2014 US Congressional Election Results

[Torie]

Jim Costa is leading Johnny Tacherra by...wait for it...4 votes. Paul Chabot is leading Pete Aguilar 51-49 as well.

Absentees are still a bit biased towards the Pubs in CA.

[Torie]

[Torie]

Another huge surprise.

[Torie]

Vosem, you need to stop projecting CA from absentee ballot tallies (and that is all that has been counted, and will be counted for another hour at least). Costa for example will win rather easily. Hispanics don't vote much absentee.

[Torie]

Vosem, you need to stop projecting CA from absentee ballot tallies (and that is all that has been counted, and will be counted for another hour at least). Costa for example will win rather easily. Hispanics don't vote much absentee.

I'm tryna work with what I got, Torie. And Costa has a lead of 220 votes: even if Election Day returns favor him and he wins, this is a seat that was universally thought Safe D where the incumbent is getting quite the scare.

What do you think the absentee results say?

Absentees have a big Pub lean in low SES CD's (particularly ones with a high percentage of Hispanics), less so in high ones, none in say the West LA CD . The CA-26 numbers are however rather shocking. That one does look like a Pub pickup. There are a lot of today votes counted in CA-07, and that one is skin tight.

My wild guess is that the Pubs will net about 15 seats in the House.

[Torie]

Well, looking at the NYT House map (great utility that, but notice if you look at the NYT front page today, just how bitchy that "pinko rag" is about the Pub sweep, aka "anger sweeps the land, as the Pubs cash in on hate" as it were?), the Pubs have picked up 13 seats, and will win WA-04, CA-07, ME-02 and the two LA runoff seats, netting an 18 seat gain in the House. The Dems pick up ground as the votes are counted over the ensuing weeks in CA, so the Dems are going to hold CA-52 most probably , along with CA-16 and CA-26. And Barber will hold on in AZ-02, which is kind of a surprise to me, because McSally was an excellent candidate. I suspect Kirkpatrick did so well in AZ-01 due to a heavy Native American vote, which she cultivated assiduously. Good for her!

All a most surprising outcome - a near Pub wave, which as per usual peters out as one gets near the left coast. Well, perhaps not totally surprising to some (hi there Lief), but I digress.

[Torie]

Oh, I made my comments on the Pub disappointment thread about CA-52.  I really didn't follow the sexual harassment charges and counter charges going back and forth, and have no opinion about that. If he engaged in that activity, he should be sued, or be prosecuted if serious enough.  But he denies it all is my impression.

[Torie]

Torie, what makes you think Barber will pull AZ-2 out?

Late counted votes, provisionals, and so forth, tend to lean Dem, typically lower SES voters. But my statement was made before Jimtex said a bunch of votes had not been counted in Cochise, which is the Pub stronghold of the CD. So Barber is probably going down, making the Pub gain 19 seats, and if the gay guy somehow manages to win in CA-52 (unlikely but possible), that will make for an even score - the result I characterized would be a big surprise, but not totally shocking to me.  I perceived that the Dem turnout would suck, and in most places it did.

[Torie]

Yes, McSally is in trouble. Barber closed the gap by about 900 votes on a Pima vote dump (not all in the CD presumably) of 16,000, and there are 24,000 Pima votes left to go, which at the same close rate, would give Barber an additional margin of about 1,350 votes. McSally has a lead of 363, and with respect to the 3,200 votes out in Cochise, she generated in the last Cochise vote dump a margin at about a 10% rate, so  at that rate she would get about a 320 margin from the votes left there. 363 + 320 = 683, which is about 667 short of Barber (1350-683 = 667). So the trend line does not look good for her.  

[Torie]

Well according to one number cruncher, the Pub may have a slight advantage in CA-16. The details of his number crunching are not available. Assuming he knows what he is doing, that seat might be the best bet for the Pubs to pick up their 247th seat. Who knew?  If the Pub wins, he had better try to figure out how to become an Hispanic folk hero, if he plans to hang around after 2016.

[Torie]

Yes, McSally is in trouble. Barber closed the gap by about 900 votes on a Pima vote dump (not all in the CD presumably) of 16,000, and there are 24,000 Pima votes left to go, which at the same close rate, would give Barber an additional margin of about 1,350 votes. McSally has a lead of 363, and with respect to the 3,200 votes out in Cochise, she generated in the last Cochise vote dump a margin at about a 10% rate, so  at that rate she would get about a 320 margin from the votes left there. 363 + 320 = 683, which is about 667 short of Barber (1350-683 = 667). So the trend line does not look good for her.  

The rest of Cochise (or most of the rest of Cochise) came in and McSally's up 772. I still think Barber will pull it out, but this'll be within a couple hundred votes.

Yes, McSally had a good vote dump (about two thirds of what remained in Cochise, except perhaps for provisional ballots), running quite a bit above the trend line, helping to close much of the gap, but not all of it. Fun finale here, with suspense remaining perhaps until the very last vote dump. Who could ask for anything better?  

[Torie]

Another vote dump and McSally's ahead by 317.

Edit: ANOTHER (I think the rest of Cochise...?) and she's at 509.

McSally seems to be rising from the dead, and now has the edge again.

"Republican Martha McSally’s lead in the closely-contested Congressional District 2 race shrunk to 317 votes Friday night when an additional batch of Pima County early ballots were tabulated.
...
The Pima County Elections Department counted about 16,000 more votes, mostly early ballots late Friday. More than 10,200 of them fell into Congressional District 2.

The latest vote tabulation released Friday evening leaves Pima County with up to 12,000 more votes to count. Those are mostly provisional ballots that have to be verified, some of which will ultimately be disqualified.

Cochise County has another 1,100 provisional ballots to verify and count.

County officials expect to count more ballots and release updated totals Saturday afternoon."

Crunching the numbers from the above data, and what Nathan put up, Barber using the same trend lines closes the gap by 341 votes, assuming all the provisional ballots are accepted as valid, all of which will not be. That's 168 votes short of the finish line for him.



It does appear checking the Cochise County elections website, that all of its votes have been counted (with the last 1,100 provisional ballot vote dump giving McSally a huge boost, bumping her lead up from 317 to 509 per Nathan's reporting).

We might know one way or the other this afternoon whether the Pubs have picked up their 247th seat. At the moment however, the McSally camp must be a lot happier today than it was a couple of days ago.

[Torie]

In other news, my number crunching projects Ose "cruising" to victory in CA-07 by 216 votes. The late votes just aren't working as well as the Dems hoped so far (at least in CA-07 and AZ-02), except in CA-52, well, in the context of the Pub getting some really bad press at the end.

[Torie]

In other news, my number crunching projects Ose "cruising" to victory in CA-07 by 216 votes. The late votes just aren't working as well as the Dems hoped so far (at least in CA-07 and AZ-02), except in CA-52, well, in the context of the Pub getting some really bad press at the end.

I did miss CA-09, but when I added it, the 216 projected lead for Ose never changed ... which was -  well - disturbing!  It turns out, that the smaller the CA-07 share of the Sacramento County pie, the higher than Bera percentage margin with respect to the last vote dump, with the two exactly offsetting each other. That was not a satisfactory state of affairs, so I hunted around, and found the CA-07 vote totals before the last vote dump, which allowed me to calculate the actual number of CA-07 votes added from the last VBM vote dump, and it turned out to be a bit smaller share of that particular county vote dump, than its share of all of the votes counted. So that pushed Bera's margin up, and thereby cut Ose's projected lead down to 119. However, that is assuming CA-07's share of the remaining votes is the same as all of the votes counted so far, rather than its a bit lower share of the last VBM vote dump. If you use the lower percentage share number, which would seem more appropriate since it is the same ilk of ballots being counted, it bounces back up to 145.



Fun stuff!  

[Torie]

My guess is the US house will be 246-248 R, 188-87 D.  It will either tie or break the post World War II numbers.  

246 to 249. CA-16, AZ-02 and CA-07 remain in play.

[Torie]

With 33,000 left to count in CA-07, Ose is up 530; I think Bera wins this.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article3727753.html

McSally's lead has dropped to 179 votes; unsure of how many are left to count. A judge also refused her move to stop counting some of the provisional ballots.
http://www.chron.com/news/article/McSally-lawyers-trying-to-block-some-ballots-5883510.php

As to AZ-02:

"McSally leads Barber by 179 votes with about 4,000 left to count in Pima County including write-ins. An automatic recount will be triggered if the two candidates end up separated by about 200 votes or less."

That means about 2,200 left to count in Pima in AZ-02.  That means Barber needs to get about a 54-46 split on the balance (a bit more if one deletes the write ins and over and under votes), to close the gap aside from all of the legal contretemps, and absent a recount changing the numbers much. I am fairly confident that has not been his margin in the late counted votes - absent something weird happening with the provisionals, which may be what this is all about.  

As to CA-07, it appears to me that Bera is on the pace to a lead by a tiny margin, very tiny. Close to two thirds of the remaining ballots have been counted outstanding in the CD since the prior vote dump (much of the County is not in the CD from looking at the votes remaining in the County) and Ose's lead dropped by just a bit more than two thirds. So the trend line change from the previous late vote dump would have to hold - as near steady as an expensive Swiss watch, to bag it for Bera.

[Torie]

With 33,000 left to count in CA-07, Ose is up 530; I think Bera wins this.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article3727753.html

McSally's lead has dropped to 179 votes; unsure of how many are left to count. A judge also refused her move to stop counting some of the provisional ballots.
http://www.chron.com/news/article/McSally-lawyers-trying-to-block-some-ballots-5883510.php

As to AZ-02:

"McSally leads Barber by 179 votes with about 4,000 left to count in Pima County including write-ins. An automatic recount will be triggered if the two candidates end up separated by about 200 votes or less."

That means about 2,200 left to count in Pima in AZ-02.  That means Barber needs to get about a 54-46 split on the balance (a bit more if one deletes the write ins and over and under votes), to close the gap aside from all of the legal contretemps, and absent a recount changing the numbers much. I am fairly confident that has not been his margin in the late counted votes - absent something weird happening with the provisionals, which may be what this is all about. 

As to CA-07, it appears to me that Bera is on the pace to a lead by a tiny margin, very tiny. Close to two thirds of the remaining ballots have been counted outstanding in the CD since the prior vote dump (much of the County is not in the CD from looking at the votes remaining in the County) and Ose's lead dropped by just a bit more than two thirds. So the trend line change from the previous late vote dump would have to hold - as near steady as an expensive Swiss watch, to bag it for Bera.

What number of outstanding ballots are you assuming is in CD-7? Remember, this is basically half of the county by population and certainly casted more votes than CD-6 in this election. The other districts in Sacramento barely have any people in it. It might not be a bad assumption that of the 33,000 ballots left to county in the entire county, more than half would be in CD-7. Even if you are conservative, and say that only 15,000 are left in CD-7 (assuming the late voters are disproportionately poor democrats voting in CD-6), you still only need about a 52-48 Bera lead on the remaining ballots for him to win. Not easy to do, but it is certainly doable. And any recount should help Bera, IMHO.

Before the last vote dump, Bera needed about a 53-47 split to win. Now he needs about a 51.5-48.5 split to win (CA-07 has abut 55% of the Sacto County pie). So yes, if the trend holds, Bera should win by about 500 votes or something. The last vote dump was  about 53.4 to 46.6 split in favor of Bera - which if it holds for the balance of the votes, would give Bera about a 500 vote victory. Those tenths of percent changes in the trend line make all the difference. Now, the last vote dumps need to move a couple of percent in the Pub direction as you note.

[Torie]

Crunched the number on CA-16, and the Dems hold it.  Based on the splits of the remaining ballots, the past split of Fresno County of about 63-37 would have to drop to around 55-45 for the race to be even at the end. It isn't happening. Costa will win by about 650 votes, plus or minus.

CA-07 does not look too good for the Pubs either. Ose needs a swing to him of a couple of points on what remains, from what went before. Still in the hunt, but the underdog now.

So that leaves AZ-02, where somebody else claims that the final projection is for a 40 votes McSally win. So that one remains a slight tilt GOP seat.

Addendum: Oh, wait a minute! I forgot that Tacherra had a 741 vote lead!  Yes, Costa is expected to generate a lead out of the remaining ballots of 651 (assuming the remaining ballots break like the ones counted to date (don't know if the last vote dump was more Dem than the election day counted votes, because I can't find the details of the last vote dump numbers), leaving him 90 votes short. So this race remains a tossup more or less. My bad.

[Torie]

Crunched the number on CA-16, and the Dems hold it.  Based on the splits of the remaining ballots, the past split of Fresno County of about 63-37 would have to drop to around 55-45 for the race to be even at the end. It isn't happening. Costa will win by about 650 votes, plus or minus.

CA-07 does not look too good for the Pubs either. Ose needs a swing to him of a couple of points on what remains, from what went before. Still in the hunt, but the underdog now.

So that leaves AZ-02, where somebody else claims that the final projection is for a 40 votes McSally win. So that one remains a slight tilt GOP seat.

The 2 LA districts and one of those three.  247?  

Yes, but now I see that CA-16 is in fact still a tossup (see addendum to my above post). I might be able to refine it if I had the last vote dump numbers, but on top of that the 4,000 remaining ballots in CA-16 in Fresno County is just an estimate (nobody knows), and I did not subtract out the expected under and over votes, leaving fewer votes that will affect the relative totals than the absolute number of ballots to be counted, so the say 90-110 vote margin for the Pub is too tiny really given the unknowns, to label the race anything but a total tossup at present based on what I know.

[Torie]

Barber, as the AZ-02 race extravaganza winds down to its final episode, is getting squeezed almost as badly as Ose is in reverse in CA-07. Advantage McSally.

[Torie]

Barber, as the AZ-02 race extravaganza winds down to its final episode, is getting squeezed almost as badly as Ose is in reverse in CA-07. Advantage McSally.

According to the Arizona Elections Results Website, McSally is now up by 133.  This is supposedly with everything in but a handful of provisional ballots in Pima County, 200-250 countywide which all won't be in the district.

Then it is over, unless a recount uncovers something. So the Pubs have very probably bagged their 247th seat, with about a 50% chance of getting to 248.

[Torie]

Shame about AZ-02, but glad Democrats are on the upswing in CA.

Blame that pseudo  independent redistricting commissioner McNulty, in reality a mole working for the Democrats, who fashioned a Democratic gerrymander in AZ. She was worried that the Democrats needed a bit more help in AZ-01, more so than in AZ-02, and at the very end of the redistricting process, moved some Dem strength from AZ-02 to AZ-01, maybe  about half a percentage point. If she had not done that, Barber would have been re-elected. Dummymander! Yes, indeed, the irony is just delicious.

[Torie]

AZ-2 is an R+3 district, as is AZ-1. AZ-9 is R+1. Yeah, those secret Democrats are really drawing the lines to protect themselves

Those GOP  PVI's were inflated by McCain being on the top of the ballot in 2008.

[Torie]

AZ-2 is an R+3 district, as is AZ-1. AZ-9 is R+1. Yeah, those secret Democrats are really drawing the lines to protect themselves

Those GOP  PVI's were inflated by McCain being on the top of the ballot in 2008.

In the 2012 election Obama won nationally by 3.86% He lost AZ-1 by 2.5%, AZ-2 by 1.5%. These are not in any way Democratic districts. They're not safe Republican seats either, granted. That is rather the entire point of having an independent commission draw the districts. Obama did win AZ-9, so if you want to to say that a statewide result in which the Democratic candidate wins 44% of the popular vote and 33% of Congressional Districts suggests a phantom Democratic gerrymander, that's your prerogative. But it puts you in JJ territory.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/19/1163009/-Daily-Kos-Elections-presidential-results-by-congressional-district-for-the-2012-2008-elections#

Your'e such a sweetheart Memphis. I didn't say the seats were not competitive. What I said was that it took a Dem gerrymander to make them so, and since the Dems were greedy, and wanted two competitive CD's (the 3rd seat they called "competitive," but that was just for show - fooling no one), they jiggled stuff around and well, screwed it up a bit (it was clear to me then that they were making a mistake, but that was in the Gifford's era, so perhaps that influenced them). Thanks so much for listening.

[Torie]

If you are going to be critical, at least know what you are talking about. The portions of the former AZ-8 that were moved to AZ-1 are Republican-leaning areas, areas that Kirkpatrick lost by double digits, so I highly doubt Barber would have been saved by those precincts.

Second, the commission allows for competitiveness to be taken into account and that is just how they drew the map.

Did you mean from AZ-02 to AZ-01?  Maybe that is the fail of communication here? Or is the former AZZ-08 now AZ-02? If so, I will check back on the AZ redistricting thread, and get back to you. No need to stick the knife in. That is just political data, no more, no less. It is what it is.