Election Results Open Thread #3

RESULTS: KY | VA | MS| NJ | OH-05

Time for a new one.

1:45AM: One more update, and then I’m done.  (I swear.)  Mark Nikolas over at the Bluegrass Report hears some serious buzz that Kentucky state Auditor Crit Luallen is gearing up to take on Sen. Mitch McConnell next year.
1:27AM: Alright, one final update: Democrat David Poisson just won re-election to the Virginia House of Delegates by a 53%-47% margin.  Republican hopes of a pick-up here went unrealized.
1:16AM: Time for me to sign off for the night.  To sum up the situation, Democrats made some historic victories in Kentucky, capturing the Governor’s mansion with 59% of the vote and winning all statewide offices other than Secretary of State and Agriculture Commissioner by wide margins.  Democrats won control of the Virginia state Senate and made some gains in the House of Delegates.  In New Jersey, the parties more or less broke even, but Democrats made some exciting gains in the district of US Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R), where two potential ’08 foes won election to the state Senate (Jeff Van Drew and Jim Whelan).  In Mississippi, Democrats got whipped in the statewide races but held on to the Attorney General’s office by 20 points and recaptured the state Senate.  And in Ohio, it looks like Bob Latta is squeaking ahead of Club For Growth nutcase Steve Buehrer in the GOP special primary to replace the late Rep. Paul Gillmor, but just barely.

Feel free to keep the momentum going in the comments.

1:11AM: Well, what do you know.  Despite taking an early lead, Republican Bob Latta only leads Club For Growth nutcase Steve Buehrer by a 43%-41% margin in the OH-05 special primary, with 86% of precincts reporting.
1:08AM: Darn.  Democrat Janet Oleszek fell short by a mere 91 votes in her bid to defeat Republican incumbent Ken Cuccinelli in VA-SD37.  However, Democrats still picked up the chamber by a 21-19 margin.  And as several users have pointed out in the comments, it looks like Mississippi Democrats have re-captured their state Senate, as well!
1:00AM: The votes have just began to be counted, but incumbent Delegate David Poisson (D) is losing by a 44%-56% margin with 1 of 23 precincts reporting.  HD32 could be the one loss for Virginia Dems this year.
12:31AM: Here’s one Barbour that Democrats can beat — Democrat Lynn Posey is leading Charles Barbour (Haley’s nephew) by a 51%-46% margin for Public Service Commissioner (Central District) in Mississippi with 85% reporting.
12:24AM: This one looks like it could be another open seat pick-up for Virginia Dems: VA-HD34, where Margaret Vanderhye (D) leads by 450 votes with 18 of 19 precincts reporting.
12:18AM: Tally up another Democratic pick-up in Virginia: Paul Nichols (D) beat Faisal Gill (R) by a 52%-48% margin in VA-HD51.
12:08AM: In MS-SD43, Democrat Tommy Dickerson knocked off the Republican incumbent by a 52%-48% margin.
12:06AM: In MS-SD29, Democrat David Blount is leading the incumbent Republican by 53%-47% with 63% of precincts reporting.
12:02AM: Looks like Democrats picked up MS-SD02, with Democrat Bill Stone leading Republican incumbent Ralph Doxey by 58%-42% with 87% in, but they lost MS-SD18, with Democratic incumbent Gloria Williamson losing by a 48%-52% margin.
11:58PM: Democrats picked up at least one seat in the Mississippi state House: HD71.  I still have to go through the results to see if any other seats flipped control.
11:49PM: Blue Jersey says that NJ Republicans gained at least two Assembly seats tonight.  On the bright side, NJ Democrats enjoyed a pretty wide margin of control in the state Assembly (48-30) before tonight.
11:39PM: Not Larry Sabato has the current Virginia Senate and House of Delegates breakdown.  21D-18R and 1 undecided race in the Senate; 52R-43D-2I-3 undecided races in the House.  Before tonight, it was 23R-17D in the Senate, and 56R-41D-3I in the House.

41 thoughts on “Election Results Open Thread #3”

  2. Just checking in for MN:

    Progressive candidate Melvin Carter won in St Paul’s Ward 1. However in Ward 6 Pakou Hang lost to incumbent Democrat Dan Bostrom. In Maplewood (a suburb) John Nephew won, that will make the city council a progressive one.

    There are lots of progressive school board people but I will have to get back on those tomorrow. Hang losing is a big disappointment for what so far had been night of success.

  3. Joel Burns, a progressive Democrat who is openly gay, won a runoff seat against another Democrat thus defeating the homophobic Republican who gay baited Joel in the last days of the camapign.

    Municipal elections in Texas are nonpartisan but everyone knows the partisan affiliation of the candidates anyway.

    Also in Tarrant County TX (Ft Worth and some suburbs) in state House District 97 Dan Barrett, the sole Democratic candidate against 6 Republicans in a partisan special House election, earned the top place and heads into a runoff with a Republican.

  4. I might be wrong, but based on what I’ve seen so far at the Clarion Ledger, didn’t we retake the Mississippi State Senate?  (As long as current results hold)

  5. All of the Constitutional Amendments in Texas passed including a measure to create more student loans, one to fund more toll roads (BOO!!!), and an important bond issue to fund cancer research projects.  Republicans came out against that one.  What more can I say?

  6. Under Governor Tim “No New Taxes” Pawlenty, schools are being grossly underfunded and financing is being deferred to local school district “operating levies”, which are predictably very divisive and polarizing within communities.  My hometown district seems to be passing its levy, surprisingly, and I’m wondering how the other 90-some levies are doing across the state.  It’s a double-edged sword.  If most are failing, schools go grossly underfunded.  If most are passing, it gives the Governor cover to continue the broken and regressive status quo.

    I’m also pleased to see the equally divisive, predatory, and regressive cigarette tax hike ballot initiative is failing in Oregon.  With luck, it’ll be a wake-up call to cowardly Congressional leaders that a more logical funding mechanism for SCHIP needs to be explored than a dependence on robust cigarette sales for the foreseeable future.

    2. By my count if we take back Senate District 48 (which has not come in to the Clarion Ledger’s web page yet) we have a bare majority.

  7. Bill White (Democrat, expected to run for governor in 2010) won 86% of the vote against two unknowns. 

    Annise Parker, the openly gay city controller, ran unopposed and is expected to run for mayor when White steps down. 

    Sue Lovell, the only openly gay member of the council, won re-election by a comfortable 53% – 47% margin. 

    Melissa Noriega, wife of the State Rep and US Senate candidate, won her at-large City Council seat for her first full term with two-thirds of the vote.

    2. The most token of oposition. One is Socialist workers the other is nicknamed “Outlaw” Josey Wales, and by nicknamed, I mean that appeared on the ballot.

  8. It appears the GOP only picked up one seat.

    They defeated Panter in the 12th district, and won Whelan’s open seat in the 2nd district.

    But Democrats won Baroni’s open seat in 14th district.

    That’s one seat gain for the GOP

    Did we win a majority in the Mississippi Senate? I’ve seen a couple of pickups there.

  9. Hey, I’m new posting tonight, but have been reading this site for a while.  From what I can see, we’ll end up with 27-28 seats (out of 52) in the MS state Senate. That’s a majority 🙂

  10. With 85% reporting

    Public Service Commission – Central District
    Lynn Posey (D) 102,918  51%
    Charles Barbour (R) 93,614  46%

    1. A dyke is gonna be mayor of Houston?!?

      That is f*cking awesome.  I grew up in Houston (well, Sugar Land, not the same thing I guess) in the 90s, and it was a very very very anti-gay place.  It was not an easy place to grow up.  If a lesbian is actually elected mayor there, that may well cause me to cry.

      Has any other major city had an (openly) gay mayor?  No.  Hell, SF hasn’t done it yet.  If Houston is the first big city to have a gay mayor, I’ll be very very impressed.

  11. Cross-posted comment from MyDD…

    I haven’t seen this mentioned here, but my impression of the Democratic “bench” in Kentucky (I grew up there — moved away 6 years ago or so, so I’m not quite as up to date as I used to be) is that just as significant as electing a governor (and lt. gov.) *this* time, we have set ourselves up with a strong bench. 

    The ’94 congressional elections and the aftermath of Gov. Patton’s (D-Corrupt) adminstation left the Kentucky Democratic Party in a sad state.  We had no statewide farm team to groom for higher office.

    What a difference now!  In addition to electing Steve Beshear governor, new Treasurer Jack Conway and reelected Auditor Crit Luallen will go on to run for higher office.  And Lt. Gov.-Elect Dr. Dan Mongiardo (who lost the squeaker in ’04 against US Sen. Bunning (R)) has has his political fortunes dramatically revived.

    But the most significant of these may be Crit Luallen.  To quote the Bluegrass Report (sorry for the lengthy quote — please go check out BGR):

    Senator Schumer spoke about next year’s senate races to the 100 or so people attending. He talked most specifically about Kentucky and said that Crit Luallen – he mentioned her by name and the fact that she is now the state auditor – will soon be entering the race against McConnell (I think he said she has “pretty much decided to enter the race” or words to that effect).  He noted the DSCC polling showed her trailing McConnell by only three points (46 to 43 – close to the recent public polling). Anything more certain being reported in Kentucky at the moment?  Schumer made it sound like it was essentially a done deal, and he added that the DSCC was going to significantly back her.

    Make no mistake — tonight’s election in Kentucky is a big deal for the future of the state.

  12. David E. Poisson 10,765 53.03% Precincts Reporting: 23 of 23 (100%)

    Voter Turnout: 20,297 of 60,846 (33.35%) Votes by County/City

    Lynn C. Chapman 9,518 46.89%

        1. I count 27 seats plus District 48, (one of the 27 seats only has 63% reporting, but if the results there hold, that means a majority)

        1. Outlaw huh? That’s almost as good as my father living in Cut & Shoot, Texas… I’m not making that up… Gotta love Texas.

  13. Also posted this over at Kos…

    I was down in NOVA all day helping to GOTV and the one thing I came away with is that Jeannemarie Devolite-Davis and her husband Congressman Tom Davis are even nastier than you thought.

    First was the mailer that Devolites-Davis sent out with her Democratic opponent’s address and phone number in clear (even circled) view.  Needless to say, that led to a number of harassing phone calls.  Shameful on her part and I hope she gets slapped with a fine (though beating her was damn awesome).

    Second, I heard a story that when Devolites-Davis lost her first election a number of years back, she never conceded and never called her opponent to congratulate her.  The Democrat she lost to then left a number of voicemails instructing her about electoral etiquette.

    Then, in what is perhaps the most shameful thing I’ve heard to date, just today Tom Davis went to a local polling place (to either campaign or vote, I can’t remember) and ran into Chap Peterson’s mother (her opponent).  Davis went berserk and starting scolding her for donating thousands of dollars into her son’s campaign – all legally and within campaign contribution limits mind you.  This only days after Davis funneled $400,000 into his wife’s campaign warchest via his PAC.  What a hypocrite and a joke.

    There was plenty else going on throughout the state though – as the diary notes, we took back the state senate which is huge for Virginians and huge in terms of redistricting (there are no Senate elections in 2009).  Virginias are pumped about next year – Governor Kaine and former Governor Warner were both at the victory party in NOVA and both exhumed confidence and joy about the results.  It’s a longshot, but we have a shot at the House next year (we picked up at least 4 seats this go around).

    Virginia is not a swing state.  Virginia is blue and will go to the Democratic next year – mark my words.

  14. To James L. and all the team, thanks for the excellent coverage of these mostly minor races. Taken together they add up to a solid repudiation of the Repub, and the postings here have made development that lots of fun to watch.

    Particularly delicious is knowing that Repub Veep wanna-be Haley Barbour will start tomorrow looking at a Lege that ain’t with him after all. That’s a nice haircut for Barbour.

  15. Virginia:
    Democrats picked up 4 seats, giving them a 1 vote majority in the state senate and it looking like 5 in the state House for a 53-2-45 minority.

    New Jersey:
    Looking like +1 net for the state senate, no idea what the round up is for the house. Stem Cell funding bill fails (Jersey has enough money problems right now, as heart breaking as it is, they are not the state that needs to be focusing on this).

    Kentucky:
    Held all our statewide seats and got the governorship. Lost the contested Secretary of State.

    Mississippi:
    Held our only incumbent in the Attorney General, losing open races for Insurance and Secretary of State (and others we contested) while retaking the state senate and expanding the state house

    Utah:
    School bonds are defeated

    Pennsylvania:
    +2 seats for us on the Supreme Court, Dems take control and get a seat at redistricting if I am correct.

    Indiana:
    Republicans take mayor of Indianapolis away from us

    Texas:
    Special for HD-97 is going into a run off with Dem Barrett leading with 31%, Fort Worth City Council special selects 2 Democrats to go into run off. Texas also will now be funding cancer research. Also, Bill White is still mayor of Houston with City Councilwoman Melissa Noriega (yay!)

    Ohio:
    Dems take Canton Mayor, Latta is holding the edge over the Club for Growth Guy for the R nom in Ohio-5.

    Minnesota:
    St. Paul City Council: Moderate Democrats ousted for Progressive Democrats, Progressive Majority obtained.

    I haven’t heard anything about Pittsburgh mayor.

    Best part of the night: Virginia state senate majority.
    Worst: Probable loss of Virginia Senate Seat 34 (Cuccinelli vs. Olezeck) and Texas Special house seat low total for Dan Barrett.
    Most Pleasant Surprise: Regaining Mississippi State Senate

    Overall Conclusion: with factoring Louisiana into all of this, mostly a wash, but a slight Democratic advantage, pushing forward on a few things and in a few areas over all. Progress is progress. I would have liked a closer race in the Kentucky Secretary of State or the Mississippi statewides that we contested.

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