie]

Ok, I am ready to call CA-11 for Mcnerney. It will be damn close, and perhaps a recount will happen, but I think Mcnerney will be on top when it's all said and done. Harmer just didn't get the numbers he needed out of San Joaquin and only won his home county of Contra Costa by 1. As long as Mcnerney wins by about a 14 point margin in Alameda, and holds up well in Santa Clara, he should win.

I suspect the GOP will get zip out of CA. But the redistricting commission now controls CD redistricting, so the GOP will not be totally wiped out come 2012, although I suspect they will still lose a couple of seats. CA given the national GOP is now a Dem bastion, and a reliable one. In some ways, almost as reliable as NY, if not more so in some ways.

[Torie]

MN-08 isn't looking good for the Democrats. Bennett should win though, as has been echoed already.

It's Bennet, spelled unusually, very unusually, just like the name of my great, great, grandfather, who built in Montreal having emigrated there hired as an engineer from Scotland, the steam engine that powered the first steam boat across the Atlantic, the Royal William. I suspect we are related, maybe third cousins once removed (I am quite certain I am a generation ahead of him, because my clan breeds late), or something?   

[Torie]

AP declares Hanabusa winner

What do I need to put up as my sig again, or something? I don't remember the exact deals of our bet. Congratulations Memphis. Pity I had to lose a bet due to the loss of a man that I admire. Such is life. I would give you Oberstar if you give me Djou in a milisecond.

[Torie]

Dewey defeats Truman in Nevada.

Polling had him down 49-45 consistently other than the PPP poll and he was able to pull it off.

On what basis do you say Reid has won?

Well if the ultraconservative Vegas voted for him...

I'm sorry... what?

Indeed. What? 

[Torie]

Damn@Oberstar. I never saw that coming. Normally I'd take solace in that the seat would likely flip back but who knows what redistricting will do. We've probably lost the chance to redistrict out Bachmann too but if we lose a seat Cravaak likely will be it.

Well on the bright side Hanabusa appears to have won by a solid margin.

I was really surprised that Cravaack pulled 40% in St. Louis.  Should I be?

Yeah. That's really flukeish. I wouldn't expect it to continue in future elections but as said who knows what the district will look like. I wonder what happens if they draw Cravaack and Peterson in, Peterson would win but he might lose the primary. Then again he might want to retire now with all of his fellow Blue Dogs wiped out.

Of course I've also heard it's now looking more likely Minnesota might not lose a seat.

If Minnesota does lose a seat, the courts will probably draw the lines, because shockingly to me, and no doubt shockingly to you, BRTD, the GOP won  the Minnesota legislature. It will be just too tough to agree on which Congressperson is going to retire. If the state does not lose a seat, then everybody's district who needs strengthening, will probably get it. Maybe some of the iron range will be moved to MN-7 (but not too much because Peterson would not want too much in a Dem primary), and MN-8 can pick up some of the southern portion of MN-7 perhaps.

Is there any state where gerrymandering is important, that the Dems totally control? Did the GOP win back the NY senate? Apparently, the GOP probably did take back the NY state senate. Oh yes, Illinois! Quinn is clearly going to win, and that is an important win for the Dems. The Dem gerrymander in Illinois is going to be real ugly, as Cook County votes are used so sink suburban GOP congresspersons. The only thing holding them back will be the need to keep too black and one Hispanic district. Illinois losing a seat will just make all the more sanguinary. Muon2, what do you think?

Can anyone think of a state other than Illinois of any import, that the Dems will control?

[Torie]

Well, California, but we're not allowed to gerrymander that unfortunately.

Yes, the Dems don't control the process in California. In fact, they, along with the Republicans, have absolutely nothing to do with it. What it has most to do with is federal law, and the host of strictures of how districts have to be drawn, that are now statutory in California, and are to be implemented by the independent commission.

The GOP appears to have drawn a royal flush when it comes to the gerrymandering wars. I wonder how much the GOP endeavored to maximize the odds of that particular draw?

[Torie]

McNerney down 23 votes right now. Can you say recount?
BTW, he's not a Blue Dog. Blue Dog Costa seems to have lost (also one of the uncalled races).

Harmer is probably going to lose to the Dem, unless the 2 or 3 precincts out in Santa Clara County are disproportionately Republican, which is possible (somewhere in gated communities in Moraga or something), but unlikely.

Santa Clara
Updated 7 minutes ago
McNerney    4,900 51%
Harmer     4,254 45%
86% of precincts reporting

[Torie]

It looks like the GOP will get 64 seats net, winning IL-08, the Ortiz seat in Texas TX-27 I think (that must be the biggest upset of the night), CA-20, and WA-02.  They have a chance to win 65 seats if they get lucky in CA-11, but that appears less likely than not, unless after those silly 2 or 3 precincts in Santa Clara County which remain out (why haven't they been counted, what is the problem?), and as is likely, Harmer is behind (by 72 projected votes - oh the SOS has all the votes reflected (thanks for bringing that to my attention Johnny Longtorso), and McNerney's margin is 121 votes), he makes it up with the late absentees and military ballots. I suppose that is possible. This one might be up in the air for weeks.

In WA-2, per my spreadsheet projection, Koster has about a 1,700 projected pad when all the projected votes are in, and that will be very tough to make up with late absentees being that heavily more disproportionately Dem vis a vis what came before in each county. In IL-08, of the remaining projected 2,140 votes out, Bean would have to carry that by 69%, as opposed to the 55.5% she has been getting in Cook County so far (which is the only county with votes out). I don't think so.

[Torie]

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Yes you are right, Reds4.

                             Buerkle   Maffei   Margin   
Wayne existing        8,925         5,542     3,383   0.6
Wayne projected   14,875         9,237     5,638   
Buerkle gain                                             2,255   
Existing Maffei lead 93,090      95,286      2,196   
Projected Buerkle margin                          59   


Yes, Sam, Larsen is certainly still in the hunt. You are right. He needs to do about 2% better with what remains than he has done with what came before.

            existing     Projected     Diff       Larsen margin  Larsen %
                      per spreadsheet         needed to win  needed to win    
Koster   87,687   137,591   49,904   47,865       0.486            
Larsen   86,258   134,842   48,584   50,623       0.514            
            
                             2,749   98,487     2,758
Koster      50.4%
Larsen      49.6%

So 63-65 net seat GOP gain, with WA-2, NY-25 and CA-11 still in play.

[Torie]

Is there any state where gerrymandering is important, that the Dems totally control? Did the GOP win back the NY senate? Apparently, the GOP probably did take back the NY state senate.

Maybe, Torie.  We don't know for sure.  The Westchester County Board of Elections is so incompetent that they are only reporting 75% of the county's vote right now.  They show the Democrat leading by 180 with 80% in.  The AP has a tally supposedly showing the Republican in that race up by 2300 with 81% in.

Both parties appear to believe that the GOP won both the Long Island and  Buffalo seats, giving the GOP 32 seats, no matter how Westchester turns out, and the GOP needs to win only one of the two seats that it is thought that they will probably win to get a 31-31 tie in the NY State Senate. Am I missing something here Cinyc?

[Torie]

Is there any state where gerrymandering is important, that the Dems totally control? Did the GOP win back the NY senate? Apparently, the GOP probably did take back the NY state senate.

Maybe, Torie.  We don't know for sure.  The Westchester County Board of Elections is so incompetent that they are only reporting 75% of the county's vote right now.  They show the Democrat leading by 180 with 80% in.  The AP has a tally supposedly showing the Republican in that race up by 2300 with 81% in.

b

Both parties appear to believe that the GOP won both the Long Island and  Buffalo seats, giving the GOP 32 seats, no matter how Westchester turns out, and the GOP needs to win only one of the two seats that it is thought that they will probably win to get a 31-31 tie in the NY State Senate. Am I missing something here Cinyc?

I agree about the LI seat, but I'm a little surprised that the Dems think they lost the Buffalo seat.  The Erie County Board of Elections' last numbers had the Dem up by 2,500 - though the AP count differs.  I guess the Erie County Board of Elections is almost as incompetent as Westchester's.  Having only 75% of the vote in the on the next day is inexcusable - almost Bridgeport-level inexcusable.

They must know where the missing precincts are in Erie County, I guess.

[Torie]

Well, California, but we're not allowed to gerrymander that unfortunately.

Yes, the Dems don't control the process in California. In fact, they, along with the Republicans, have absolutely nothing to do with it. What it has most to do with is federal law, and the host of strictures of how districts have to be drawn, that are now statutory in California, and are to be implemented by the independent commission.

The GOP appears to have drawn a royal flush when it comes to the gerrymandering wars. I wonder how much the GOP endeavored to maximize the odds of that particular draw?

On the flip side, Republicans now wont be able to gerrymander Florida with the redistricting proposition that passed. 

Yes, and per your post, I looked up in the Miami Herald the story about the proposition. It says lines need respect city and county boundaries (the GOP can handle that without losing too much of its gerrymandering punch, although it might be tough to save Alan West in FL-22), but then the story I read says that in addition, one is not to take partisan considerations into mind. Huh?  How do you enforce that one?  Is it like what porn is to the US Supreme Court (we know it when we see it, or what)?  Or is it just a crummy reporting job, and the prop in fact has in it more specific metrics about the shape of districts, to squeeze out partisanship?

[Torie]

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Yes you are right, Reds4.

                             Buerkle   Maffei   Margin   
Wayne existing        8,925         5,542     3,383   0.6
Wayne projected   14,875         9,237     5,638   
Buerkle gain                                             2,255   
Existing Maffei lead 93,090      95,286      2,196   
Projected Buerkle margin                          59   


Yes, Sam, Larsen is certainly still in the hunt. You are right. He needs to do about 2% better with what remains than he has done with what came before.

            existing     Projected     Diff       Larsen margin  Larsen %
                      per spreadsheet         needed to win  needed to win    
Koster   87,687   137,591   49,904   47,865       0.486            
Larsen   86,258   134,842   48,584   50,623       0.514            
            
                             2,749   98,487     2,758
Koster      50.4%
Larsen      49.6%

So 63-65 net seat GOP gain, with WA-2, NY-25 and CA-11 still in play.

As an update to this for NY-25, instead of a projected Buerkle lead of 59, it ended up being 659.  Apparently, 9,500 absentee ballots are left to count, 7,000 of then in Onondaga County.

So if Maffei is to win now, he needs to run with the remaining 7,000 absentees in Onondaga County at about the double the margin did run with the votes already counted there, to about a 16% margin from an 8% margin. The assumes that Buerkle runs about as well with the 2,500 absentees from the other three counties in the district, as he did in the votes counted there to date. Buerkle clearly has a pretty big edge now.

[Torie]

It is essentially the Fairfax, VA of the west.

What? Absolute nonsense. CO-7 is working class suburbia. Fairfax, VA...

Well they are both comprised of close in suburbs.

[Torie]

Murkowski is spelled like it sounds. Much tougher is my name for example, which is spelled Stephen. Do you know how often I see my name spelled Steven, and pronounced Stefan if someone sees my name in print?  This "can they spell" story has been really hyped out of proportion.  Moreover, irrespective of what anyone else does, the courts eventually are going to require that if the intent is clear, the vote will be counted, and will not tolerate gamesmanship. Is there someone with a similar name on the write in list?

[Torie]

Sam Spade, do you have any idea what percentage the Pubbies got of the Hispanic vote in TX-23 and TX-27?  I would love to see a precinct map of TX-23 in Bexar County.

[Torie]

Anyone else surprised that Ayotte broke 60% and carried every one of NH's counties?  I certainly didn't see that coming.

Almost shocking really. Hodes in the debate I saw was presentable.

[Torie]

Earlier I said there were about 30000 ballots left in Pima County.  Actually the amount of ballots left is somewhere around 47,000 (about 32000 early voting ballots and 15000 provisional ballots).  Thats why they arent calling AZ7 or 8 yet.  They have until November 12th to count all of those ballots.  Most of these votes will come from the more populous area of Pima county which is AZ8.  Also, even though Pima and early ballots ran better for Giffords on election night, it could be that she already got the bulk of what she was going to get.

Current Totals:
AZ7
Grijalva: 49.39% / McClung: 44.94%, McClung Deficit 5980 votes
AZ8
Giffords: 48.58% / Kelly: 47.41%, Kelly Deficit 3055

Probably not doable for McClung, but definitely still doable for Kelly.  

Provisionals tend to have a decided Dem lean.

[Torie]

It is amazing the GOP does that well with Hispanics in Texas. That deserves some sort of study, as to why. They do as well in Arizona (at least some candidates do), but close to half the Hispanics in AZ are evangelical Protestants.

[Torie]

It is amazing the GOP does that well with Hispanics in Texas. That deserves some sort of study, as to why. They do as well in Arizona (at least some candidates do), but close to half the Hispanics in AZ are evangelical Protestants.

Before Bush, Texas Hispanics were the most Democratic in the nation.

That is an interesting thought - that Bush's popularity with Hispanics relatively speaking, had staying power at least in Texas for subsequent GOP candidates.

Do we have any idea what the percentage of voters in TX-23 and TX-27 were Hispanic?  If we knew that, and assuming (I assume a reasonable assumption) that 75% of the Anglo voters in these two CD's voted for the GOP candidate (would you pick another percentage for Anglos?), we could impute the percentage of the GOP take of Hispanic voters this time for each of these two CD's.

[Torie]

It is amazing the GOP does that well with Hispanics in Texas. That deserves some sort of study, as to why. They do as well in Arizona (at least some candidates do), but close to half the Hispanics in AZ are evangelical Protestants.

Before Bush, Texas Hispanics were the most Democratic in the nation.

That is an interesting thought - that Bush's popularity with Hispanics relatively speaking, had staying power at least in Texas for subsequent GOP candidates.

Do we have any idea what the percentage of voters in TX-23 and TX-27 were Hispanic?  If we knew that, and assuming (I assume a reasonable assumption) that 75% of the Anglo voters in these two CD's voted for the GOP candidate (would you pick another percentage for Anglos?), we could impute the percentage of the GOP take of Hispanic voters this time for each of these two CD's.

75% is a fair call.  Though based on what I've been seeing in other results, it may be closer to 80% (remember that Perry got 69% of whites according to exit poll and Farenthold ran a couple of points better than his percentages - with the further note that a good chunk of the whites who vote Dem live in the major urban areas).

Adults-wise, TX-23 is 30.0% White, 65.1% Hispanic (there's about 3% blacks there).  TX-27 is 27.6% White, 68.1% Hispanic (with 3% blacks also).

It looks to me that no more than about 25%-30% of the Hispanics in TX-23 voted for the Pubbie. I don't think anymore than 40% of the voters in the district were Hispanic, based an Anglo turnout probably being about 50%, black turnout say 40%, and Hispanic turnout around 25% or something. If the Hispanic turnout is higher than 25%, than the GOP percentage goes down from 25%. It appears that about 55% of the registered voters are Hispanic, as best as I can tell.

              % vote  % GOP   % GOP of total vote
Anglo       0.56         0.75           0.42
Hispanic   0.40         0.25           0.10
Black       0.04         0.10         0.004
                                               0.524

[Torie]

Well CA-11 appears to have been inspired by the Senate race in Washington, and the late absentees so far are not being kind to the Pubble Harmer. What we have is Dem creep. Unless Harmer can volley back with Pubbie creep of a slightly higher magnitude that that reflected below in the County he is leading in, San Joaquin, and by a hair in Contra Costa, Harmer is going the way of Rossi.

   Alameda               
57.32%   15688   16086   398   59.49%      
42.68%   11679   11950   271   40.51%      
14.65%   27367   28036   669   18.98%   4.33%   Dem improvement
                  
   Santa Clara               
54.04%   5285   6912   1627   55.45%      
45.96%   4495   5802   1307   44.55%      
8.08%   9780   12714   2934   10.91%   2.83%   Dem improvement



Just so the numbers are up for later comparison, the totals from yesterday with no new numbers yet from today for Contra Costa and San Joaquin are:

                        San Joaquin      Contra Costa
Harmer             45,958                19,871
McNerney         41,958                19,539

And once we get the above two counties in, we can see whether McNerney's lead from yesterday of 121, expands or contracts.

If Harmer loses by the way, my "perfect" prediction of a GOP gain of 63 seats is probably going to go down the toilet.  It does not look too good at the moment.

Addendum

Contra Costa caused another small yardage loss for Harmer, but the key play is the next one from San Joaquin, of which we await.

McNerney       49.63%   23,718   19,539   4,179   49.88%      
Harmer           50.37%   24,070   19,871   4,199   50.12%      
                      -0.74%    47,788   39,410   8,378    -0.24%   0.50% Dem Improvement

[Torie]

Apparently, Mason Dixon bit the dust in Nevada with its polls because  they were done in by the cell phone and Hispanics don't like to be grilled by gringos in English as to how they will vote, phenomenon.

[Torie]

NY-01 isn't over yet:

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/7970/ny01-altschuler-says-he-has-the-lead-after-recanvass

Ughhhhhhhh

Having read the article, it looks pretty over to me. The ball didn't move much.