2014 US Congressional Election Results

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UT-4 is doing everything backwards; they had 88% reporting 20 minutes ago and now they're down to 10%. Owens is leading 50-47. With those numbers, Love could actually still win this in non-embarrassing fashion. This was a bigger overreaction than when we thought a Libertarian was knocking off Andre Carson (who beat the Republican 55-42; seems like an underperformance, but Democrats were routinely held to single-digits in this district's predecessor, including in 2006, so I'd say Carson actually did pretty well).

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It's R+10 right now. TX-23 will make it R+11. There'll definitely be at least a few pickups in CA, but most of the uncalled Easterns look like they'll break Democratic, except ME-2. R+mid teens will be the final result; Walden will definitely exceed his goal of 245. 250 looks possible but unlikely.

Well past expectations as well.

Amazing how Louise Slaughter almost lost in NY-25.

With 100% in, she leads by 582 votes. If late votes break to Assini, or if there is a recount, Assini could still win, which would be freaking amazing. We actually had a touted candidate here in 2012 in Maggie Brooks, as opposed to Assini who is a no-name; Brooks got crushed by 14 points, but I think if she'd decided to run again she would certainly have beaten Slaughter this year.

EDIT: In western news, my accounts of Brownley's demise were exaggerated. The district just jumped from just-absentees to 42% reporting, and Brownley has gone from a 24-point deficit to a 206-vote lead. Looks like this one will go down the wire. On present numbers, the only seat that's flipping in CA would be DeMaio beating Peters, as Chabot is maintaining a narrow lead over Aguilar -- both are absentee only, though. With 41% reporting, Costa has also taken a lead...of seventeen votes. Amazing.

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Strange in New York: with 100% reporting, Kathleen Rice has a lead of 64-36 over Bruce Blakeman. I don't doubt she's won, but the lead was switching back and forth here and when last I checked, with reporting %s somewhere in the 90s, Rice had 53% of the vote. Mistake?

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In other "impressive juxtaposition" news, Kyrsten Sinema won by 12 percentage points while Raul Grijalva won by 10. Sinema is in a swing, barely-Obama district while Grijalva's is considered Safe D (though he got a scare in 2010). Probably because Sinema behaved like she had a serious threat and campaigned while Grijalva just sat back.

Strange in New York: with 100% reporting, Kathleen Rice has a lead of 64-36 over Bruce Blakeman. I don't doubt she's won, but the lead was switching back and forth here and when last I checked, with reporting %s somewhere in the 90s, Rice had 53% of the vote. Mistake?

Yes,  she has 85,294 according to the Nassau County BOE  52.66-47.24  .1 write in

That sounds more like reality

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So is Mark Warner going to win or not? I'm not as savvy with remaining precincts and whatnot as some of you.

The short answer is 'almost certainly'. It's possible that Gillespie will pull this off but it looks very, very doubtful. (Though Gillespie has probably pulled off a future career in elective politics with his performance tonight).

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In CA, Aguilar has taken a 51-49 lead, or ~1500 votes, with 16% in. With 66% in, Johnny Tacherra is beating Jim Costa by 587 votes, which is the biggest lead we've seen all night. (DeMaio is also ahead, but there's almost nothing counted there). It would be remarkable to see a cornucopia of touted Republican recruits in California lose but see the totally unheralded Tacherra take a seat in Congress.

EDIT: In other news, with 16% reporting in UT-4, Mia Love has taken her first lead of the night, 49-48 over Doug Owens. 97% reporting in TX-23, Hurd leads Gallego 50-48. That's basically insurmountable, there should be a checkmark. Ashford, Nolan, and Poliquin continue to lead in districts where the vote is being counted unbearably slowly. MD-6 has just stopped counting entirely and gone on what DKE likes to call a ganja break. (The NY races, 18 and 25, are finished counting and are just too close to be declared anyway -- I suspect we'll see some similar stuff in CA when all is said and done).

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So Terry goes down?

Probably, but there's still 31% left to count and we don't know where that's from. Up 3 points with 69% in is a good place for Ashford to be, though.

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Young has won reelection, basically, even though he has no checkmark; same goes for Gabbard. Only absentees in NH-1; Takai leads by 8 points. I don't know if there's a big absentee/Election Day divide in Hawaii, but Djou needs a significant victory with Election Day voters if he wants to go to Congress. Not impossible but it looks like Takai is favored.

EDIT: And, finally, after it being clear for at least the past hour, Will Hurd gets the checkmark in TX-23. Interesting to compare different Romney-Democrats who were thought safe; Patrick Murphy won by double-digits (considering the mood this year, that's freaking amazing -- honorary pickup?), while Gallego went on to lose to an underfunded Anglo opponent.

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And UT-4 has been called for Love. With 99% in (though who knows if that number's real or not), she leads 50-47 (that probably is). An underperformance but, a win is a win. Hopefully as an incumbent she can get entrenched. That makes the net R+12. Counting everything in a non-Pacific state as an uncalled Eastern, there are still 9 left, most of which look pretty good for Democrats; a gain in NE-2 would be especially sweet. Discounting same-party battles, there are 11 races that are within 10 points right now in CA; 10 of those have incumbent Ds and only 1, CA-31, is in R territory. (You can maybe take Ruiz and Lieu out of that, since they're both just below 55%; that's still so many opportunities for Rs in CA). Right now, Aguilar, DeMaio, and Tacherra lead, and it's been that way for a while: would be a net of R+1 in CA. Lots of Democrats barely holding on to leads; CA could break into something worse than NY or something relatively benign for Democrats.

EDIT: A break for Democrats -- Rick Nolan is reelected in MN-8, which was actually expected to be a Republican pickup.

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Vosem, I just wanted to compliment you on how classy you're being about all this so far. I'm really upset right now, so I really appreciate what graciousness forum Republicans extend.

Thank you. I'm just trying to make sense of it all.

Begich not improving. Suggests that current results aren't missing the bush vote. If so Begich has lost.

Wouldn't the rural vote come in much later though? Since it would take a while to be received?

I do think late Alaskan results trend more rural and Democratic, actually, considering Ted Stevens narrowly led on Election Night and Begich only overtook him later. But I don't think they're so Democratic to overcome a six-point lead; the race swung by about 2 percent then. Sullivan's margin could -- actually should -- narrow, but I don't see him losing. If Begich can keep this to 4 points, it'll actually be very impressive considering the drubbings other red-state Democrats have received.

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Slowly but surely, the last stragglers of the East are counting. With 75% in NE-2, Ashford continues to lead by his selfsame 49-46 margin. If what's left is very R, Terry can still win, but it's looking progressively worse and worse for him. In MD-6, with 97% counted, and the remainder seemingly from heavily-D Montgomery County, Delaney has taken his first lead of the night, 50-49, or about 1700 votes. Stick a fork in Bongino -- he's done. D hold. Checkmark soon. With just 57% reporting in ME-2 (why? how? such a low number so far east) Poliquin continues to lead 47-43. Considering LePage has a similar margin with 64% reporting and it's been called, I suspect Poliquin, too, will soon receive a checkmark. NY's uncalled races are, again, finished counting and are just very very close, with Democratic incumbents Sean Maloney and Louise Slaughter leading by hundreds of votes.

Further east, with ~70% reporting in all three races, Hardy leads Horsford 49-46, Kirkpatrick leads Tobin 52-48 (both probably soon to receive checkmarks); Barber leads McSally by 247 votes. That one could well go to overtime unless some of the outstanding area is heavily R or D.

In CA, Doug Ose has taken the lead from Ami Bera; Aguilar, DeMaio, and Tacherra continue to lead. All projected pickups have no more than 51.3% of the vote. Democrats lead with less than 52%: John Garamendi, Jerry McNerney, Julia Brownley. Still no more than absentees in CA-33, where Lieu leads Carr just 53-47. Republicans are at net+2 in CA right now; the final result will probably be a net of 1-3, and won't be known for some time.

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Vosem, I doubt California will be worse than R+2 and even that is being charitable to the Republicans. Costa will not lose because Fresno doesn't count its vote till late. Brownley, Bera and Peters are in a bit of trouble though. Aguilar should pull it out as well.

Tacherra is out to a lead of more than 1000 votes now. I don't know how much margin Fresno will give Costa, but he'll need every vote. CA is R+2 right now (Aguilar, but Ose/Tacherra/DeMaio), with Democrats having more narrow leads and the Central Valley, from Garamendi to Valadao and everything between them, getting more Republican as counting progresses. In an ideal scenario for Democrats D+1 isn't out of the question, but I think R+2, or worse, is quite conceivable.

In intra-party races, Newhouse, Honda, and Knight have all maintained consistent leads in the high single digits; I'd imagine they all win. Knight was considered a distinct underdog to Strickland, and Khanna was considered to have momentum against Honda. Newhouse was expected to win.

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Indeed we shall, Sbane -- with 88% in, Tacherra's lead is down to exactly 777 votes. If the remainder is heavily Democratic, Costa will beat Tacherra, if unimpressively. In uncalled Eastern news, the Bangor Daily News has called ME-2 for Poliquin. Delaney and Poliquin should both be receiving checkmarks soon. (Maloney might deserve a checkmark as well; even though it's been at 100% for a while, his margin has gotten progressively larger. NY-25 hasn't shifted since it's been at 100% ).

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Indeed we shall, Sbane -- with 88% in, Tacherra's lead is down to exactly 777 votes. If the remainder is heavily Democratic, Costa will beat Tacherra, if unimpressively. In uncalled Eastern news, the Bangor Daily News has called ME-2 for Poliquin. Delaney and Poliquin should both be receiving checkmarks soon. (Maloney might deserve a checkmark as well; even though it's been at 100% for a while, his margin has gotten progressively larger. NY-25 hasn't shifted since it's been at 100% ).

They still have to count the absentees in New York, IIRC. Still likely a Maloney win either way.

But those usually lean D, right? I seem to recall in 2012 it only became clear that Democrats "took" the NY Senate once absentee votes were counted. If those break R Maloney probably has a solid enough win to stick in the House, but Slaughter could be slaughtered.

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Well, it's 2:30 and I'm heading to bed. A bunch of safe Democratic seats were just called in California, but there's still 8 Democratic seats at risk (of which Republicans lead in 3/8), and Aguilar's 51-49 lead over Chabot is obviously not good enough for a call. Setting my alarm for 7; I'll check back in then. G'night, y'alls. It was a fantastic Election Night, covered very professionally by news-media, discussed very politely and expertly by the Atlas, and with, dare I say it, fantastic results. I hope to see many more like it.

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Well, I just woke up. There've been no calls, but Ashford, Delaney, and Poliquin have won. There was a call for Hardy, which bumped Republicans up to R+13. There was no call for Kirkpatrick. With 75% in AZ-2, McSally leads by 36 votes; that one could still go either way. With most CA races at 100%, it's still a net R+2 with Ose/Tacherra/DeMaio picking up seats as does Aguilar. If absentee ballots break heavily D, Tacherra and DeMaio both won with under 1,000-vote margins; Ose looks safer at 51.6-48.4. If they break R, Brownley's margin right now is 530 votes.

When the Eastern races are called, there'll be no shift. If the leaders in AZ/CA stay the same, the final pickup would be R+16, but I think Ds can expect one or two races to shift back to them. Dan Newhouse, Mike Honda, and Steve Knight won the intraparty battles.

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On the topic of outstanding House races, over at DKE they write that if absentees behave similarly to 2010, Costa and Peters should both ultimately pull it out (so a net zero in California), but Slaughter could very well still lose to Assini: apparently on Election Night 2010 Maffei enjoyed a larger lead than Slaughter has now only to go on to lose to Buerkle regardless. (Also, my god, if absentees in upstate NY really do lean Republican Katko could end up with over 60% of the vote. Amazing.)

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With 100% in AZ-2, McSally leads 50.6%-49.4%. 2,078 votes -- difficult to see that being overcome with absentees. McSally will probably pull this one out.

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Noticed something interesting about possible future GOP Congressman Mark Assini from NY-25: he was the Conservative Party nominee in neighboring NY-29 in 2004, when he garnered 6% of the vote.

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Another interesting comparison: in 2012, Chris Collins barely beat Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul 51-49. In 2014, he beat his Democratic opponent (admittedly a Some Dude) 72-28.

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Oddly enough, Tacherra is currently leading (1.0%) by more than DeMaio is (0.6%). Ose looks OK, but further pickup opportunities in CA (and NY-25 hundreds of miles away) still very unclear.

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All Democrats just gained some tenths of percentage points in CA. Peters gained a lead against DeMaio -- probably on track for a win here. Shame DeMaio got swiftboated. Ose and Tacherra, for now, are still ahead.

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All Democratic incumbent reps will win in California. There are about 1.7 million ballots to be counted:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-general/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

Movement toward the Ds has actually already started, but just to keep hope alive, I want to note that in the primaries this year absentees generally helped Republican candidates. 1.7 mil comes out to ~32000 per district -- in practice, the two really questionable districts (CA-7 and CA-16) are in Central California, which has abysmally low turnout, so there's probably less outstanding in both. (All other CA ones, I think, it's clear the Democrat will win). That means Bera needs, at minimum, 53.4% of outstanding ballots to be for him just to have a shot -- an improvement of more than 4 points compared to current results, which already take some absentees into account. That's the best-case scenario. There's a shot, but I doubt it. Costa looks better -- counting the way I did for CA-7, he needs just 51.1%. But considering CA-16 is the single lowest-turnout district in all of California, the 'real' figure he needs may be somewhat higher. (32,000 ballots would be 30% of all votes in CA-16 -- a really implausibly high figure).

In short terms: McNerney/Brownley/Aguilar/Peters have all basically certainly won. Meanwhile, it can't be called, but I'd rather be Ose than Bera right now. In Costa/Tacherra, the history looks good for Costa (he came back from worse in terms of number-of-votes-margin against Vidak, though turnout was higher in 2010), but the math seems to me to look good for a Tacherra victory by the skin of his teeth. (As an aside, you ever gotten that feeling on a math test where you can't quite believe the answer you got but can't find any mistakes in your work either? That's what CA-16 looks like to me).

Barber has won in AZ, almost certainly, with stuff still out in Pima and McSally barely holding on. She might improve on the 2012 margin, but still. In upstate NY, late counting usually benefits Republicans, unlike in CA, and in 2010 Buerkle made up a margin bigger than the one Assini is down by now to beat Maffei, but this time turnout is not Republicans' friend: fewer people voted now, and it doesn't seem there's enough out there for Assini to win. But a victory for Assini remains conceivable.

My God, the eastern Arizona results are such outliers. And while most unexpected Democratic victories were due to either weak Republican candidates (Southerland/Terry/Domino come to mind) or underestimated turnout (MN-8), neither explanation seems to really hold up in Arizona. What happened to Tobin/McSally?

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Another interesting juxtaposition: the seat the Republicans captured with the greatest margin is David Rouzer in NC-7. Next was Elise Stefanik in NY-21, which was also seen as a fairly good bet. Then came John Katko in NY-24, who was seen as a decided underdog nearly through the end of the contest.

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House Democrats really need to send Jerry Brown some kind of present -- his popularity and successful governance was very likely what saved the close Democratic House seats in CA. At some point after he is gone, the dam will break.

The comparison between AZ and OH is a strawman argument. No one disputes that OH is completely openly gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans. The difference is that Democrats seem to feel that AZ is a completely reasonable, non-partisan map, when it's clear that portions of it were designed in 2011 to be favorable to Democrats. Being a fairer map than OH's isn't really a spectacular accomplishment.