CONGRESSIONAL RESULTS MEGA THREAD

[jimrtex]

So is this an accurate summary of all the flips/uncertain races?

Confirmed D to R flips:
FL-26
FL-27
IA-01
MN-07
NM-02
OK-05
SC-01

Confirmed R to D flips:
GA-07
NC-02
NC-06

Uncalled but likely staying R:
AK-AL
CA-08
NY-01
NY-02
NY-24
TX-24 (Called by DDHQ but not AP/NYT)

Uncalled but likely flipping from D to R:
CA-39
CA-48
NY-11
NY-22

Unclear:
CA-21 I'd move this to the next level.
CA-25
IA-02
NJ-07 (AP call was likely premature)
UT-04

Uncalled but likely staying D:
AZ-01
IL-14
NY-03
NY-18
NY-19
WA-08

All the late California votes appear to be more favorable to the Republican than the Democrat, than they were on election night.

CA-8 went from +16,680 to +24,925 based on Monday's results.

CA-21 closed a tiny bit, but it appears that votes were released from only one county.

CA-25 Smith took the lead, but only votes from Los Angeles county were updated.

California is really horrible about letting counties count at their own pace.

CA-39 Kim's lead expanded from +2940 to +3550.

CA-48 Steele's lead increased from +6191 to +7346.

[jimrtex]

It appears Cox and Smith have the best chance to hold on. Rouda and Cisneros though... (I guess Cisneros has a small chance still)

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1326146687015006209

The thing is that the votes in CA-21 are not low because of outstanding ballots, but because there are fewer adult citizens in the district.

The district has 62% of the average number of registered voters per district statewide.

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/HarleyRouda/status/1326223203216236544?s=19

This looks like a CONCESSION by Rep. Harley Rouda!

Well, congratulations to Michelle Park Steel then as the 1st Korean American elected to Congress

Already filed to run against Steel in 2022. lol.

https://twitter.com/CATargetBot/status/1326226014922420224?s=19

Good, enjoy your two year rental while you can

You expect 2022 to be a blue wave or what ?

Just you wait for OC redistricting.

(puts on my naive innocent hat for purposes of drawing out an answer)

But California has an Independent Redistricting Commission as a well-intentioned reform. Are you telling me this Independent Redistricting Commission will suddenly draw districts in Orange County in a way to screw over a particular party in a partisan-purposed manner?

It may depend on how well the "citizen" testimony can be crafted to influence the commissioners. In 2011, the commissioners were advised to rely on citizen testimony because there was not objective evidence as to where "communities of interest were".

I'm sure that there are more Democratic areas that can moved into a district or more Republican areas moved out.

"Blagovians have moved into Sierra Bandana so now the community is split. They have a hard time getting the interest of their representative. If the community were made whole in a single district they would be better represented." (we are either trying to move Blagovians out of the district if they were refugees from a tyrannical Communist regime and more likely to vote R, or move them into the district if they are more likely to vote D).

On the other hand San Diego doesn't need much population adjustment, at most some redistribution. Orange County is somewhat short, so it would have to shift districts north a bit. It would not be illogical to push more of CA-47 out of the county and add that to CA-48. The other choice would be push more of CA-39 out of the county. I think the mountains are too much of a barrier to cross into Riverside County.

The big change will be in Los Angeles County where close to a district will be lost. Riverside has increased in vote share so you should eastward shifting of districts in the Pomona-Ontario area. They may try to knock out one of Waters or Bass. There will also need to be some northward shift through the Central Valley.

[jimrtex]

I think CNN has the most accurate House Map right now so I'll go with them from now on until everything is decided.

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2020/results/house

DEMOCRATS 218
REPUBLICANS 203
14 Races Uncalled

For the purpose of this Exercise I'll give CA-25 (Garcia vs Smith; Too many LA County Ballots left),
IL-14 (Underwood vs Oberweis), NY-3 (Suozzi vs Santos), NY-18 (Maloney vs Farley); NY-19 (Delgado vs Van de Water) to the Democrats bringing them to 223.

I'll also give CA-39 (Cisneros vs Kim), CA-21 (Cox vs Valadao; Since Kings won't restart counting until Nov. 21 and is Valadao's stronghold Cox would need a lead heading into that count), IA-2 (Miller-Meeks vs Hart), LA-5 (Runoff between two Republicans), NY-24 (Katko vs Balter) and UT-4 (McAdams vs Owens) to the Republicans bringing them to 209.

Three Races I see as totally Jump Balls: NY-2 (Open; Garbarino vs Gordon); NY-11 (Rose vs Malliotakis) and NY-22 (Brindisi vs Tenney).

Best Case Scenario: Republicans win all 3 bringing them to 212-223 in the House.
Worst Case Scenatio: Republicans lose all 3 bringing them to 209-226 in the House.

Republicans would need to flip only 9 Seats to win House Control back in 2022 in a worst-case scenario.

Those “jump balls” should all go GOP.

Speaking of NY, you don't think the Dem candidate will win about 50% of the absentee ballots of registered Pubs and 100% of everything else? The total absentees might by as much as about 10% higher than the totals here, but that is about the max increase.

Assuming the second NY-11 is actually NY-3, there is a portion of the district in Queens.

I did not understand your question. Perhaps word it as an assertion on your part what you think might happen.

[jimrtex]

If you want to see what the vote in Alaska looks like so far, here are my interactive maps:

https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/state-maps/ak/ak-2020-ge

Click on Menu to change what's mapped.

Note that, as always, only the in-person election day vote is broken down by precinct on the default map. You'll have to click on U.S. Pres-->More-->By HD to see other vote types.

Are they counting the mail ballots in any systemic manner? By AD for example?

An ADN article suggested that they were.

I'm mostly interested in the Top 4 referendum.

[jimrtex]

If you want to see what the vote in Alaska looks like so far, here are my interactive maps:

https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/state-maps/ak/ak-2020-ge

Click on Menu to change what's mapped.

Note that, as always, only the in-person election day vote is broken down by precinct on the default map. You'll have to click on U.S. Pres-->More-->By HD to see other vote types.

Are they counting the mail ballots in any systemic manner? By AD for example?

An ADN article suggested that they were.

I'm mostly interested in the Top 4 referendum.

They're largely trying to count a certain group of HDs up to a certain date at a time. I know what they were supposed to count yesterday, but the Anchorage office also got to a few other HDs. I don't know what they're counting today.

-All but about 500 of the early votes have been counted.
-Most of the Questioned vote is still out.
-About 3/5ths of the absentees are still out.

I had recorded the number of votes cast by the late night dump on Tuesday and compared  it with the 5:00 PM (AKST) dump for today. There were several HD with 100's of more votes, bunches with no change, and some with several 1000 more.

Those with lots more (1500 to 4000) on Wednesday were HD-14, HD-16, HD-17, HD-28, HD-30, and HD-35.

Those with 100's more: HD-3, HD-4, HD-5, HD-6. HD-9, HD-13, HD-15, HD-23, HD-25, HD-32, HD-33, HD-35, HD-39, HD-40.

The other 21 had no change.

So it would appear that they didn't get to some of the outer Anchorage districts until Wednesday. I remembered that they do report absentee ballots.

Tuesday:  15, 16. 19, 20, 21, 23, 25
Wednesday: 14, 26, 27
Thursday?: 13, 17, 18, 22, 24, 28

It is possible that Fairbanks (1-6 and 9) and Mat-Su (7, 8, and 10-12) are using a different scheme.

Are the western districts for the Juneau office (Kenai and Kodiak) handled independently? The four Nome districts (37-40) have not counted any absentees yet.

I think Top 4 will narrowly pass (perhaps 1% or less).

Does Alaska ever display absentee ballots by precinct, or do you have to estimate that?

What is the status of Egrexit? Just talk?

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/scottwongDC/status/1329172541001379846

The virus is spreading like wildfire through the halls of Congress. At this point, it would be a miracle if Pelosi, McConnell, and the other party leaders didn't get it.

In 1789, it took some time before there was a quorum in Congress so the electoral votes could be counted and Washington became president.

[jimrtex]

I find it very very hard to believe that there are no ballots left in this district.

Yes, but they likely won't show up until a recount is needed. You always hold some in reserve.

[jimrtex]

I find it very very hard to believe that there are no ballots left in this district.

Yes, but they likely won't show up until a recount is needed. You always hold some in reserve.

Blablabla democracy bad blablabla I don’t understand vote counting blablabla
We get it

Remember the bag of ballots in the Gregoire-Rossi contest?

In a real democracy ballots would be cast in person with voters showing an ID, and counted in the precinct after the polls closed.

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1329836584095653893

He misspelled "$$$$$$$"

[jimrtex]

Because it's a clear gerrymander, from a COI perspective, Huntington fits far better with the rest of the OC Shore cities and not with Long Beach.

I would actually disagree on that. The Santa Ana River really divides OC into two strong COIs, and Huntington really has nothing in common with Newport/Laguna/Irvine. Huntington+Long Beach isn't particularly clean, but neither is Huntington+Newport. A truly fair map is probably Huntington+Fountain Valley+Westminster+Garden Grove.

It may come down to what population is needed. The commission may want to avoid splitting cities, and prefer grouping adjacent cities to get population equality, especially now that exact population equality is not needed.

San Diego has kept up with the growth to keep its districts, so they will just shuffle a bit to maintain population equality, keeping the cross-Pendelton district.

Orange County is short, so the districts have to grow north, because they can go west, and crossing the mountains is quite unlikely particularly if you are only grabbing a 100,000 voters or two.

Long Beach and Garden Grove are in one of the two LA-Orange districts, so I can see Garden Grove moved into an Orange district (which avoids putting Huntington Beach with Long Beach). If you need population balance you play around with the smaller cities northward.

Fun Fact: In the 2018 gubernatorial election, were the most Orange County votes cast in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, or some other city?

[jimrtex]

Kwanza Hall won the GA-05 Special Election, and will serve for about a month until the 117th Congress begins:

https://twitter.com/ap_politics/status/1334007595200360448?s=21

There should be a common-sense constitutional amendment to conjoin end of term special elections with the regular election.

There should be a statute requiring special elections to fill vacancies within a month. So in this case on August 17.

[jimrtex]

Going directly to the United States House of Representatives asking them to overturn the Election Results ain't legal options in my book.

This is quite ordinary over history.

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

[jimrtex]

Should Democrats use IA-2 as a bargaining chip? They will agree to seat Miller-Meeks in the house in exchange for policy concessions.

It's total no sense.

Hart lost because she got less votes than her opponent, it's a fact, there is nothing to negotiate on that. Policies are bargainable democracy isn't.

If Pelosi decides to seat Hart despite the results being validated by the state board (which includes two democrats), House democrats will have to pay the political price for it in two years.

No one will remember this in 2022. (For the record, I don't think Hart should be seated.) It's not like Republicans suffered for what Mark Harris did in 2018.

Harris was a wild case because he stole both the primary and the general, and the GOP lent him relatively little support once the shady stuff came out.

It was relatively hard to portray that as some kind of GOP conspiracy.

Harris was cleared by the NCSBOE.

Harris won the primary by almost 1000 votes, he led in election day voting, early voting, and absentee voting.

McCrae Dowless has never been tried for anything that happened in 2018.

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/millermeeks/status/1334692638566604800

Smh, another Yankee appropriating my culture. It really annoys me when these GOP clowns pretend to be southern despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Miller-Meeks was born in California and obviously lives in Iowa. I realize it doesn't really matter but it's very bothersome.

Her father was career Air Force. Her birthplace of Herlong, California is barely in California, along the Nevada line. Her father was likely stationed at the Sierra Army Depot. While she was growing up much of his service was in Texas, and she started her education at San Antonio Community College and the TCU. She received her pre-med education at USC while stationed in Seoul, Korea. Her residency in ophthalmology was at the University of Iowa.

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/millermeeks/status/1334692638566604800

Smh, another Yankee appropriating my culture. It really annoys me when these GOP clowns pretend to be southern despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Miller-Meeks was born in California and obviously lives in Iowa. I realize it doesn't really matter but it's very bothersome.

She literally said her first job was in Texas.

Seems to be a lot of IA-TX-CA connections. I have often noted that a large number of people moved from Iowa to CA in the mid 20th Century, and a large number probably did likewise to TX. There is also John Wayne, who was born in Iowa but is often associated with TX and then lived in CA as an actor.

And it turns out some of Miller-Meeks Czech ancestors settled in Iowa in the 19th Century and helped start the first school in the area.

[jimrtex]

Honestly, the best thing to do would be to have a do-over election. But it really didn't have to be like this.

I disagree too, the situation is very different from the one in NC-9 back in 2018, yeah the race is very close and the people who are managing electoral boards in NY should be fired but there was no electoral fraud, as long you're ahead by one vote you have won, so if after counting every ballot Tenney is ahead she should be seated, and if the democrat is ahead he should be seated.

There was absolutely no evidence of evidence of fraudulent voting affecting the outcome in NC-9. The NCBOE overturned the election because it was "tainted". Dowless McCrae has not yet been tried for anything that happened in 2018.

It is really a jump ball situation. They should do like in basketball and give possession on an alternating basis. Tenney gets the seat on this basis.

An even better approach would be split the seat. Each day there would be a lottery to decide which candidate is seated for that day. This could work regardless of the support. If you get 5% of the popular vote, there would be a 5% chance of being seated on any given day. This could even be extended across districts. All candidates in New York would show up and 27 would be selected for the day. Some days, both Tenney and Brindisi might be chosen; other days neither, and most often one or the other.

[jimrtex]

Honestly, the best thing to do would be to have a do-over election. But it really didn't have to be like this.

I disagree too, the situation is very different from the one in NC-9 back in 2018, yeah the race is very close and the people who are managing electoral boards in NY should be fired but there was no electoral fraud, as long you're ahead by one vote you have won, so if after counting every ballot Tenney is ahead she should be seated, and if the democrat is ahead he should be seated.

There was absolutely no evidence of evidence of fraudulent voting affecting the outcome in NC-9. The NCBOE overturned the election because it was "tainted". Dowless McCrae has not yet been tried for anything that happened in 2018.

It is really a jump ball situation. They should do like in basketball and give possession on an alternating basis. Tenney gets the seat on this basis.

An even better approach would be split the seat. Each day there would be a lottery to decide which candidate is seated for that day. This could work regardless of the support. If you get 5% of the popular vote, there would be a 5% chance of being seated on any given day. This could even be extended across districts. All candidates in New York would show up and 27 would be selected for the day. Some days, both Tenney and Brindisi might be chosen; other days neither, and most often one or the other.

That is a very bad idea

So this is how the very good idea would work. If this plan were put in practice, Working Families and Conservative would likely run their own candidates, and the other parties would run candidates in all districts. Even Republicans would contest all districts.

There might be an opportunity for party candidates to combine their support. Instead of 11 Libertarians averaging 0.012 votes, or roughly voting once every 82 days, they could choose one representative who would be able to vote every 7-1/2 days.
 

12	Carolyn B. Maloney	DEM	265172	0.874
8	Hakeem S. Jeffries	DEM	234933	0.774
13	Adriano Espaillat	DEM	231841	0.764
9	Yvette D. Clarke	DEM	230221	0.758
5	Gregory W.  Meeks	DEM	229125	0.755
27	Chris Jacobs	REP	229044	0.755
26	Brian Higgins	DEM	223276	0.736
20	Paul D. Tonko	DEM	219705	0.724
16	Jamaal Bowman	DEM	218471	0.720
3	Thomas R.  Suozzi	DEM	208412	0.687
25	Joseph D. Morelle	DEM	206396	0.680
10	Jerrold L. Nadler	DEM	206310	0.680
1	Lee M. Zeldin	REP	199763	0.658
4	Kathleen M. Rice	DEM	199762	0.658
17	Mondaire Jones	DEM	197353	0.650
19	Antonio Delgado	DEM	192100	0.633
7	Nydia M. Velazquez	DEM	191073	0.629
21	Elise M. Stefanik	REP	188649	0.621
18	Sean Patrick Maloney	DEM	187169	0.617
24	John M. Katko	REP	182567	0.601
23	Tom Reed	REP	181060	0.596
2	Andrew R. Garbarino	REP	177353	0.584
15	Ritchie Torres	DEM	169533	0.558
3	George A.D. Santos	REP	161907	0.533
6	Grace Meng	DEM	158862	0.523
1	Nancy S.  Goroff	DEM	157484	0.519
11	Nicole Malliotakis	REP	155608	0.513
22	Claudia Tenney	REP	155348	0.512
22	Anthony J. Brindisi	DEM	154997	0.511
2	Jackie  Gordon	DEM	154123	0.508
4	Douglas L. Tuman	REP	153007	0.504
14	Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	DEM	152661	0.503
19	Kyle Van De Water	REP	151475	0.499
27	Nathan D. McMurray	DEM	149559	0.493
24	Dana Balter	DEM	147638	0.486
18	Chele C. Farley	REP	145098	0.478
20	Elizabeth L. Joy	REP	139446	0.459
11	Max N. Rose	DEM	137198	0.452
25	George Mitris	REP	136198	0.449
21	Tedra L. Cobb	DEM	131992	0.435
23	Tracy Mitrano	DEM	129014	0.425
17	Maureen McArdle-Schulman	REP	117307	0.386
26	Ricky T. Donovan, Sr.	REP	91687	0.302
6	Thomas J.  Zmich	REP	74829	0.247
10	Cathy A. Bernstein	REP	66889	0.220
14	John C. Cummings	REP	58440	0.193
12	Carlos Santiago-Cano	REP	53061	0.175
9	Constantine Jean-Pierre	REP	43950	0.145
8	Garfield H. Wallace	REP	42007	0.138
16	Patrick McManus	CON	41085	0.135
7	Brian W. Kelly	REP	32520	0.107
15	Patrick Delices	REP	21221	0.070
13	Lovelynn Gwinn	REP	19829	0.065
24	Steven Williams	WOR	13232	0.044
17	Yehudis Gottesfeld	CON	8887	0.029
22	Keith D. Price, Jr.	LBT	6749	0.022
17	Joshua Eisen	ECL	6363	0.021
25	Kevin A. Wilson	LBT	5325	0.018
27	Duane J. Whitmer	LBT	4884	0.016
26	Michael P. Raleigh	GRE	4628	0.015
19	Victoria N. Alexander	LBT	4224	0.014
12	Steven Kolln	LBT	4015	0.013
23	Andrew M. Kolstee	LBT	3650	0.012
2	Harry R. Burger	GRE	3446	0.011
10	Michael Madrid	LBT	3370	0.011
13	Christopher Morris-Perry	CON	3295	0.011
18	Scott A. Smith	LBT	3162	0.010
4	Joseph R. Naham	GRE	3024	0.010
19	Steven Greenfield	GRE	2799	0.009
17	Michael I. Parietti	SAM	2745	0.009
3	Howard Rabin	LBT	2154	0.007
14	Michelle Caruso-Cabrera	SAM	2000	0.007
9	Gary Popkin	LBT	1644	0.005
7	Gilbert Midonnet	LBT	1522	0.005
9	Joel B. Anabilah-Azumah	SAM	1052	0.003

[jimrtex]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

In forty years, since the passing of the law regarding redistricting, the Iowa state legislature has never rejected the maps drawn by the Legislative Services Agency.
For Paul Mitchell is a FF, redistricting has, for the last forty years, always been done by a state agency called the Legislative Services Agency. This article describes how the process works. As it says in that article, "It is explicit in state law that district lines cannot be drawn 'to favor a political party, incumbent, or other person or group.' " You can read more about the redistricting law here.

That's not entirely accurate. The legislature has rejected a congressional map on grounds that the deviation was too large. The LSA then submitted a new map. IIRC, the first map would have had a deviation of a bit over 100, and the second about half of that.

I suspect that the second map may have been known, and the legislature preferred it for reasons beyond the difference in deviation.

Iowa has an advantage of regular square counties, thus nobody really recognizes the pistolmander.

[jimrtex]

What I don't understand about the IA-2 situation is why Hart hasn't taken the matter to state courts before appealing to the House. If she has legitimate reasons to believe the law wasn't properly followed, the courts should be able to offer remedy (and I guess if there's a federal claim she can file in federal court too, though that seems like a reach). If the law was followed, then the House should absolutely NOT seat her. That would be an egregious breach of democratic norms and I don't see how Democrats can advocate that with a straight face given what's happening right now.

Mark Elias and Perkins-Coie are the DNC's lawyers (Marc Elias was the bagman for the Steel dossier).

Hart likely will do anything her legal advisers tell her to do.