IL-Gov: Quinn Wins (And Other Updates)

• IL-Gov: The DGA is sending ’round a press release congratulating Pat Quinn on his who’da-thunk-it re-election victory. No official call yet, but the trendlines in the count (with a margin now of 20,000 votes) make it pretty clear what’s happening. Bill Brady says he isn’t ready to concede… yet. UPDATE: CNN has called it.

• CT-Gov: More vacillation in the Connecticut count, this time with Dan Malloy back on top by about 6,000 votes. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with actual counting, but simply with the AP getting its facts straight (it seemed to be missing a large slab of urban and assumedly heavily Democratic votes, mostly from New Haven). Final tallies remain unknown because we’re still waiting on Bridgeport (another Dem stronghold), although SoS Susan Bysiewicz has promised results by the end of the day. (Doesn’t seem like she’ll make it, though.) Relatedly, Dan Debicella in CT-04 is “waiting and seeing” what the Bridgeport situation is before conceding, although that race has already been called against him.

• FL-Gov: This was pretty well decided yesterday, but Alex Sink officially conceded, finalizing the transaction on Rick Scott’s self-financed purchase of the gubernatorial election.

• NE-Sen: Ben Nelson says he won’t switch parties. (Why the heck would he want to, considering that the Dems still have a Lieberman-proof majority in the Senate, that he’s part of? He’d just get teabagged to death in the 2012 GOP primary a la poor Parker Griffith.) It’s worth wondering, though, if any House Dems are considering a switch… but, with the possible exception of Dan Boren, all of the most likely suspects have already lost, saving us the trouble of such speculation. UPDATE: Although here’s an interesting post-script to the Nelson story: GOP Gov. Dave Heineman, who’s led a few hypothetical polls against Nelson for 2012, has already announced that he won’t run for the Senate in two years.

• NV-Sen: The one major race where the polls really seemed off was Nevada, where Harry Reid’s 4-pt average deficit turned into a 5-point victory and in retrospect, that’s easy to explain: pollsters weren’t reaching Latinos. Exit polls suggest that Latinos did turn out well in Nevada (thanks in no doubt to the Reid-friendly hotel unions in Las Vegas). Nate Silver graphs the variance in other states with large Latino populations: it may also have played a role in Colorado, although the poll variance wasn’t as bad there, though it was enough to predict a Ken Buck victory… and Latino turnout didn’t seem to work in Texas, where Rick Perry exceeded polling predictions (and which explains the sudden and probably brief appearance of Rep. Blake Farenthold).

• KY-06: Here’s a race that’s definitely going to recount. Andy Barr, trailing Ben Chandler by about 600 votes, has formally requested a “routine recanvass.”

• NC-02: Here’s one more race where we’re not quite dead yet. Bob Etheridge hasn’t conceded, it turns out, nor should he: he’s down only 1,646 votes, after cutting his deficit against Renee Elmers by more than 500 in late counting yesterday.

• NC-11: When Heath Shuler announced that he’d challenge Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, the proper response was laughter, although my main question at the time was whether he planned to challenge her for minority leader. It sounds like, yes, he does still plan to go through with his kooky gambit (made all the kookier because there aren’t any core Blue Dogs left besides him who need to follow through on their promises to not vote for Pelosi). Anyway, the scuttlebutt seems to be leaning toward a voluntary sword-falling and a painless transition to Steny Hoyer, in which case the Shuler challenge would be even more pointless.

• WV-01: After maintaining for most of yesterday that he wasn’t dead yet (given the narrow margin, currently 1,357), Mike Oliverio did wind up conceding eventually late yesterday.

• Redistricting: As much as the mess in the state legislatures really messes up hopes of wresting an advantage out of the redistricting process, here’s some good news: Amendment 6 in Florida surprisingly passed, clearing the super-high 60% hurdle at 63%. This doesn’t create a commission, but it does impose requirements that redistricting be done without political consideration (but without violating federal law, namely the Voting Rights Act). However, two U.S. Reps… probably the two in Florida who have the most to lose from having less friendly districts drawn for them… Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart, are challenging the law in court. With the passage of Proposition 20 in California, though, which creates an independent redistricting commission there, it’s all kind of a wash, as a less-bad Florida map is balanced out by not being able to aggressively redistrict California. (Similarly, while it takes some sting out of Alex Sink’s narrow loss, it also deflates the impact of Jerry Brown’s victory.)

235 thoughts on “IL-Gov: Quinn Wins (And Other Updates)”

  1. That would be HUGE if Heinemann doesn’t run.  He’s the Hoeven for NE that could push Nelson to retire.

    Nelson gets the Ag committee with lincoln’s loss, right.  We might wnat to pander to him a bit for a re-run in NE in 2012.  He’s really the only hope we have there, and Obama did win one of the district sin 2010 (though I doubt he will in 2012, still he’s not as toxic there as he is in in OK)

  2. Who would’ve thought Quinn would win by 20,000 and Alexi was gonna lose by 80,000.

    Brady got hit hard in the suburbs by the abortion ads Quinn ran, and the education cuts ads. Women probably saved it for him.

  3. Or will it just say static?  

    If the commission will work completely non-partisan and basically just go by geography/communities of interest, it may work to our advantage.  Maybe some native CA people can enlighten.

  4. Can a Michiganer (or someone else) explain what Michigan is up to, once thought to be a blue state, the GOP wins the Governorship in a landslide, take almost three quarter majority in state senate, make huge gains in state house and flip the chamber, will all downballot races, win two thirds of Michigan U.S. House seats, is Michigan still a Democratic state, or even a swing state?

  5. http://www.politico.com/news/s…

    Ellmers was widely seen as a long shot. But her bid was boosted in June, when Etheridge was captured on video grabbing a young man who was asking him about whether he supported President Barack Obama’s agenda.

    In a Wednesday morning interview, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions acknowledged to POLITICO that the committee was behind the video.

    Ellmers is also pissed that the NRCC is NOT helping her in the recount. Seems kinda stupid on the NRCC’s part.  

  6. Hagel was NEVER better than Ben Nelson as far as giving us a vote or two when we needed his help.  Lamar Alexander, Dick Lugar, Voinovich and others were more likely to vote for something good as opposed to Chuck Hagel.  Rhetoric was all we ever got out of Hagel.  

  7. And you’d think Mr. Shuler would realize that when you’re in the minority, you’re challenging the leader for the position of Minority Leader, not Speaker. And yes, though I’d agree that more Blue Dogs would have been more helpful, Mr. Shuler is not going to win because there just aren’t that many of them left.

  8. I have never been a fan of Jeb Bush (I’m sure he’s heartbroken) but I could see where might have been seen as a sensible governor. As was Crist.

    But Scott — really? And he was opposed by a lot of the GOP rank and file as well.

    I hope we’re pleasantly surprised, and he’s a good governor, but I think a lot of voters in Florida are going to be kicking themselves.  

  9. The worst for any party since 1974.  This gives Republicans the largest amount of state legislatures since before the Greaet Depression.

  10. What are his relationships with Madigan and the state senate leader? Will there be any conflicts over new maps or anything else?

  11. There would be nothing painless about it.  Hoyer would be a terrible leader, in the tradition of Tom Foley.  Whereas Pelosi is in the Rayburn, O’Neil, Jim Wright tradition of effective speakers.  If Pelosi decides to step down, and I hope she doesn’t, someone needs to take on Hoyer.  Perhaps John Larson.  With the reduced number of blue dogs, Hoyer can be beaten.

  12. They don’t cancel each other out.  One creates an independent commission, the other a command not to take into account “political considerations.”  But what does that mean?  This will cost Democrats more seats than it will cost Republicans.

  16. Bridgeport and New Haven put Malloy may over the top, but their machines turned out a pretty crappy amount of voters, which may not be surprising considering Bport’s Dem machine had one mayor sent to prison and another snorting coke on his desk (New Haven’s is actually pretty progressive). Both turned out about 25,000 voters, when they have populations topping 120,000 (NH) and 135,000 (Bport).

    Hartford, which really doesn’t have much of a machine and has a similar population, turned out an even worse 18,000 voters. The statewide urban GOTV operation pretty much failed with two competitive statewide races on the ballot and one House seat on the line. Larson and DeLauro should be blamed for a weak organization, ditto the Working Families Party. The CT Dem party is just lucky the inner suburbs have moved so far in the Democratic direction. (New Haven’s northern suburb, Hamden, has about 54,000 people and about 19,000 votes were cast there, going about 2/1 for the Dems) These wasted non-votes should be a major priority, instead of the half-assed attempts we see every presidential year.

    And the AP has not even added Himes’ Bridgeport votes to his total, showing him still trailing Debicella. What’s going on over there?

  17. Updated here.

    Mostly Pima, but a few other, more conservative places like Yuma and Cochise Counties. Grijalva is now up 5982 votes and the AP has called the race for him. Giffords is up 3055 and I don’t think Kelly has much chance of coming back. Looking at State Legislature races, the new votes were spread out throughout the County, not just coming from one liberal center. Kelly would have to do extremely well provisionals and what’s left of the mail-ins to pull it out.

  19. So far, all of their top choices (Warner, Merkely, Shaheen, Franken, Begich, T and M Udall,) have said they are not interested. Seems like it will have to go back to Schumer. Who else could take it? Murray and Wyden, since they could serve for 2 terms?

  21.    He can thank the female sex for his victory.  According to CNN exit polls he won women 56-39!  Ken Buck’s disregard for women’s issues clearly cost him the election.  Don’t mess with the ladies, they vote. Buck won men 54-40.

     I’ve never seen such a large gender gap.

  22. http://www.blueoregon.com/2010…

    (bolding mine, don’t know the source)

    Chickens will come home to roost quickly if the GOP really doesn’t try to work with Democrats and President Obama. This is the first wave election in history where the winners (the GOP) have lower approval than the losers (Dems). One poll actually shows 59% of voters expect to be disappointed in the Republicans by 2012.

    Just maybe, this will create an opportunity to cut unnecessary defense spending, reform agriculture and farm policy to help farmers and ranchers while saving money and protecting the environment, while working together to rebuild and renew America.

    Gosh, I’m glad he’s my rep. AFAIK, 59% was from a Scotty R poll, ref http://www.rasmussenreports.co…

  23. What seats (Barring a Bill Sali type) are likely lost for a very long time from Tuesday?

    I would assume Bobby Bright’s and Gene Taylor’s would be two?

  25. so I just went onto DRA and drew up a 9-4 GOP map (10-3 if Shuler retires) real quick. I don’t know NC too well and I’m not very good at map drawing but I figure it’s a good learning experience. Debating whether to post it or not. of course the specific territory changes will affect who is safe and who is not, but just want to get some opinions on the toplines for each district. I drew it with the idea that Obama’s numbers were basically a Democratic high-water mark. Also, not sure if I drew a few incumbents out of their districts, but I doubt it’s a big deal.

    Butterfield: O 63, M 36 (49% black, 42% white)

    Ellmers: O 45, M 54

    Jones: O 41, M 58

    Price: O 75, M 25

    Foxx: O 43, M 56

    Coble: O 44, M 55

    McIntyre: O 41, M 58

    Kissell: O 44, M 55

    Myrick: O 43, M 56

    McHenry: O 40, M 59

    Shuler: O 47, M 52

    Watt: O 69, M 30 (43% black, 39% white)

    Miller: O 55, M 45

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