Primaries to watch Tuesday (3/5/24) (Super Tuesday) (outside of presidential)

[Oryxslayer]

As noted by Kwabbit, CA-22 is one to watch just cause the order of the top finishers is not at all certain. Not just the party lineup, but whether the desired candidates will advance - more likely to potentially not occur on the GOP side than the Dems.

Runoff thresholds should also be noted. Automatically occurs at <50% in AL and TX. If nobody crosses 30% then there could (will) be one requested in NC. This will occur in AL-02, TX-32, TX-26, and probably NC-13 just cause of all the candidates. Possibly in TX-12, TX-18, TX-23, and TX-Sen.

In a similar way, if CA races for second place are close then things should and will remain uncalled for a while.

Also I guess maybe these seats deserve mention. CA-49 cause there is no clear GOP challenger in a potentially competitive seat, and the four challengers while self-funding lack clear distinctions. CA-34 cause of positioning in the eternal battle between Gomez and Kim. TX-03 if only cause of how unusual Self's path to congress was in 2022, and could leave an opening for surprises.

[Oryxslayer]

A question on CA, I've seen people claim the 2 party share of the vote each party gets has some predictive power in terms of how the election will go in November. That Republicans generally improve from the primary to the general in terms of the vote so any seat democrats don't win over 50% in the primary will likely vote Republican in the general. How true is this?

I agree about some predictive power, Nov results are usually in the ballpark of the party primary vote, but it's actually Republicans who never win unless they get the most votes in the primary. IIRC since Top 2 was instituted in 2012 no Republican has won a congressional race where their party did not get the most votes in the primary. There are not a lot of cases of the opposite either but it has happened.

And in general,  I would say this matters less when there are other races influencing the electorate,  like the presidential contests of 2016, 20, and now 24. There's a reason why the later and disconnected  Washington top two primary is held up as an indicator in the laste decade, and CAs is not.

[Oryxslayer]

Yes, no Virginia, but it's still a rather interesting set of states up today. Only 5 states holding primaries below the presidential option - AR, AL, CA, NC, and TX. However between them over 1/4 of all congressional primaries will be decided this early.

[Oryxslayer]

NC-13 is looking like a unholy mess, as expected. As there are actually a decent number of votes in.

[Oryxslayer]

How things stand as of posting this:

Literally 1 precinct in AL-02, but Shomari Figures is getting >50%.

Three precincts in NC-01 all for Buckhout 70-30.

2.4K votes in NC-06 but the votes are very fragments. But Bo Hines is #4 in the 2-5 pack, Walker in first <30%.

NC-03: Harris and Baucom both have 28%, John Bradford may go up from 20% though with Charlotte not reporting.

30K votes in NC-10, Mills has 45%, to Harrigan's 37%.

NC-13 is a mess. Kelly Daughtry is in first with 26%, but so many potential runoff rivals.

Moore has swept NC-14.

Collin Allred is going to win TX-Sen: He's sweeping everywhere outside of the south and still getting decent numbers in the majority hspanic southern counties. Mark Gonzalez is cutting into Gutierrez's supposed base.

Crenshaw may actually have a race...only 57% versus a single rival....

Goldman has a majority of the vote in TX-12 after the intial drop.

The early vote in Houston was 62% for Jackson-Lee.

Just Bexar County, Gonzalez has 50.1%. No unified opposition, Herrerra is in #2.

Brandon Gil has a majority of the vote in TX-26 with most of the votes in. No rival even close.

Julie Johnson has a majority of the vote right now in TX-32, all early.

Not even a race in TX-34.

[Oryxslayer]

74-26 Moore in the AL-01 showdown, but all the counted votes are from the Dothan region, most from Dothan itself.

Still barely any votes in AL-02, but its now a race between Shomari Figures and Anthony Daniels.

58-42 for Womack off some early votes from 2 of the counties.

NC-01 R has gotten close. Theres a geographic divide showing up, based seemingly on previous lines.

NC-06 is a three way, walker not longer on top. Bo Hines still in 4th. 

Virginia Foxx isn't going to lose her primary, but she is losing a moticable number of votes. Maybe her awful personal reputation finally coming home?

Mark Harris is at 29.5% with several counties done. Will he avoid a runoff with Baucom?

Pat Harrigan is the likely winner in NC-10, though it's close.

NC-13 remains a clusterF.

[Oryxslayer]

Going through once more on the interesting races, and any new surprises which popped up:

AL-01 probably going to be held by Jerry Carl. It's currently 56-44 Moore, but thats with most of the Dothan region reporting and a single precinct from Mobile.

Almost certainly a runoff between Shomari Figures with 39% and Anthony Daniels at 28%. Though Figures is probably going to increase her share and end up favored cause, again, not Mobile votes and she is from the region.

Womack is probably going to hold on, since he confidently leads in all the counties reporting 55-45 overall. Ad they are the large one. But he certainly got a fright.

54-46 Buckhout for NC-01 Rs. But that may tighten even further based on whats left. Still unclear who wins.

NC-06 is going to be a runoff between Addison McDowell and Mark Walker or Christian Castelli. More likely the first two names.

NC-08 currently has Mark Harris at 30.4%, right above the threshold. Based on what's left, he likely maintains that position.

Pat Harrigan wins NC-10.

Kelly Daugherty could pass 30% in NC-13, but with most remaining precincts in Wake, this seems unlikely. Open question who the runoff partner will be.

Collin Allred has won TX-Sen for Dems.

Dan Crenshaw got a scare but seems to be fine.

Craig Goldman has 46% of the vote in TX-12, O'Shea 25%. But with almost everything remaining in Tarrant where he is getting over 50%, a runoff still could be avoided.

Nothing new from TX-18.

With most of the vote in, Gonzalez is going to a runoff in TX-23 with 46% of the vote, likely versus Brandon Herrerra's 22%. He's still the overwhelming favorite, having carried every county.

Brandon Gill wins in TX-26 outright.

There will be a runoff in TX-28 for the GOP, with Furman in 45% and Garza Jr at 27%. In truth there still is a racial gap here.

Nothing new from TX-32.

[Oryxslayer]

Wow, Barry Moore won. Given what was outstanding for a while I thought Jerry Carl had it.

I think there was a reporting error in Mobile that made it seem like there were more votes than there were. Cause I was definitely under the same impression.

[Oryxslayer]

Some immediate thoughts on the CA races before signing off. As usual in CA, this is both not the final result and nowhere near a perfect indicator for November. Especially now when enthusiasm is supposedly low and the GOP are likely to end up overshooting their baseline thanks to Trump and Haley. So grains of salt within grains of salt.

That all said, the initial votes in the competitive districts point toward competitive races in the future. I don't think there's any more that could be read at his present point in time. The one exception to this is CA-41 where Calvert is way below baseline. I think we can all accept that Dem voters here are much much more likely to vote than the GOP in a primary, but it's still interesting to note the divergences.

Also, CA-22 top-two shenanigans again disappoint people from outside CA. Every year there are articles on a party getting locked out of a race it wants to have a candidate in, and it so rarely happens. Cause the average person who votes in a primary is likely to understand that predicament. A lockout needs to sneak up on the electorate, like in SD-04.


Lateefah Simon isn't putting this initial vote in CA-12 away like expected. She though is still the likely eventual winner.

Close race for top-two in CA-16 between Sam Liccardo, Joe Simitian, and Evan Low in that order. D v D runoff.

Currently Dem Marisa Wood is ahead of third-place republican Mike Boudreaux in CA-20. This de Facto means frontrunner Vince Fong is the winner. But will it stay that way, or will the runoff end up R v R.

State Assemblywoman Laura Friedman seems set to advance in Schiffs former seat. Right now her opponent would be a republican, making her de facto the eventual winner.

Similarly, a close race in CA-31 between Republican Daniel Martinez and Democratic Susan Rubio for the second slot. Cisneros seems likely to advance, but not by a margin safe if he has to face another Democrat.

National Dems are going to be sad if the candidate-specific results in OC stay as they are. Derrek Tran is slightly ahead of Nguyen-Penaloza n CA-45 and Min is further ahead of Weiss.

[Oryxslayer]

Alert: it actually happened. Low and Simitian are now tied. Legally if it stays this way there will be a 3-way runoff, but there may be a tiny number of votes left, and a recount was guaranteed weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/CATargetBot0001/status/1775611356789793014?t=aX8_2hYEbfhSUXh...

[Oryxslayer]

Alert: it actually happened. Low and Simitian are now tied. Legally if it stays this way there will be a 3-way runoff, but there may be a tiny number of votes left, and a recount was guaranteed weeks ago.

I have read that any candidate or voter can request a recount BUT they have to pay for it. No request no recount. So do Low or Simitian prefer a 50/50 shot at a 2 way race or a guaranteed 3 way race. How about Liccardo? Recounts ain't cheap.

Game theory all but guarantees someone will request it. That's what I meant. Especially if there are like 10 more votes left in the system and someone pulls ahead.