10:20PM: (Crisitunity) Yeesh. Final result in Pennsylvania was 66-30 in favor of Mensch (R), with the balance to the Libertarian.
9:52PM: As for Pennsylvania, I’m not going to manually add up the various county totals, but suffice it to say, we got crushed there.
9:48PM: These races are totally over. With over 80% of the vote counted, Liu has racked up almost 57% of the vote while de Blasio utterly pounded Mark Green with 63% of the vote.
9:36PM: Half the vote is in and it’s looking pretty solid for Liu & de Blasio. When was the last time in NYC that a candidate who led after the first round of voting didn’t win the runoff? If we really do have to keep runoffs (this one cost $15 million), at least adopt instant runoff voting (IRV) for primaries.
9:31PM: A quarter of the vote has been counted, and de Blasio is up to 61% while Liu is doing well at 58%. Both men had the endorsement of the Working Families Party, whose GOTV strengths probably played a big role in this low-turnout affair.
9:28PM: 15% in, and Liu and de Blasio are both in the high 50s. If this holds, I’ll be a happy camper.
9:24PM: 9% in now – Liu 55, de Blasio 59. Don’t know what’s wrong with NY1’s website, but that’s why you’ve got SSP!
9:21PM: With 4.6% in, both Liu and de Blasio are at about 58% apiece.
9:19PM (David): NY1’s website hasn’t updated yet, but on TV, they just flashed some very early nums. With 2% of precincts reporting, both de Blasio (54%) and Liu (58%) have leads.
Two elections going on tonight, in New York City and the suburbs of Philadelphia. Polls close at 8 pm eastern in Pennsyvlania, and at 9 pm eastern in NYC.
In New York, there are primary runoffs between the top two Democratic candidates in two of the three citywide offices. In the Public Advocate race, ex-PA Mark Green and city council Bill DeBlasio face off. In the Comptroller race, city councilors John Liu and David Yassky meet. (DeBlasio and Liu came out of the primaries with narrow edges.)
You can follow the NYC results at NY1.
In Pennsylvania, there’s an open seat in state Senate district 24, which takes in low-density portions of Montgomery, Bucks, Lehigh, and Northampton Counties in between Philadelphia and Allentown. This district does reach up to take the old industrial town of Easton (where they make Crayola crayons), which — having added up precinct-level results — pushes the district a little more to the left than I’d originally thought. Barack Obama won this district in 2008, in fact by a margin that gives this about as close to “even” a PVI as you’ll ever see: he beat John McCain 52.9%-45.8%. (More than one-third of the votes are in MontCo, where Obama won 52-47. Easton and environs are in Northampton, where Obama won 59-40. Fewer votes are in Bucks and Lehigh, both of which Obama won 50-49.)
Unfortunately, Democrats don’t seem poised to capitalize on the district’s lean after higher-profile candidates passed on the race; against a Republican state Representative, Bob Mensch, the Democratic candidate, Anne Scheuring, has only been on the Lansdale city council since 2008. Results can be followed at the SoS website.
Lansdale isn’t even in the 24th senate district. That probably does not bode well, though hopefully all the national Democratic money that’s come in will have helped to diminish what has probably been a huge name recognition gap.
But if only the supervoters turn out, I wouldn’t count on it. . .
Forty-five minutes, no votes in.
I have NY1 on here, but I’d really love something on the web, of course.
The first precicents to report are usually Lower Manhattan precicents and if Green and Yassky aren’t doing good there, I can’t see how they pull it off in the rest of the city.
Maybe more so for PA instead of Comptroller, where’s Liu’s lead might be slightly inflated due to the vote in Chinatown.
I like Green. He seems like a good candidate with a future. Only stupid for running against Cuomo for AG when it was clear he was going to get crushed. By the way I forgot what political office Cuomo was in before AG?
Last time around, it went 57-43 Republican. The GOP candidate has higher name rec, and spent more money.
That doesn’t leave much cause for optimism.
Montgomery County’s coming in strong… for Mensch.
Stick a fork in this one.
What are the responsibilities of the office?
But people should realize that it is by one important measure worse than plurality voting: you can switch your vote to the leading candidate and cause him to lose. That’s a problem that often gets lost in the promotion.
he would have by now. Oh how I hate my gerrymandered senate.
I’m trying to remember the competitive special elections that have gone down this past year at the state legislative level. Here’s what I can recall:
PA State Sen Seat – GOP retention
KY State Sen Seat – Dem pick-up
AL State Sen Seat – GOP pick-up
LA State Sen Seat – Dem retention
IA State House Seat – Dem retention
Am I missing any?
So far, it seems like in the aggregate, these races aren’t showing any real discernible shift in overall voting patterns, which would be… surprise, surprise… pretty much contrary to the conventional wisdom in the punditocracy.
by Democrats. And in a district Obama by 53%-46%.
Alabama has had SEVEN vacancies this year alone. Three senate and four house vacancies, all Democratic. So far, Democrats held two senate seats and Republicans picked up the other one (Parker Griffith’s seat), and Democrats held one house seat and lost another. Two AL House races haven’t yet had the general, but one of the seats (which just had a primary tonight, actually) is a majority-minority district which has no filed Republican opponent, so it will obviously be a D hold (special general election will be on November 10). The last outstanding race seems like a fairly Democratic district and is also favored to be a hold (special lection will coincide with regular 2009 general election).
California had a Democratic hold in the Senate and a Democratic hold in the House.
Florida has had a few vacancies, all of which have been holds for the respective parties.
There was another Democratic pickup (Brett Guthrie’s seat) in the Kentucky Senate earlier in the year.
I believe that Louisiana had two Senate and two House vacancies, all of which were Democratic holds (and all but one of which were in majority-minority districts).
New Hampshire had at least one Senate vacancy (a Republican hold) and it might’ve had one more, which if it did was a hold. It also has had four House vacancies…a Democratic hold, a Republican hold, a Republican pickup, and a Democratic vacancy with a special election on November 3.
South Carolina had a GOP pickup in the state house.
I can’t remember any more than that.
The worst I’ve seen since Santorum ’06. He seemed to be speaking to an empty room.
But the short clip from Channel 2 is all I have seen.
Clearly, this was Green’s last-ditch attempt at mounting a springboard toward the Mayorship, and NYC voters have spoken loud and clear in regard to his future. Not that he’s a bad guy by any means, but he’s nevertheless basically known as New York’s token perrenial loser; a sort of antithesis to Jerry Brown’s California trajectory. He didn’t stand a real chance against Schumer/Ferraro in the ’98 Senate primary, and his Attorney General run was a joke. The ’01 Mayoral race should have been his moment in the sun, and he blew it.