Month: November 2008

Post-2008 PVIs (For States)

You may remember back in July I tried to predict how the PVIs of the various states would look after the 2008 election. (PVI is a tool generally applied just to congressional districts, but you can use the formula for any unit of analysis: states, counties, whatever. Click here to learn a bit more about the method of calculating it.) That was quite the exercise in speculation (nevertheless, if you go back to that diary, I was extremely close on many of them… although that speaks more to Nate Silver’s predictive abilities than my own, as I was relying on his mid-July projections for each state, many of which were quite accurate on their own).

Now we have actual state data for the presidential race, so I can return to this topic with more authority. In most people’s minds, this was a sea change election, a total map-changer… but if you look closely at the underlying data and not just the colors on the TV screen, it wasn’t. Most of the states behaved exactly as you’d expect them to, coming in a few points more Democratic in a year where the Democratic candidate performed a few points better than the previous few Democratic candidates. In other words, most states’ boats were lifted the same amount by the one overall rising blue tide.

There were some big shifts and drops, though; where were they? The states where the PVI most notably shifted to the Democrats were Colorado (+3), Hawaii (+6), Indiana (+3), Montana (+4), Nevada (+3), New Mexico (+3), North Dakota (+3), South Dakota (+3), and Vermont (+5). With the exception of Hawaii (favorite son effect) and Vermont (large 2000 Nader effect falling out of the equation), the explanation for these states seems to be a combination of two factors: Obama’s greater appeal (maybe personality-wise more so than policy-wise) to midwestern and western states, and the fact that the Obama campaign actually put a lot of ground game effort into these states instead of treating them as an afterthought. (Like the saying goes, “80% of success is just showing up.”) Interestingly, in July one other state projected to swing big to the left in PVI was Alaska, but that was prior to Palinmania.

States going the other way were Arkansas (+5), Louisiana (+4), Oklahoma (+4), Tennessee (+4), and West Virginia (+3). (A number of northeastern states had a smaller shift, not because they moved to the right, simply because they were already pretty pro-Kerry and thus didn’t move to the left as fast as most other states.) These would tend to suggest that Obama did have at least something of an “Appalachian problem,” or at least that he underperformed notably in the states with a high white evangelical/”American ancestry” population.

State 00-04 PVI 04 results 08 results 04-08 PVI Difference
Alabama R+10 37/62 39/60 R+12 R+2
Alaska R+14 36/61 36/62 R+14 D+0
Arizona R+4 44/55 45/54 R+6 R+2
Arkansas R+3 45/54 39/59 R+8 R+5
California D+6 54/44 61/37 D+8 D+2
Colorado R+3 47/52 53/46 D+0 D+3
Connecticut D+8 54/44 60/39 D+7 R+1
Delaware D+6 53/46 61/38 D+7 D+1
Florida R+1 47/52 51/48 R+1 D+0
Georgia R+7 41/58 47/52 R+6 D+1
Hawaii D+7 54/45 72/27 D+13 D+6
Idaho R+19 30/68 36/62 R+17 D+2
Illinois D+6 55/44 62/37 D+8 D+2
Indiana R+9 39/60 50/49 R+6 D+3
Iowa D+0 49/50 54/45 D+1 D+1
Kansas R+11 37/62 41/57 R+11 D+0
Kentucky R+8 40/60 41/57 R+10 R+2
Louisiana R+5 42/57 40/59 R+9 R+4
Maine D+4 54/45 58/40 D+6 D+2
Maryland D+8 56/43 61/38 D+8 D+0
Massachusetts D+14 62/37 62/36 D+12 R+2
Michigan D+3 51/48 57/41 D+4 D+1
Minnesota D+2 51/48 54/44 D+3 D+1
Mississippi R+9 40/59 43/56 R+9 D+0
Missouri R+2 46/53 49/49 R+3 R+1
Montana R+11 39/59 47/50 R+7 D+4
Nebraska R+15 33/66 41/57 R+13 D+2
Nevada R+1 48/50 55/43 D+2 D+3
New Hampshire D+1 50/49 55/44 D+2 D+1
New Jersey D+6 53/46 57/42 D+5 R+1
New Mexico D+0 49/50 57/42 D+3 D+3
New York D+11 58/40 62/37 D+11 D+0
North Carolina R+6 44/56 50/50 R+4 D+2
North Dakota R+13 36/63 45/53 R+10 D+3
Ohio R+1 49/51 51/47 D+0 D+1
Oklahoma R+13 34/66 34/66 R+17 R+4
Oregon D+2 51/47 55/43 D+3 D+1
Pennsylvania D+2 51/48 55/44 D+3 D+1
Rhode Island D+13 59/39 63/35 D+11 R+2
South Carolina R+8 41/58 45/54 R+7 D+1
South Dakota R+11 38/60 45/53 R+8 D+3
Tennessee R+4 43/57 42/57 R+8 R+4
Texas R+11 38/61 44/56 R+10 D+1
Utah R+22 26/72 34/63 R+20 D+2
Vermont D+8 59/39 67/31 D+13 D+5
Virginia R+4 45/54 52/47 R+2 D+2
Washington D+4 53/46 57/41 D+5 D+1
West Virginia R+4 43/56 43/56 R+7 R+3
Wisconsin D+1 50/49 56/43 D+3 D+2
Wyoming R+19 29/69 33/65 R+19 D+0

Once better county data is available, we’ll be trying to slice and dice this data in all sorts of interesting ways… for instance, trying to calculate PVIs for districts that are made of a lot of counties (but not for ones that are fractions of huge counties, as county data isn’t helpful there).

Some Perspective

I see a lot of “aw shucks” sentiments in the comments, and I’m sure it exists elsewhere in the blogosphere surrounding our perceived underwhelming performance down the ticket last night. And I understand that.

Well, it wasn’t the massive landslide that some thought it could have been, but we still did make some very nice gains. And we still have a few undecided races and runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana to talk about.

Let me put it to you this way. Earlier in the year I came back home from the States to take a job with the Alberta Liberal Party to help them get ready for a March election. Every indicator we had said that we’d be making significant gains — in fact, the pundits were even talking about the possibility of us knocking off the incumbent party. And they were doing so with a straight face. Come election day, what happened? To everyone’s surprise, we lost half our seats and all of our relevance. You don’t get a bigger punch in the stomach than that.

When things like that happen to you, I think you learn to find peace with results like last night’s.

Why Merkley has won the OR Senate Race

I was planning on posting a diary reviewing the results of Oregon’s elections but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  Due to the VERY close numbers in OR’s Senate race and the misconceptions out there, it is important that I correct some of them.  Please read this as your “chill out” diary.

As of this moment the official count shows Merkley trailing by about 8k votes with 1/3rd of the vote still out (Results at http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2008/11/senate.html).  However, most of the remaining votes are in deep blue counties like Multnomah, Lane and Benton.

To get into detail, these are the numbers we are looking at:

Multnomah County (Merkley winning 66-30) has only 47% in at this time.

Lane County (Merkley winning 58-38) has only 46% in at this time.

Benton County (Merkley winning 60-37) has only 74% in at this time.

By contrast, the largest Smith counties with votes still out are Jackson and Marion and there are both less votes there and the margins aren’t as big.  Merkley won BOTH Washington and Clackamas Counties but was offset a bit by huge margins for Smith in eastern OR (Smith won 3-1 in most of those counties where Obama did 10-15% better).

Oh and making me more sure of this result than anything else is that Tim Hibbits, Or’s preeminent political analyst, called the race for Jeff last night (http://www.kptv.com/index.html)

As to why this is taking so long, a few reasons:

1. It always does.  Vote by mail ballots take longer to process because they have to be verified AND counted at the county office, rather than merely counted.

2. Last minute turnout was huge.   It was 2-2.5 times what it was in 2004 and given that the first priority of elections officials is to verify ballot, counting had to wait.  That’s how we know that about 180k votes are still to be counted in Multnomah County.

3. The precinct calculation is BS.  Since we don’t have polling places, ballots are counted as they come in (although not before election day), NOT by precinct.  That is why the Oregonian shows votes still out there when no one else.  

So sit tight, calm down and know when all the votes are counted Jeff will be victorious.  Thanks to everyone for all your hard work in electing Jeff the next Senator from Oregon.

So What’d We Win? (Updated)

Alright, one more post before I conk out for good.

As far as the House goes, what exactly did we win last night? Well, let’s start by checking in with what we lost:

  • FL-16 (Tim Mahoney)
  • KS-02 (Nancy Boyda)
  • LA-06 (Don Cazayoux)
  • TX-22 (Nick Lampson)

And what did we pick up? Here’s what we know for sure — 21 23 24 seats, by my best count:

  • AL-02 (Bobby Bright)
  • AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick)
  • CO-04 (Betsy Markey)
  • CT-04 (Jim Himes)
  • FL-08 (Alan Grayson)
  • FL-24 (Suzanne Kosmas)
  • ID-01 (Walt Minnick)
  • IL-11 (Debbie Halvorson)
  • MD-01 (Frank Kratovil)
  • MI-07 (Mark Schauer)
  • MI-09 (Gary Peters)
  • NC-08 (Larry Kissell)
  • NJ-03 (John Adler)
  • NM-01 (Martin Heinrich)
  • NM-02 (Harry Teague)
  • NV-03 (Dina Titus)
  • NY-13 (Mike McMahon)
  • NY-25 (Dan Maffei)
  • NY-29 (Eric Massa)
  • OH-01 (Steve Driehaus)
  • OH-16 (John Boccieri)
  • PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper)
  • VA-02 (Glenn Nye)
  • VA-11 (Gerry Connolly)

And what’s still up for grabs? We’re currently sitting on leads in the following districts:

  • ID-01 (Walt Minnick): With 90% of precincts reporting at the time of this writing, Minnick leads GOP Rep. Bill “Brain Fade” Sali by 4300 votes. Some of the outstanding precincts should add to Sali’s total (but not all), so this race is still way too close to call. UPDATE: 95% of precincts are now in, and Minnick is up by 4363 votes. The remaining votes are from Bonner County (where Minnick is leading by 54-46) and Canyon County, a more populous area where Sali is leading by 54-46. Bonner has reported 52% of its vote, while Canyon only has 11% more to go. Looks like Minnick may just pull this off. (LATER UPDATE: Walt Minnick, you magnificent bastard, you did it!)
  • MD-01 (Frank Kratovil): With 100% reporting, Kratovil leads Club For Growth stooge Andy Harris by nearly 1000 votes. No one’s making a call here yet, but I’d be surprised if there are enough outstanding votes floating around that would tip the outcome here.
  • VA-05 (Tom Perriello): In what could be the biggest shocker of the night, Democrat Tom Perriello is leading GOP Rep. Virgil Goode by over 1657 votes with only one precinct outstanding according to the VA SBoE. (LATE UPDATE: The VA SBoE now says the Goode is ahead by six votes.)

What else has yet to be called?

  • CA-04 (Charlie Brown): With 100% of precincts in, carpetbagging blockhead Tom McClintock is leading Charlie Brown by 451 votes. It seems pretty cruel, but it looks like Brown might not get a chance to kick that football, after all.
  • CA-50 (Nick Leibham): With 63% of precincts reporting, GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray leads Democrat Nick Leibham by 50-46 here. (Update: Bilbray wins.)
  • LA-02 (Bill Jefferson): Democratic crumb-bum Bill Jefferson will face a December general election against Republican Anh Cao.
  • LA-04 (Paul Carmouche): Democrat Paul Carmouche won the Democratic primary runoff here, and will face Republican physician John Fleming in the December general election. This one could be a chance to avenge Don Cazayoux.
  • NJ-03 (John Adler): This race was actually called for Adler by CNN earlier in the night (after an extremely bleak start) and Adler declared victory, but now CNN has moved it back into the too close to call column. Myers leads by about 1700 votes with 93% of precincts reporting. (LATE UPDATE: Adler wins.)
  • OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy): CNN and the AP have moved this race back into the undecided column.
  • SC-01 (Linda Ketner): GOP Rep. Henry Brown is currently leading Democrat Linda Ketner by 53-47 here, and CNN has called this race for Brown. But 26% of precincts are outstanding, and they’re all in Charleston County, where Ketner is leading Brown by a 59-41 margin. The Ketner campaign is not yet conceding, believing that they still have a chance at eeking out a win here, based in part on 35,000 absentee ballots from Charleston that have yet to be counted. (Update: The bad guys win big.)
  • WA-08 (Darcy Burner): With 39% of precincts reporting, Darcy leads Reichert by a mere 60 votes here.