Morning After Thread

Looks like we’re still combing through the stems and seeds. Feel free to use this thread to sort out the wreckage.

UPDATES:

At least going by press release, we seem to have resolutions in three more gubernatorial races this morning:

Vermont is a Democratic pickup, for Peter Shumlin.

Democrats have conceded in Florida and Maine, meaning victories for Rick Scott and Paul LePage.

In addition, two more House races have been called in favor of the Democrats. Sanford Bishop, whose race was called against him and then uncalled, has now been called the winner in GA-02. And Gary Peters has narrowly survived his race in MI-09.

406 thoughts on “Morning After Thread”

  2. Are Sink and Malloy likely to pull it out?  Looks likely with where the remaining vote is no?

    Bennet and Murray likely to win as well no?

    Any house races still undecided besides the ones on the front page?

    Yay for Tim Bishop pulling it out!

  4. I know the House was a bloodbath last night, but it was as expected.  I see small comebacks in 2012 but it could go either way I think.  

    We have the Senate and Presidency so I’m not sure why everyone is so pessimistic about the GOP agenda.  I mean if the Senate and Obama both roll over to it we as a party get what we deserve.  But I really think we dodged a bullet by potentially keeping the Senate margin at 6 seats (i.e. 4 flips needed for GOP control in 2012) and of course having the WH is always good.

    Quite hoenstly I doubt we’ll see much of anything happen the next 2 years at the Federal level.  At the state level we will see some craziness as many states are now 1 party control for the GOP, quite a few for the first time ever.  We’ll have to wait and see how that works.

    Sad about Sestak, the NY and PA reps who lost (except McMahon), Strickland, Sink, and a few others.

  5. that Harry Reid and (potentially) Michael Bennet would win reelection and Russ Feingold would lose, I wouldn’t have believed you.

  6. …and I feel fine.

    Really, I do.

    Thanks to SSP user Mark for making 64 House losses feel pretty good and ensuring his status as a post-election punching bag.  Not to mention, if it wasn’t for Mark we’d never have reason to celebrate wins by Mike Beebe and Mike Ross, or a 10-point win by Joe Manchin that left Mark off by a measley 22 points.

    Thanks to Jon Ralston for wiping away the clutter on a daily basis in NV-Sen and telling us THE TRUTH.  Yes, Reid’s internal polling was right, and the public polls were WAAAAAAAY wrong.

    Thanks to the Republican primary voters for handing us on a silver platter 3 Senate wins we never should’ve had in DE, CO, and NV.

    Thanks to general election voters for giving the GOP a meaningless 15 or so “extra” seats for a single term that will make 2012 look that much better for us when we easily take them back (as opposed to many more that will be harder, but still very winnable).

    We took it on the chin last night, but anyone reality-based knew it was coming.  Managing expectations beforehand goes a long way toward curing the hangover afterward.  We have the Presidency and a decent Senate majority–53 seats is nothing to sneeze at, we were celebrating 51 and having to count freakin’ Joe Lieberman to do so in 2006.  Now Boehner et al. can diss their teabaggers and compromise with us, or earn the American people’s ire all over again, the next 2 years.  And while the GOP House struggles with that conundrum, the national party establishment has to figure out how to stop Sarah Palin and other unelectable loons from stumbling into the GOP Presidential nomination.

    We’re OK, we really are.  It’s just one election, nothing more.  I imagine those of you considerably younger than me are hurting a lot today.  But I was a twentysomething voter in 1994, and the passing of time teaches that this, too, shall pass, and we recover and thrive faster than you might realize.

  7. What’s the latest (if anything) on DC getting an actual House seat?  I know it was a possibility earlier, but all talk seems to have died out.  Obviously I don’t see the House passing that bill now, but has there been any news at all on that front?

  8. We have won AZ-07 and AZ-08. There is one precinct left in each contest in Pima County, a heavily Democratic county.

    We have won CA-11. All precincts are in via kos update and precincts are now on Santa Clara website.

    We have lost CA-20. All precincts are in via CNN.

    We have won GA-02. All precincts are in via CNN.

    IL-08 is very close. There are 6 precincts left, all in Cook county. The other precincts in Cook have run 54/43 and she is down 800 votes. Back of the envelope calcs show she may fall about 600 short. It obviously depends on the precincts outstanding.

    We have won KY-06. AP claims that with 100% of the votes counted Chandler won by 600.

    We have won MI-09. All precincts are in via MI SOS. Whilst it says that a batch of precincts are not in yet the raw data is there if you dig deep enough.

    NY-25 – Well there are votes to come in from about 15 precincts in two GOP counties but Maffei is up by 2000 votes. I think he will squeak by.

    We have lost TX-27. All precincts are in via CNN.

    In VA-11 there are two precincts left to come in and Connolly is in front by 487 votes. The rest of Fairfax county has gone for Connolly 50/48. The two outstanding precincts are surrounded by democratic precincts or 50/50 precincts. Connolly should just squeak through.

    With a third of precincts to be counted WA-02 is anyones game but with Larsen down by 1400 votes he will probably lose.

    WA-09 is unofficially undecided but with Dem Smith ahead by 10000 odd votes it shouldn’t be.

  9. In every wave election, there are a few surprise survivors, put aside Pat Quinn, I can’t come up with even one Dem congressman that was expected to lose and won, not speaking of close races to start with.

  10. The House was a complete whitewash.  Looks like the generic ballot was pretty much spot on after all.  Well, the funny thing is, even though I missed by 20 seats, I’m still going to end up closer to the actual count than Mark will.  So take that, Mark! (Just kidding, but not really)

    Honestly though, we were only 1% away from turning a bad night into a pretty good one.  As it stands, we will probably still end up with Bennet and Murray winning (knock on wood), and Florida-GOV is still uncalled with 89% reporting.  Another 1% swing would’ve given us victories for Giannoulias and Sestak and would’ve gotten us to 55 Senate seats, and would’ve also given us a win in Ohio-GOV.  That’s the one race that is absolutely churning me up this morning, the fact that Strickland fought so hard to lose 49-47.  Actually there’s only 89% reporting, so who knows what the final margin will be.  

    Here are my shout-outs of the night!

    1.Larry Kissell – 9% victory in swing district, this year?  Awesome.  Seriously.

    2.Gabrielle Giffords – Razor-thin win in republican district, showed great political skill despite wave.

    3.Ben Chandler – Win (though still uncalled) in hugely R district, one of very few to pull that off this year.

    4.Pat Quinn – Quinn, given up for dead by virtually everybody, appears the victor by 1%.  Suck failure Brady.

    5.Colleen Hanabusa – I bet she never believed in the whole “Hawaii incumbents never lose” b.s.

    Honorable mention goes to Tom Perriello, who fought very hard but fell by 4% in VA-5, while other incumbents lost by much larger margins.

    And now my fails:

    1.Melissa Bean – Probably the biggest casualty of the wave, but losing to Joe Walsh?!  Wow.

    2.AP/Colorado ballot counting – Throwing thousands of Boulder ballots into the Buck column.  Fail.  

    3.Lincoln Davis – I always thought he would lose, but even Mark probably didn’t see him losing by 20%.  

    4.Dan Seals – I feel bad for this guy, the wave stung him.  3 shots at a D-leaning seat and he’s 0-for-3.

    5.Gene Taylor – Yes, hugely R leaning district, but a little fundraising and campaigning never hurt anyone, man.

    Honorable mention goes to the conversation between Michelle Bachmann and Chris Matthews, where Bachmann continued to give the same answer over and over and Matthews kept asking about her investigating Democrats for un-American activities.  That was five minutes I’ll never be able to get back.  

  11. Far too soon to say what we can win or win back given that the boundaries are about to be redrawn.

    However with that disclaimer it is easy to see that the Kerry/Obama districts have to be top of the list.

    Of this short list (11) (plus maybe WA-02) 8 were lost yesterday:

    CA-20

    FL-22

    IL-17

    MN-08

    NH-02

    PA-07

    PA-08

    PA-11

    Plus maybe WA-02

    Added to that the 3 districts still held by the Repubs before yesterday and held by them too.

    IL-10

    PA-06

    PA-15

    CA-20, IL-10, IL-17, MN-08 plus if we lose it WA-02 should be no brainers as we should control redistricting.

    NH-02 – Kuster please run again.

  12. The one exception, per http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…

    Indeed, Rasmussen polls quite consistently turned out to overstate the standing of Republicans tonight. Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points.

  13. What losing candidates should try again another year or seek a different office?

    For me they are Sestak, Ami Bera, Ann Kirkpatrick, Kuster, Perellio, and Titus.  

  14. Statewide officeholders – Dems got wiped out in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Georgia. Republicans look to be winning the three Arkansas races they contested.

    State legislatures – Minnesota? WTF?

    CA-02 – Maybe that crazy diarist did know something; Herger is only winning by 56-44.

    Biggest surprise of the evening – NY-13. Even the races that appear to be lost which weren’t on my list (IL-08 and TX-27) weren’t as surprising as McMahon going down.

    Gay rights – Fucked (except in Hawaii).

    Virginia – Perriello ended up losing by 4, Boucher by 5, and Nye by 10. I guess having a spine counts for something.

  15. as they are currently constructed, and a neutral macro-environment, how many seats would the dems control? Would the House be split exactly down the middle?

  16. Kitz is down by a few thousand, but remaining votes are from Multnomah / Lane county (Portland / Eugene).

    Gonna still be close — my eyeballing suggests it’ll be within a few hundred votes. If Kitz matches his % so far in those counties, he’ll have a tiny advantage. Possible recount.

    Turnout tidbits — when all is counted,

    I’m guessing turnout will be about 65-66 %

    Turnout for the tax increase initiatives in  Feb: 62.6%

    Turnout in ’08 general: 85.7%

  17. Democratic “Class 2010” in House will be a record small: out of memory i can name only 9 new Democrats in House, And all, but 3 (Carney, Keating and Cicilline) – from “minority-majority” districts. Has it ever happened before?

    In addition – Democrats must “thank” tea movement for such “great” candidates as Angle, O’Donnell and, possibly, Buck, without which Senate majority would be at least very problematic. But, at the same time, blame themselves for extremely weak (Mitchell (ME)-type) or lazy (like Oberstar, Taylor, may be – Ortiz, Costa and some other) candidates, who lost or (in Mitchell case) – helped to lose (20% for Democrat in Maine is a disgrace and disaster under any circumstances, and all she achieded – to play spoiler rolein a race, which Cutler would win otherwise) some quite winnable seats. I equally admire, say, Perriello and Bright, who fought very valiantly againsts very unfavorable circumstances and almost managed to win, but these one – ……………

  22. The Blue Dogs are now an endangered species. The districts they lost aren’t flipping back. Does anybody believe that Palazzo is going to lose in his R+20 district in 2012? Some of the more marginal districts, like Cravaack, Bass, and Vidak, present tempting targets for Democrats.

    Moreover, the Republicans will control redistricting in a lot of states. We’ll probably lose a seat or two because of nonpartisan redistricting in Pennsylvania, sadly.

    Really, gerrymandering is a big reason why we did so well. Hooray for OH, FL, MI, and PA districts.

  23. Here’s a quick run-down of the Blue Dogs for those interested.

    54 Blue Dogs

    Retirements – AR-01 (Berry), IN-08 (Ellsworth), Gordon (TN-06), Melancon (LA-03), Moore (KS-03), Tanner (TN-08) = 6 Retirements (All GOP pickups)

    48 Blue Dogs (6 retirements)

    Lost – NY-24 (Arcuri), FL-02 (Boyd), AL-02 (Bright), PA-10 (Carney), MS-01 (Childers), PA-03 (Dahlkemper), TN-04 (Davis), IN-02 (Donnelly), Herseth-Sandlin (SD-AL), Hill (IN-09), Kratovil (MD-01), Markey (CO-04), Marshall (GA-08), Minnick (ID-01), Mitchell (AZ-05), Murphy (PA-08), Murphy (NY-20), Nye (VA-02), Pomeroy (ND-AL), Salazar (CO-03), Space (OH-18), Taylor (MS-04), Wilson (OH-08)

    25 Blue Dogs (6 retirements, 23 losses)

    Won – PA-04 (Altmire), CA-43 (Baca), Barrow (GA-12), Bishop (GA-02), Boren (OK-02), IA-03 (Boswell), CA-18 (Cardoza), TN-05 (Cooper), TX-28 (Cuellar), CA-36 (Harman), Holden (PA-17), McIntyre (NC-07), Matheson (UT-02), Michaud (ME-02), Peterson (MN-07), Ross (AR-04), Sanchez (CA-47), Schiff (CA-29), Schrader (OR-05), Scott (GA-13), Shuler (NC-11), Thompson (CA-01)

    3 Blue Dogs (6 retirements, 29 losses, 22 wins) (35 GOP pickups, 22 Democratic holds)

    Undecided – KY-06 (Chandler, has lead), CA-20 (Costa, trailing), Giffords (AZ-08, trailing)

  26. … then the House isn’t likely to return to Dem control until 2018 at the earliest.

    It took 12 years the last time, so it may be awhile this time too.

    It’s too many seats to win back for 2012, and 2014 will be 6 years into Obama’s presidency.  Normally (1998 being the exception that proves the rule), the President’s party takes a bath at 6 year midterms.  That in turn makes it difficult to take control until after 2016.  

  27. the senate in 2012, here’s my list of competitive races and how they might play out. GOP need to gain 4 seats to flip the chamber.

    Ben Nelson (D-NE) Lean Republican (+1 GOP)

    Bill Nelson (D-FL) Tossup/Tilt Democratic

    Jon Tester (D-MT) Tossup

    Jim Webb (D-VA) Tossup/Tilt Republican (+1 GOP)

    Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Tossup/Tilt Republican (+1 GOP)

    Sherrod Brown (D-OH) Lean Democratic

    Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) Lean Democratic

    Joe Manchin (D-WV) Lean Democratic

    Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Lean Democratic

    Scott Brown (R-MA) Tossup

    John Ensign (R-NV) Lean Republican (wouldn’t be surprised if he gets primaried.)

    And if the tea party works its magic on Olympia Snowe next cycle I could see her seat being flipped by Democrats or at worst a tossup. So yes, Republicans have a pretty good chance of flipping the senate in 2012, even with Obama at the top of the ballot.

  28. What I’ve found:

    Joe Cao–31 points (Cedric Richmond)

    Chet Edwards–25 points (Bill Flores)

    Blanche Lincoln–21 points (John Boozman)

    Suzanne Kosmas–20 points (Sandy Adams)

    Lincoln Davis–19 points (Scott DesJarlais)

    Alan Grayson–18 points (Dan Webster)

    Debbie Halvorson–15 points (Adam Kinzinger)

    Mary Jo Kilroy–14 points (Steve Stivers)

    Zack Space–14 points (Bob Gibbs)

    Frank Kratovil–13 points (Andy Harris)

    One bright spot for Dems is that a Republican suffered the most lopsided loss of the night. Any others who lost by a dozen or more that I missed?

  32. As we look ahead to 2012 I think it is pretty key to look at some perennial battleground states and how the major competitive statewide races (where both parties were engaged heavily) went.

    -PA narrow GOP pickup in the Senate.

    -OH narrow GOP pickup in the Governor.

    -CO narrow Dem hold in the Senate.

    -FL narrow GOP hold in the Governor.

    -NV narrow Dem hold for Senate.

    -WI was troubling as there were GOP blowouts in the Senate/Gov races.

    Obama hopefully won’t be caught napping on his campaign and it will be very hard to say who the GOP will nominate but clearly what this says is that  even in a really shitty year for Democrats they held pretty close in a lot of key states that they will need to win on a statewide level for Obama to win in 2012. Assuming the political environment has a modest or even slight uptick it is certainly realistic to think that Obama can win again and his coattails combined with a lot of very crazy upsets last night can help a lot of down ballot races. OH/PA/TX are strongly gerrymandered already so I am honestly not sure how much more they can really “juice” out of those states. Gerrymandering won’t be as much of an issue I suspect.

  34. after working my butt off for John Anderson, a whole bunch of us went into a funk, with the realization — not only that we had lost the Senate, but also a working majority in the House

    A few days later, a young lady friend (after seeing my funk) brought me a laminated copy of a follow-up Doonesbury cartoon (I wish I could find a copy) — where Mike Doonesbury had his head face down on his pillow, as someone (JJ?) recounted to him

    all of the hard work that he had done and ended with the statement:

    “We’re all very proud of you, Mike”

    (yes, that happens to be my first name)

    ***************************

    That started bringing me out of my funk. Even though, objectively, Anderson didn’t make the difference in ’80, I was determined to never undercut the Democratic Party ever again, especially by working outside the party structure.

    ***************************

    In addition, I would like to say to everyone who has worked for a D candidate this year, by contributions, by their votes, by their spirits, and especially on the ground

    Thank you. We are all very proud of you.

  36. Texas Dems out there. For those of you who have not been following things are bad hear. We lost three U.S. House Seats and the Governors race. White barley eked out a victory in Harris county which is Houston.

    We also got destroyed in the Texas house. We went from a 73-77 margin to a 51-99 margin. WE even lost the Dem leader in the state house. Some race that were not even on anybody’s radar were lost.

    Overall it was a bad night to be a Texas Dem and I am still searching for some good news out of the Lonestar state.  

  37. Democrats lost 5 seats last night. Two races where Democrats were leading are now too close to call. In SD 13, our candidate has a 38-vote lead. In SD 47, the Republican has a 13-vote lead according to unofficial returns. If both of those go against us the chamber would be tied 25-25. If we lose one it’s a 26-24 Democratic majority.

  39. LePage sounds like an absolute nightmare. The days of “moderate” Maine Republicans are apparently winding down if someone like this is a winner.

  42. Democrats were absolutely destroyed:

    From the KC Star: “Democrats appeared to lose 17 of their 49 seats. The GOP should have a better than two-thirds majority in the 125-member chamber and shatter the coalition of Democrats and GOP moderates that passed a tax increase this year.”

    In other words, every level of government in the state is now in the hands of the hardcore conservatives. Good luck with that, Kansas.  

  43. CNN says only 92% is reporting, but every county is at 100% I’m not sure where there might still be outstanding ballots and how solid Dayton’s 9000-vote lead is?

  45. For the first time in 24 years Dems win the Governorship (There will be a recount but Dayton has a 10X+ greater lead than Coleman had the day after the election) yet they lose both houses of the legislature. Oberstar who until about 2 weeks ago was thought to be as safe as anyone in country gets beat. And to top it all off if the recount drags on past the start of the next governors term Tim Pawlenty will stay on (with a Republican Legislature) until Dayton is sworn in. Politics is never dull in Minnesota.

  46. There are about 35,000 votes still to be counted in Pima County. All but two precincts are in, so I suspect that it’s provisionals along with some leftover mail-in ballots? I’ve been searching the interwebz for half an hour, but no one seems to know anything about what these votes might be.

    Grijalva has declared victory, and he probably pulls it out unless these votes are really ugly, but the situation is somewhat more perilous for Giffords. Yes, she won Pima County, but her section of Pima County is rather politically diverse, so it really depends where these voters are coming from. If these votes are evenly dispersed, though, then she should hold on.

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