Of the squeaker races, Virginia’s 5th and Maryland’s 1st are looking increasingly good for us, but this one keeps getting worse. With 71% of the vote counted, the results now look like this:
Darcy Burner (D): 118,253 (48.90%)
Dave Reichert (R): 123,585 (51.10%)
More ominously, Reichert has pulled ahead in King County, where Burner had been leading until now. Looks like Sheriff Dave will ride again.
Well, I don’t know who else to include in the tags, but this thread is about people who lost races–even if by landslides–who we think have real potential to do something awesome.
Scott Kleeb: obviously, the netroots darling of this cycle. With his coming so close in NE-03 last time, I think he should have run again there, rather than get in over his head running for the Senate seat against a non-crappy (and quite tough) candidate. It seems that the fact that Adrian Smith sucked hasn’t yet resonated into netroots consciousness the way Bill Sali’s antics have, and thus it was passed around that Kleeb’s overperformance in NE-03 meant that he could similarly overperform in all of Nebraska. But he seems like he’s got a future ahead of him, and I think we’d love to see him back.
Gary Trauner: I think I’ve mentioned several times that he’s my favorite candidate, and not only that, he’s almost singlehandedly built a semblance of a Democratic bench in Wyoming (of all places!). His name’s been tossed around as a gubernatorial candidate, since (to paraphrase someone) Wyomingites are more comfortable sending a Democrat to Cheyenne than to DC.
Nancy Boyda: a nearly heart-breaking loss, from the person who I’ve heard got DCCC money in 2004 and lost badly, then refused it in 2006 (mostly) and won a surprise victory, and then refused it again in 2008 and lost narrowly. I remember seeing one of her announcements in her capacity as a Representative, and she seemed like a quite hard-working person who really wanted to serve her constituents.
Jon Powers: three words: Jack ****ing Davis. Will we see more of him? He can’t really high-tail back to New York immediately either, so this one is really in the air.
Alice Kryzan: How good of a candidate was she? Will we see more of her? Would we like to? I have little to no information about her.
Chris Rothfuss: the Democratic Senate candidate against Mike Enzi of Wyoming, this college instructor with chemical engineering and diplomacy experiences was in WAYYYYYY over his head. But as my mother mentioned, this guy’s got presidential-level potential, and I hope he gets somewhere. I was very receptive to his appeal for more scientists in Congress, and while we just got one more recently (Bill Foster), there’s no question that we need more.
Don Cazayoux: Unfortunately, Michael Jackson Wanted to Be Where Don Cazayoux Is, and made everyone not Happy by running as an independent and not Beating It. This caused this One Day of Cazayoux’s Life, this past Tuesday, to be Bad, because the district’s African-American voters were torn by the question of Black or White, and caused a rare election-day Thriller for Republicans this year as Bill Cassidy succeeded in letting himself say “This Seat Is Mine”. So Farewell Our Summer Love, LA-06, but let’s not Cry over it, because Cazayoux might Wanna Be Startin’ Something since he’s still got quite a bit of potential. Will You Be There for him?
Nick Lampson: A comeback kid swept back out of office, by extremely unfriendly turf that nearly elected Snelly Dracula-Gibbr Shelly Sekula-Gibbs in write-in ballots. Will he be back for another round once we can tip Texas’s districting a bit closer back to sanity?
Larry LaRocco: does this guy have anything else he can do? Will he wait until Risch really screws it up? Or can he do something else? Or is Walt Minnick the way of the future, with apologies to poor LaRocco who worked his butt off on one of the best Senate campaigns this year? (Speaking of which, what’s Larry Grant doing?)
Larry Craig: Hmm, I think we’d love to have him around! (What about other Idahoans named Larry? Is there something that really curses them to political problems?)
Debbie Cook: Seems like a quite awesome candidate…can we get her to run again in 2010?
Dan Seals: Will he be running again? Or is third time seriously not going to be the charm? What else could he do?
Elwyn Tinklenberg: How about our favorite light rail champion? How about another run against the House Anti-American Activities Committee’s lone member?
Tom Allen: I’ve heard that he kept the campaign relatively placid in order to position himself to run for governor.
Rick Noriega: Rumor has it that Hutchison wants the governorship. Is Noriega our man for the job? He ran a decent (though, according to people around here it seems, not quite stellar) campaign even though it was a serious uphill battle.
Who else do we want to see again?
Well, it’s obvious by now that Republican Saxby Chambliss did not win the required 50%+1 votes he needed to avoid a runoff (being off by 0.1% has got to suck).
Now I’ve heard a lot of argument about how Chambliss will win the runoff easily, given how turnout would be lower, and how the Libertarian vote would just go back to the GOP with two candidates on the ballot. Before everyone falls into despair or just plainly give up on Jim Martin, let me offer three subtle suggestions on how to pull off the biggest political upset for years to come.
1.)”Excuse me, um, but the election’s not over yet…sorry”
First thing I think is obvious…people have to know about the runoff before anything else! Advertise! Put out newspaper ads! Get Obama’s ground operation in all out mode right this minute! Because the more time you waste, the less people (especially Democrats) will be motivated and mobilized to go vote again in a month.
“And now may I introduce my special guest…President Elect Barack Obama!!”
Let’s face it: Obama came close to winning Georgia than anyone in 12 years. If you check the link above, you can see he won more votes than Martin. Georgia unlike Mississippi could use some Obama coattails during a runoff campaign to put Martin over the top. I envision a massive rally in Augustus or Atlanta with at least 10000 Martin supporters awaiting President-elect Obama to give them reason to vote Jim Martin into office.
“Let me tell you something, Bob Barr supporter. Jim Martin is wayyy more conservative than Saxby Chambliss.”
Let me clarify my above statement before angry Martin supporters respond to this. Most Libertarian voters who voted for Buckley will return to Chambliss, but there’s an argument to be made for them to support Martin instead. Think about it: Libertarians are for small government with no intervention of any kind from them. Saxby Chambliss for the past 8 years (as a Congressman and Senator) supported a Republican administration that spent the country into the ground. He supported the bailout, which I doubt many Libertarians endorsed. Jim Martin may be a Democrat, but I doubt that in his career he supported measures to spend the state into the ground. Libertarians need to be reminded of that.
Well, those are some ideas on what the Martin camp needs to think about if they’re serious about winning in a runoff. But of course, they are my own and not endorsed by anybody.
Comments welcome. Thank you.
Last night, Hans Cole-Man was leading Al Franken by 477 votes. Of course, for the dickface that is Norm Coleman, that margin was good enough to ask Al Franken to waive the mandatory recount requirement and just call it day right there.
But the Minnesota Secretary of State has been updating its final results tally during the day, and Cole-Man’s lead keeps getting smaller:
9:15 AM
Coleman: 1,211,520
Franken: 1,211,07710:15 AM
Coleman: 1,211,525
Franken: 1,211,0881:20 PM
Coleman: 1,211,527
Franken: 1,211,190
And right now?
Coleman: 1,211,542
Franken: 1,211,306
236 votes. I think we’ll wait for all the ballots to be properly counted before we declare your victory, Norm. You dickface.
(Bumped.)
A favorite reference for election junkies like those of us who inhabit this site is, of course, presidential results by congressional district. Unfortunately, most states don’t publish this data, but it’s reliably churned out by a firm called Polidata every four years. It’s a difficult task, though, because it usually involves crunching data on a precinct level (and also figuring out what the hell to do with absentee ballots), so Polidata typically releases its findings some time in March after a presidential races.
But the good news is that, working together, we can come up with some preliminary data for at least some states. There are at least three types of states where we can get this data relatively easily:
1) States with just one at-large district (duh), like Montana.
2) States which actually publish presidential results by CD, such as Virginia.
3) States where district lines follow county lines or, in New England, township lines (or at least follow them closely), like Iowa.
Where we need help (at this stage) is in figuring out which states fall into the second and third categories. I know California also releases results by CD, but I believe a few other states do as well. And Arkansas and West Virginia follow county lines, but some other states probably do, too.
Also, let’s use this thread for brainstorming about other ways we might try to figure out presidential results by CD (short of acquiring detailed precinct-by-precinct data). Please share your thoughts in comments.
UPDATE: Jeffmd observes that some states offer easy-to-use precinct data, so where available, that might be an option as well. If you’re aware of any states which provide this information, please let us know that as well.
UPDATE 2: I’ve created a public Google Docs spreadsheet that we can use to compile a list of data sources. Please feel free to input any helpful information you’re aware of. Note that we’re not looking for the actual numbers just yet – rather, we want to know where we can find the numbers (and what format – ie, CD, county, precinct, etc. – we should be looking for). And if you are adding a URL, please use TinyURL.
Here are some handy links for those of you following the still undecided races for Congress and the Electoral College.
[UPDATE1: Added CA-04]
[UPDATE2: Added CA-44 and AK-AL. Added current margins]
AK-Sen [Mark Begich (D) vs. Ted Stevens (R)]:
Margin: Stevens +3,257 11/7 3:41 PM EDT
http://www.elections.alaska.go…
[Charlie Brown (D) vs. Tom McClintock (R)]:
Margin: McClintock +709 11/7 3:27 PM EDT
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns…
CA-44 [Bill Hedrick (D) vs. Ken Calvert (R)]:
Margin: Calvert +5,264 11/7 3:28 PM EDT
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns…
GA-Sen [Jim Martin (D) vs. Saxby Chambliss (R)]:
Margin: Chambliss .2% below 50% 11/7 3:33 PM EDT
http://sos.georgia.gov/electio…
MD-01 [Frank Kratovil (D) vs. Andy Harris (R)]:
Margin: Kratovil +2,003 11/7 3:25 PM EDT
http://www.elections.state.md….
MN-Sen [Al Franken (D) vs. Norm Coleman (R)]:
Margin: Coleman +239 11/7 3:24 PM EDT
http://electionresults.sos.sta…
MO-Pres:
Margin: McCAin +5,859 11/7 3:39 PM EDT
http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrmaps/…
NE-02-Pres:
Margin: McCain +569 11/7 3:26 PM EDT
http://www.sos.ne.gov/elec/200…
OH-15: [Mary Jo Kilroy (D) vs. Steve Stivers (R)]:
Margin: Stivers +146 11/7 3:21 PM EDT
http://vote.sos.state.oh.us/pl…
VA-05 [Tom Periello (D) vs. Virgil Goode (R)]:
Margin: Periello +745 11/7 3:18 PM EDT
https://www.voterinfo.sbe.virg…
WA-08 [Darcy Burner (D) vs. Dave Reichart (R)]:
Margin: Reichard +5,332 11/7 3:22 PM EDT
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/W…
Last night, the tally in MD-01 was as follows:
Frank Kratovil (D): 160,780
Andy Harris (R): 159,787
A few more votes were added to that tally, bringing Kratovil’s lead down to 915 votes.
Well, a fresh batch of votes are in, and Kratovil’s lead has grown:
Frank Kratovil (D): 167,101
Andy Harris (R): 165,230
That still means that there are about 12,000 (or so) votes left to be counted by my best estimate, but this one is looking good.
(H/T: Chad)
It sure did not take long for names to pop up as successor to Rahm Emanuel. According to the Politico is mentioned as possibly running for the seat.
One potential name stands out: Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, a well-known, reform-minded Chicagoland politician who has been a longtime ally of Emanuel’s. He is a former consulting partner with Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod, and is close with Obama as well.
Claypool’s name has also been mentioned as a possible appointee to fill Obama’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat but he has publicly ruled out that possibility.
I do not know much about him, so I went to Wikipedia and read this about him.
Capitalizing on his record as a reformer, Claypool made a run for the Cook County Board in 2002. Waging a fierce campaign in which he attacked what he saw as patronage and a bloated bureaucracy in the county government, Claypool went on to upset incumbent Commissioner Ted Lechowicz 51-49% in the March 19 Democratic primary. (Lechowicz was a strong supporter of Cook County Board President John Stroger, Jr.) Because Claypool’s district (the 12th) is overwhelmingly Democratic, he faced only nominal opposition in the general election.
Claypool quickly allied hiself with fellow freshmen Commissioners Larry Suffredin (D) and Tony Peraica (R). The three were joined by sophomore Commissioner Mike Quigley (D). When, in December 2003, the four reformers garnered enough swing votes to defeat Stroger’s FY 2004 budget (the first time such a thing had happened to a Cook County Board President in three decades), Stroger gave Claypool a backhanded compliment, saying, “The media has prevailed, along with Mr. Claypool.” This quote ran under the banner headline, “Hell Freezes Over: Cook County Board rejects Stroger’s budget” in the Chicago Sun-Times. The following year (FY 2005), the County Board rejected Stroger’s plan tax increases again. The Chicago Tribune has credited Claypool and his allies for “bringing democracy” to and starting a “revolution” on the Board.
Anyone know anything about him?
Okay but seriously. Some such as Mark have suggested Democrats will have their majority seriously tested next around. Okay, where?
Here are the Democratic seats up next time:
1. Ron Wyden, two + term incumbent, Oregon, presumably running for reelection.
2. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas, two term incumbent, running for reelection.
3. Pat Murray: Washington, three term incumbent, presumably running for reelection.
4. Barbera Mikulski, Maryland, four term incumbent, presumably running for reelection.
5. Chuck Schumer, New York, two term incumbent, (previously won reelection 74-26 against a Republican candidate).
6. Patrick Leahy, Vermont, six term incumbent, Judiciary Committee Chairman, presumably running for reelection.
7. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin, three term incumbent, running for reelection.
8. Evan Bayh, Indiana, two term incumbent, very popular.**
Those are safe, almost certainly safe. All are popular incumbents, and most are in blue, if not downright liberal states.
These here might provide some problems.
1. Harry Reid, Nevada, if Jon Porter challenges him. But still Reid has to be a big favorite, especially after Nevada’s leap to Democrats.
2. Ken Salazar…if someone challenges him, maybe Coffman or McInnis, but after seeing 2008’s results can you see anyone beating Salazar in Colorado, and the state is only getting bluer. Not to mention he’s an actual moderate.
3. Barbera Boxer: If she retires, or gets a challenge from Schwartznegger, this could be mildly interesting. She’s never been especially popular. California is getting more liberal all the time.
4. Daniel Inouye: Hawaii, if he retires, at age 86, could be trouble if Ligle runs, but after Obama’s margin this time, whew. I don’t see voters electing a conservative like Ligle to a federal, national position over Rep. Mazie Hirono, who Ligle beat very narrowly in 2002 in a good environment for Republicans, particularly in Hawaii. Republicans have since given back a lot of ground in Honolulu and the State Legislature. If he stays he should win easily, as he is a universally popular, legendary figure in their politics, kind of like Robert Byrd in West Virgina.
5. Obama’s open seat, but really, what Republican is going to win state wide in the New Illinois? It’s been a while since that happened in a high profile race and they have no bench.
6. Delaware: Same thing here. There might be Mike Castle, if he were to run for senate at age 71. Even then I’m don’t think he would be favored to beat John Carney or Beau Biden.
7. Chris Dodd’s open seat might be a big race if Rell decides to run for it. But then I think that Rep. Murphy would be strongly favored in a neutral environment.
8. This is the seat I would worry most about. North Dakota’s Byron Dorgan has been a popular figure in state politics for almost 30 years, but the state has an automatic Republican inclination, and Republicans would definitely be pushing extroadiniarily popular Governor John Hoeven who easily beat the two Attorney General in 2000 to win it the first place, then won his two subsequent elections with 77% of the vote. This would be a slash of the titans. Hoeven would have to have a narrow lead. The only problem is that I don’t think Hoeven wants to be a senator. Republicans have asked him to run twice before, (in 2004 and 2006), and Rove practically pleaded with him in early 2006, looking at a poll that had him six points ahead of Kent Conrad. I see no reason why he’d suddenly run 2010.
Okay, those are a few races Republicas might have a shot in, not even a big shot, if everything went their way and they got their dream candidates.
So, Democrats hold 16 seats, Republicans 17, it’s at near parity.
Republicans have got to be nervous about these seats though.
1. Arlen Specter. His margins keep going down every time in the state wide Senate races. Ed Rendell is not going to challenge him, but there are plenty of Congressman who might, or in the Democrats case, congresswoman, Allyson Schwartz, who represents most of Montgomery county.
2. George Voinovich wants to run for reelection in Ohio, but how well would he do. He’s getting old, and he’s popularity ratings have been mediocre for years now. I always give him a small bit of affection for being the sane Republican who effectively blocked John Bolton, (forcing an interim appointment). But the Democratic bench is now two feet deep in Ohio. LG Lee Fisher, Attorney General Richard Cordray, Rep. Betty Sutton, and strongest of all Rep. Tim Ryan, a popular moderate. Voinovich looks toast at this point.
3. KY-SEN: Bunning is unpopular, a loud mouth, and a poor campaigner. He’s won his two races by .5 percentage points, and one percentage points, respectively and looks set to face his toughest challenger yet in Rep. Ben Chandler. Especially if he repeats his shennanigans of the last campaign. Kentucky Senate races tend to be close too.
4. KS-SEN: Kathleen Sebelius is said to looking at a run for this open senate seat. She would make it competetive.
5. OK-SEN: Gov. Brad Henry could beat Coburn, who isn’t a good campaigner and isn’t popular.
6. AZ-SEN: John McCain’s probably going to retire, that leaves his seat open to either Napilotano, or Rep. Giffords, depending on if Napilitano is Attorney General or not.
7. David Vitter is up, and his deal with prostitutes really hurts him with evangelical voters. Former Rep Don Cazayoux may be the candidate to beat him, or former Rep Chris John in a rematch.
8. FL-SEN: Mel Martinez has weak favorables and early polls show him tied with Rep. Ron Klein and Rep Kathy Castor.
9. Richard Burr, North Carolina. This seat has reelected an incumbent since 1962. Rep. Brad Miller is an oft mentioned name, but so is popular Attorney General Roy Cooper who has nowhere to go this year but up. Richard Burr is extremely conservative as well, and not especially popular. This would be a barnburner with Cooper.
So there are a lot of competitive races next time around. None especiailly likely for the Democrats, except for North Dakota if the Republicans somehow convince Hoeven that being a popular governor at home is not as good as being a weak new freshman senator in the minority party a thousand miles away. Not saying they couldn’t really gain steam, but I don’t see them picking up more than 2 seats.
At this point, I would gurantee that Democrats pick up at least two seats, at least, given the landscape, but the number could be as high as six if they get all their candidates, and everything goes right for them and Barack Obama is a popular President.
P.S. Please Please vote in my poll, I use to determine how many readers check out what I write.
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This week has been nothing short of amazing! Barack Obama will be our next President. More and better Democrats will be going to Congress. The electoral map has undergone a major blue shift.
So why has this whole experience been bittersweet at best for me? Well, all is not well in my own home state. So what can we celebrate and what must we fix? Let me share with you the story of this election from behind the scenes.
First off, let’s start with the bad news. We lost in California. But wait, you ask, didn’t Obama win by about 24%? Isn’t that good? Of course it is, and that isn’t the problem.
The problem in California is that Barack Obama had hardly any coattails here. Look at how Prop 8, the marriage ban, may end up having to be stopped at the courts (again, hopefully). Look at how, barring the results in CA-44 & CA-04 changing in the provisional vote count, we have not gained any new Congressional seats. Look at how we’re still short of a 2/3 supermajority in both houses of the state legislature.
Simply put, we failed our mission in The Golden State. There were hundreds of thousands of “undervotes” here, meaning that people voted Obama for President but did NOT continue downballot to vote on Congress, the initiatives, and local races. This is nothing short of tragic, and there’s no excuse for the nation’s biggest Blue State to still show so much red! Because of the inept and disastrous “leadership” of the state party, the refusal of the DCCC to invest in real races like CA-44 & CA-46, and the horribly gawd-awful “leadership” by The Task Force & Equality California on the No on 8 campaign & their failure to have a real ground game, we missed the opportunity to turn the Obama victory into a progressive victory in California.
Now contrast what happened in California on Tuesday to what happened in Nevada on the same day. While one state didn’t change much, the other state next door underwent a massive transformation! Like Mountain West neighbors New Mexico & Colorado, Nevada is now officially a Blue State! And not just that, but Democrats now have a broad and clear mandate for progressive change.
Progressive Democrat Dina Titus was elected to Congress in a “swing district” that Bush won in 2004. Democrats now control both houses in the state legislature for the first time since 1991, including a 2/3 supermajority in the Assembly. Voters approved a good initiative that will actually help Nevada fully fund its schools. And of course, Barack Obama won the ex-Red State by a whopping 12%, including an 18% win in Clark County (Las Vegas Metro) and wins in the formerly Republican Carson City & Washoe (Reno) Counties!
So why were the results in Nevada so dramatically different? Let’s see, Harry Reid and the state party leaders actually began early in registering more Democrats and building an aggressive field operation while the GOP was power drunk and asleep at the wheel. The Obama campaign and the state party were effective in coordinating with the Dina Titus campaign, the Jill Derby campaign up north, and the local campaigns. All the candidates up and down the ballot had a clear and consistent message for change more. economy, energy & environment, education, health care, and so much more. Basically, Democrats worked together on the ground and that’s why we won!
So what lessons can we learn from this tale of two states? First off, there’s no real substitute for a grassroots door-to-door, face-to-face campaign. Despite the good last-minute ads, they may have been too little & too late to make up for the lack of a ground game for No on 8 in California. Meanwhile in Nevada, no amount of negative attack ads from the Republicans against Dina Titus & Barack Obama could make up for their complete lack of a ground game while we Democrats truly rocked the vote!
OSecondly, Nevada Democrats succeeded in translating an Obama victory into a progressive victory while California Democrats were simply lost in translation. Why couldn’t we win the 45th & 48th Congressional Districts when Obama carried them? Why couldn’t Debbie Cook win in the 46th when Obama carried it? Why were there so many undervotes statewide? Whatever the Nevada Democratic Party did right, the California Democratic Party needs to learn how to do it.
And finally, we should all be of good cheer! The West is ours if we want it! The results across the region prove that where Democrats work, Democrats win. But in places like California where state party leaders grew complacent, we lost out on real opportunities.
So what do we do next? After we’re done celebrating, we will go back to work! We have more work to do to keep progress going, so let’s do it! 😀
