Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[jamestroll]

There is a divergence in the collar counties still in Illinois.

Democrats won around 57% of the combined congressional vote in DuPage county while statewide Democrats were only scoring modest wins.

Federal vs local.

[Kodak]

McBath and Woodall have taken the leads in GA-6 and GA-7.

[Zaybay]

Per CNN: BillNelson officially requesting a recount in his race against Rick Scott.

I thought he conceded? This race is so confusing.
Please let Nelson somehow pull it off...

[SPQR]

What ballots are left in Florida? Provisionals and that's it?

[7,052,770]

What ballots are left in Florida? Provisionals and that's it?

Apparently over 100,000 ballots still uncounted, with a strong Democratic lean on them.

[CellarDoor]

Why is the NYT forecasting it's going to end up 53-47 if they have McSally as the favorite? Or am I missing something?

Not sure.  Local reports here are saying that there could be as many as 1/4 the total vote (maybe ~500K) still uncounted.  I recall Clinton gaining a few % points post election day in 2016 so I believe the outcome of this race is still unknown.

[Crumpets]

So what is actually wrong with the polls?

Why do they seem to keep getting things wrong?

Two big factors: horrible response rates, and the fact that you can only model the electorate on elections that have already happened, so emerging trends get underestimated.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

NYT thinks the final margin in Florida is Scott winning by around 6,000, but there are enough error bars on that for Nelson to still have an outside shot.

So if accurate, Scott wins by 0.07 percent.  Geez, it's almost as though Florida produces some harrowing nailbiters or something.

[Kodak]

In the aggregate, the prognosticators did a pretty good job this year. A lot of the toss ups haven't been called yet, but only 3 lean/likely seats (NY-11, OK-1, and SC-1) voted against their predicted winner.

[Tintrlvr]

What ballots are left in Florida? Provisionals and that's it?

Apparently over 100,000 ballots still uncounted, with a strong Democratic lean on them.

On-the-day absentees. I think it will be around a 10k margin when they are counted. Not enough for a recount to make a difference but hard to be totally certain on the pre-recount figures. Plus provisionals of course.

[ajc0918]

What ballots are left in Florida? Provisionals and that's it?

Apparently over 100,000 ballots still uncounted, with a strong Democratic lean on them.

On-the-day absentees. I think it will be around a 10k margin when they are counted. Not enough for a recount to make a difference but hard to be totally certain on the pre-recount figures. Plus provisionals of course.

Keep in mind though that Nikki Fried, the Dem candidate for Ag Commissioner is only down 17,000 votes. There could be enough votes for her.

[President Johnson]

This is when they stopped counting MT and why Tester is likely gonna win:
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1060120486095536129

Please let this be true. I don't want to lose beautiful flawless #populist Tester. Actually this shouldn't be so close; I mean Steve Bullock won fair and square in 2016.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

As I said back in June when Sanford lost the primary in SC-1, I'm not surprised the Democrats picked up the seat. The overall demographics here do not support that the Republicans are radically right winged, and many people I came across in my professional and personal life all said if Sanford had won, they'd have voted for him, but not Arrington. She won because GOP turnout in the primary was poor and only the radical base showed up.


If the GOP runs a competent candidate in 2020, I doubt Cunningham holds the seat, but I'm glad our district did the right thing and put Cunningham in Washington.

Isn't the Charleston area trending D?

It is, but SC-1 is gerrymandered to where a lot of the african american areas in the north are in Clyburn's district.

Cunningham won Charleston by 17% which is what gave him the election. I expect SC-1 will be more competitive in the future. Arrington is just not a good candidate for this area and when she won the primary, I had a feeling the seat would flip. Sanford would have held the seat.

She vowed this morning to run again in 2 years. I really hope the GOP puts up a credible challenger to her because I have no idea if Cunningham can hold the seat in a presidential year.

[ajc0918]

What ballots are left in Florida? Provisionals and that's it?

Apparently over 100,000 ballots still uncounted, with a strong Democratic lean on them.

On-the-day absentees. I think it will be around a 10k margin when they are counted. Not enough for a recount to make a difference but hard to be totally certain on the pre-recount figures. Plus provisionals of course.

Keep in mind though that Nikki Fried, the Dem candidate for Ag Commissioner is only down 17,000 votes. There could be enough votes for her.

Correction, she's down 12,500 votes. There may be enough for her.

[Badger]

So as an aside, after everyone predicted that brown would utterly demolishes opponent, he gained less than half a percentage point in the popular vote from his 2012 win over Josh Mandel. What a letdown.

[user12345]

McBath is up over Handel again according to NYT. CNN as well.

[ON Progressive]

So as an aside, after everyone predicted that brown would utterly demolishes opponent, he gained less than half a percentage point in the popular vote from his 2012 win over Josh Mandel. What a letdown.

I think it’s pretty clear Ohio is an Atlas blue state at this point, and it’s hard to see how it comes back to even being purple.

[Mr.Phips]

Beto O'Rourke and Stacey Abrams got more votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 in those states. That's insane.

I didn't think Democrats winning Texas in a Presidential election could happen before 2024 at the absolute earliest (and was always really bearish on Clinton's chances in Texas, e.g., and on O'Rourke), but based on these results, with Presidential-year Latino turnout and two more years of demographic change, I'd be sweating as a Republican that the Democrats could win Texas in 2020.

I'm going to be #bold and say that Texas, Georgia, and Arizona are more winnable for Dems than Iowa, Ohio and Florida (?) at this point.

You may not be too far off base here.  I don't think Florida and Ohio are winnable anymore for Dems.

FL is still a Presidential swing state, the Dems just can’t turn anyone out in midterms.

The only time Dems have actually "won" in a Presidential year in Florida since 1996 was when Obama was on the ballot.

[Badger]

So, because the New York Times is so desperately behind in reporting results, approximately how many seats did the Democrats pick up in the house last night?

[Vern]

Republicans can take away one thing from last night. Every race matter and people want to hear about the issues and not talking points. We need to field better candidates.

[President Johnson]

Per CNN: Bill Nelson officially requesting a recount in his race against Rick Scott.

I think the difference of about 34,000 votes is too wide to turn this. Another one of the countless Florida heartbreakers (president 2000, governors 2010, 2014, 2018). The only one out of the uncalled senate races with a shot is Tester.

[ajc0918]

Per CNN: Bill Nelson officially requesting a recount in his race against Rick Scott.

I think the difference of about 34,000 votes is too wide to turn this. Another one of the countless Florida heartbreakers (president 2000, governors 2010, 2014, 2018). The only one out of the uncalled senate races with a shot is Tester.

The margin has since dropped to 30,000 votes.

[Mr.Phips]

So, because the New York Times is so desperately behind in reporting results, approximately how many seats did the Democrats pick up in the house last night?

Somewhere in the 33-35 range based on what's outstanding.

[Inmate Trump]

McBath is up over Handel again according to NYT. CNN as well.

Is it enough to avoid a runoff though?

[Sestak]

So, uh.

WV-02 ended up being closer than WV-03.