Tag: Election results

Polls close soon in Kentucky, so get your popcorn ready. Not only are we looking at the 14th Senate district (previewed above), but also the 96th House district in rural northeastern Kentucky, which was vacated by Democrat Robin Webb when she was elected to the state Senate a few months ago (in another Beshear-orchestrated Senate pickup). Democrat Barry Webb faces Republican Jill York. Democrats control the state House by a comfortable 64-35 right now, so the stakes are lower here.

Between all that and the Massachusetts Senate election, if you’re still bored, you can also check out a special in one of Arkansas’s few Republican-held state Senate seats (Dems are up 27-7), the 4th. Sharon Trusty resigned, leaving Democrat John Burnett and Republican Michael Lamoureux to fight it out in rural NW Arkansas. (H/t jameswv.) And tonight is also the Birmingham mayoral special election, to replace Larry Langford, who resigned after getting caught taking bribes. The 13-person field includes pastor Jody Trautwein (famous for his small role in Bruno) and the now-deceased Ernie Dunn. (This race is expected to go to a runoff.)

If you have any other results links that you’d like to share, please let us know in the comments.

KY results: Kentucky SoS | Lexington Herald-Leader | AR results: Arkansas SoS

8:05 pm: Haydon did win Nelson County, 3,840 to 2,982, but his 858-vote margin wasn’t enough to balance the rest. Higdon won Taylor, 2,612 to 1,396. Total result is 11,327 to 8,881 to Hidgon, a 2,446 vote margin and a 56-44 spread.

7:58 pm: Higdon has declared victory, and Haydon is conceding. This is a bit of a bummer, given the financial backing that Haydon enjoyed. As a small silver lining, perhaps Democrats will have a shot at picking up Higdon’s soon-to-be-vacant House seat.

7:45 pm: Still waiting on the last two counties in SD-14, but we’ve already lost HD-96. Republican Jill York beats Democrat Barry Webb 2,545 to 1,663, which is a 60-40 spread.

7:25 pm: Higdon also wins small Washington County by a narrow margin, 1,331 to 1,054.

7:20 pm: Now we have results from Marion County, the most Dem-friendly county but also Higdon’s home turf. Higdon wins there too by a wide margin, 2,860 to 1,405. Haydon is going to need to clean up in his own home turf (Nelson County) to pull this out.

7:15 pm: Looks like we’ve gotten some results from one county, via the Lexington newspaper (I’ve added the link). Higdon (R) takes small and conservative Mercer County, 1,542 to 1,186 votes.

7 pm: This being central Kentucky, looks like they’re taking an extended bourbon break. We’ll keep you posted.

New York: In NY-23, we lost, apparently because the conservatives won, because in their brave new world winning no longer means earning more votes than the other candidates, but rather defeating the candidate that will vote with you most of the time in order to pave the way for the candidate who would theoretically vote with you all the time but has no chance of getting elected in your swing district. I quake in fear of next November, when conservatives will enjoy the mightiest of all glorious historic victories, with the crushing general election losses of Marco Rubio, Chuck DeVore, Rand Paul, Ovide Lamontagne, Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Peter Schiff, Chuck Purgason, Ken Buck, and Patrick Hughes, thus purifying the soil for decades to come.

Uh, more specifically, in NY-23, Bill Owens (D) defeated Doug Hoffman (C) and Dede Scozzafava (R), 49-45-6, with about a 6,000 vote margin (out of 131,000) separating Owens and Hoffman.

Elsewhere in New York, two powerful incumbents got scares. New York City’s I/R mayor Michael Bloomberg beat Democratic comptroller William Thompson by a much narrower-than-expected margin: 51-46. And Democratic Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi is barely leading Republican Ed Mangano, 48-48 (with a 237-vote margin, which may change as absentees are counted). Republicans picked up two open New York City council seats in Queens (including the one vacated by new comptroller John Liu), bringing the Democrats’ control of that body down to a perilous 46-5.

New Jersey: Republican former US Attorney Chris Christie defeated Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in the Republicans’ big score of the night, beating Corzine and independent Chris Daggett 49-44-6. The big story here may be the unexpected collapse in Daggett’s numbers (he had been polling near 20% several weeks ago); I’d guess that a swath of moderate but fervently anti-Corzine voters realized that they were planning to waste their votes on a spoiler (Daggett) and in the end held their noses and voted for Christie. The other big story: the robo-pollsters (PPP, SurveyUSA) not only getting the result right but coming close on the spread, while some of the more traditional pollsters saw a Corzine victory. Christie’s amply-cut jacket didn’t have much in the way of coattails, though: Republicans picked up a total of only one seat in the Assembly, with Domenick DiCicco poised to pick up an open seat in Gloucester County in Philly’s suburbs, leaving Dems in control of the chamber, 47-33.

Virginia: Here’s where the Democrats really stunk it up, although the handwriting on the wall could be clearly seen from months away. In the gubernatorial race, Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds by a substantial margin, 59-41. Further down the ticket, Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was re-elected over Jody Wagner, 56-44, and Republican Ken Cuccinelli won the AG’s race over Steve Shannon, 58-42. Democrats also took some damage in the House of Delegates, although they seemed to stave off total wipeout: Republicans netted five seats, to move the total from 53 (and 2 GOP-caucusing indies)-45 (with 2 formerly Dem vacancies) to 58 (plus the 2 indies)-39 (with one Dem incumbent-held seat, the 21st, going to recount).

Maine: In what seemed to be the night’s biggest heartbreak for many in the netroots, Question 1, a vote to repeal gay marriage, passed by a 53-47 margin. Nevertheless, Mainers defeated an anti-tax initiative (Question 4, 40-60) and expanded medical marijuana access (Question 5, 59-41).

Washington: In the nation’s other corner, Referendum 71, a vote to approve legislation creating “marriage in all but name” expanded domestic partnerships, is passing 51-49. (Assuming it passes, this would be, by my reckoning, the first time gay rights have been expanded through statewide vote; since King County has reported disproportionately few of the state’s ballots, that margin is likely to grow.) Washington also rejected anti-tax I-1033, 44-56, and King County elected Dow Constantine as County Executive by a comfortable 57-43 over Susan Hutchison (in the first time this has been run as a nonpartisan race — unfortunately for Hutchison, somewhere in the last few weeks her Republican cover got blown). The Seattle mayor’s race will probably be the last race in the country to get resolved: with less than half reporting, anti-establishment progressive Mike McGinn leads establishment progressive Joe Mallahan 50-49.

California: In the night’s other House election, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi defeated Republican attorney David Harmer in CA-10, 53-43 (with the balance going to Green and Peace & Freedom candidates). That’s a bit underwhelming in a district where Barack Obama won 65-33, but in a low-turnout special, it’s not remarkable.

North Carolina: Charlotte got only its second African-American mayor and its first Democratic mayor in 22 years, as 38-year-old Anthony Foxx beat the polls en route to a 51-49 over Republican Andy Lassiter. Democrats also now have an 8-3 edge on the city council. College town Chapel Hill now has an openly gay mayor: Mark Kleinschmidt, who narrowly defeated conservative Matt Czajkowski, 49-47.

Ohio: Somehow I can’t see Cleveland becoming the next Las Vegas (maybe $pringfield, Ohio will), but Ohio voters just opted to legalize casino gambling in Issue 3, 53-47.

Pennsylvania: Republicans picked up a seat on the state Supreme Court; Jane Orie Melvin defeated Democrat Jack Panella 53-47. The GOP now controls the court 4-3, which has bad implications for state legislative redistricting next year.

Michigan: Another Dem screw-up that may bury the prospect of a pro-Democratic gerrymander in Michigan next year is a loss in the one hotly contested state Senate seat anywhere last night. In SD-19, Republican Mike Nofs won 61-34, picking up a seat formerly held by Democratic now-Rep. Mark Schauer. Republicans now control the Senate 22-16 (all seats are up in 2010, meaning Dems now need to flip four for control — of course, they’d also need to hold the gubernatorial race, which may not happen either). In Detroit, incumbent Dave Bing held on to win the mayor’s race, 58-42.

Georgia: We’re headed to a runoff in Atlanta, where city councilor Mary Norwood and state Senator Kasim Reed finished 1 and 2, with 46% and 36% respectively. Reed may be able to pull it out, though, if he consolidates African-American votes in the general (the 3rd place finisher, Lisa Borders with 14%, is also African-American). The most interesting legislative race seems to be the previously Dem-held HD-141, where it’s unclear whether Dem Darrell Black or GOPer Angela Gheesling-McCommon (each of whom got 23%, although Black has a 16-vote edge) will face off against independent Rusty Kidd (who got 44%) in the runoff.

Got any other races you want to share results from, or want to talk about? Let us know in the comments!

2:50PM: Well, at some point in the last half hour or so, CA-10 got called in favor of John Garamendi. With not much else left to talk about, we’ll wrap it up here. A disappointing night on the balance, although certainly with its surprising bright spots (some of which are also hilarious and teabagger-enraging, like NY-23).

2:07AM: You’re probably out there thinking, “Hey, you promised us results on the House race in Washington’s LD-16!” Unfortunately, the GOP picked that one up. At about R+16 (centered on Walla Walla in eastern Washington), it was by far the reddest seat held by a Dem in the state legislature; long-time Dem Bill Grant died earlier in the year, but his daughter Laura Grant was unable to hold it against GOPer Terry Nealey, 58-42. Dems still are in firm control of the state House, 61-37.

1:57AM: If you’re wondering what happened in all those legislative special elections in Georgia, TheUnknown285 tells you all about it in the diaries.

1:45AM: Assorted good news and bad news. The good news is that Tom Suozzi finally pulled it out in Nassau County, winning by 200-odd votes. The bad news is that the Dems totally dropped the ball in Michigan on that state Senate seat (SD-19, the one that Mark Schauer vacated). GOPer Mike Nofs picked it up easily, 61-34. That boosts the GOP’s edge to 22-16 in the chamber, making it that much harder to flip come 2010 (a key target for redistricting purposes). Also in Michigan, Detroit mayor Dave Bing survived his re-election, although maybe by a closer margin than anticipated (58-42 against Tom Barrow). With Kevin Johnson ensconced in Sacramento, hopefully soon we can field a starting five of NBA guards turned big-city mayors. Can we get Walt Frazier to run for NYC mayor next time?

1:35AM: They’re taking their sweet time in CA-10. Not that it matters. With 51% reporting, it’s still Garamendi 55, Harmer 40.

1:29AM: Couple other odds and ends from Pennsylvania. Wunderkind Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl won re-election without much trouble, getting 55% of the vote against two challengers, including Franco Harris (son of the similarly-named Steelers legend), running as an indie, who pulled in 15%. And in Harrisburg, PA, the Democrat, Linda Thompson won a contested race, 55-45.

1:21AM: The AP now seems to be calling the race in Maine, for the side of evil. The numbers still are at 87% reporting, with it passing 53-47. On the plus side, it’s shaping up to be a good night for pot — Maine’s Question 4, which expands medical marijuana (including state dispensaries), passed 59-41. Maine’s own anti-tax TABOR-style initiative also went down to defeat, 60-40. So: Maine likes pot and taxes. Gays and lesbians, not so much.

1:09AM: Still bad news in Maine; with 86% reporting, the spread grew a tiny bit more on Question 1. “Yes” (i.e. against gay marriage) now leads 53-47.

1:06AM: This definitely calls for a ganja break. The tiny Colorado town of Breckinridge just, via initiative, legalized the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, plus paraphernalia. 72% voted yes.

12:57AM: There’s one more barnburner that wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen: Tom Suozzi, the Democratic Nassau County Exec (1.5 million people on Lon Gisland), is barely winning reelection. He’s up 48-48, with a 400-vote margin, with 99% reporting (only 10 precincts left). If he wins, he’ll owe his survival to a Constitution Party candidate sucking up votes on the right. Assuming he squeaks through (and that depends on where those last 10 precincts are… hopefully not Massapequa) this may dim his luster a bit; he was seeming likely to run for AG assuming Cuomo vacated to run for Gov.

12:45AM: Here’s a hot mayor’s race I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet. Bill Foster, the more conservative option, beat Kathleen Ford 52-47 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

12:38AM: We’re headed to a runoff in Houston; that was expected. City controller Annise Parker leads at 31%, and she’ll face off against former city attorney Gene Locke, who got 26%.

12:33AM: You know, Chris Christie didn’t seem to have much in the way of coattails. It looks like the GOP only netted one Assembly seat in New Jersey. McDonnell did a little more damage in Virginia, pulling along the LG and AG (Bolling and Kooky Cuccinelli); the net GOP gain in Virginia was 5, which seems to move the GOP’s advantage in the House of Delegates to 60 (including 2 R-leaning indies) to 40. (That might be off by 1, someone correct me if I’m wrong.) (UPDATE at 1AM: NLS says it’s 60-39, with one race still not called.)

12:20AM: Good news from Washington, although R-71 is still closer than I’d like. R-71 is being approved (contra the Maine initiative, ‘yes’ is the vote for tolerance here), 52-48. I-1033 (a TABOR-style anti-tax initiative from unstoppable initiative huckster Tim Eyman) is getting its butt kicked, 44-56. And King County Executive is staying in Democratic hands, as Dow Constantine is beating quasi-Republican Susan Hutchison 57-43. Seattle mayor, though, is paper-thin: contrary to polls, Mike McGinn is leading (he probably has lots of cellphone-only voters), but only 50-49.

12:18AM: Let’s kick it west coast. In CA-10, we’re only up to 29% reporting, and the numbers haven’t changed much. Garamendi leads Harmer 56-40. Looks like Garamendi got most of the last minute deciders (based on that 50-40 poll). So that’s two nice upgrades in the House (from McHugh to Owens, and from Tauscher to Garamendi).

12:16AM: Of course, it’s all ACORN’s fault.

12:15AM: More good news from the comments: Hoffman has apparently conceded in the 23rd. Thus sparing us the agony of a NY-20 style drawn-out recount process, and we won’t have to wonder about those malfunctioning St. Lawrence County machines. Cue the sound of a million wingnut heads ‘sploding.

12:07AM: Bad news from the comments: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race has been called for the Republican (Jane Orie Melvin). This looks like it’ll hand the advantage in state legislative redistricting to the GOP for 2010.

12:05AM: Thanks to DavidNYC for handling all the hard stuff; I’ll be working the late shift and the west coast stories. Let’s start the new thread with some good news. Reportedly Fox has called NY-23 for Bill Owens. Who would have ever thunk that we could pick up the 23rd at the same time as we’re losing NJ-Gov?

8:37PM: This thread is getting a bit full, so please join us just above in a new thread.

8:31PM: The New York Times has a good New Jersey results page.

8:26PM: Seems that we might have a tally of some early votes in Jersey.

8:19PM: Looks like votes are about to start trickling in in Maine.

8:10PM: So South Carolina had a special election in HD-48 tonight. Results are here, though oddly no totals are displayed on the bottom. Excel says that the Dem is getting destroyed, though, 1,731 to 719.

8:08PM: Stick a fork in Creigh — all the major media outlets are now calling VA-Gov for McDonnell.

8:00PM: Polls have now closed in a whole bunch of states with key races.

7:55PM: Looks like Virginia Dems are on pace to lose at least one seat in the General Assembly tonight — take a look at HD-03, where incumbent Democratic Del. Danny Bowling is getting trashed by a 58-42 margin with 71% of the precincts reporting.

7:52PM: We’re also trailing badly in the VA Lt. Gov. and AG races. The Dem numbers in those races are pretty similar to Deeds’, so I wouldn’t expect much divergence even as better precincts come in.

7:41PM: No results yet in Georgia, where the Atlanta mayor’s race is hotly contested. Apparently, there have been polling problems.

7:38PM: Polls also just closed in North Carolina, where we have a couple of interesting mayoral races tonight.

7:30PM: Results are trickling in in Virginia, and Creigh Deeds is getting spanked with about 5% of the vote in. (Did you expect anything else?) Of greater interest tonight will be Virginia’s Assembly races. Johnny Longtorso has a great, SSP-style ratings chart you can consult.

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Here are some sites for returns in some of tonight’s key races:

Virginia: Board of Elections | Virginian-Pilot

New Jersey: NJ.com

New York: State Board of Elections

Maine: Bangor Daily News | WMTW-TV

Georgia: AJC

Charlotte, NC: Mecklenburg BoE

Chapel Hill, NC: WRAL

Virginia closes in about half an hour (and so too does our predictions contest!). But feel free to start using this thread for tailgating and chitchat. Got any reliable links for up-to-the-minute results? Let us know in comments, and we’ll add them to the list.

10:20PM: (Crisitunity) Yeesh. Final result in Pennsylvania was 66-30 in favor of Mensch (R), with the balance to the Libertarian.

9:52PM: As for Pennsylvania, I’m not going to manually add up the various county totals, but suffice it to say, we got crushed there.

9:48PM: These races are totally over. With over 80% of the vote counted, Liu has racked up almost 57% of the vote while de Blasio utterly pounded Mark Green with 63% of the vote.

9:36PM: Half the vote is in and it’s looking pretty solid for Liu & de Blasio. When was the last time in NYC that a candidate who led after the first round of voting didn’t win the runoff? If we really do have to keep runoffs (this one cost $15 million), at least adopt instant runoff voting (IRV) for primaries.

9:31PM: A quarter of the vote has been counted, and de Blasio is up to 61% while Liu is doing well at 58%. Both men had the endorsement of the Working Families Party, whose GOTV strengths probably played a big role in this low-turnout affair.

9:28PM: 15% in, and Liu and de Blasio are both in the high 50s. If this holds, I’ll be a happy camper.

9:24PM: 9% in now – Liu 55, de Blasio 59. Don’t know what’s wrong with NY1’s website, but that’s why you’ve got SSP!

9:21PM: With 4.6% in, both Liu and de Blasio are at about 58% apiece.

9:19PM (David): NY1’s website hasn’t updated yet, but on TV, they just flashed some very early nums. With 2% of precincts reporting, both de Blasio (54%) and Liu (58%) have leads.

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Two elections going on tonight, in New York City and the suburbs of Philadelphia. Polls close at 8 pm eastern in Pennsyvlania, and at 9 pm eastern in NYC.

In New York, there are primary runoffs between the top two Democratic candidates in two of the three citywide offices. In the Public Advocate race, ex-PA Mark Green and city council Bill DeBlasio face off. In the Comptroller race, city councilors John Liu and David Yassky meet. (DeBlasio and Liu came out of the primaries with narrow edges.)

You can follow the NYC results at NY1.

In Pennsylvania, there’s an open seat in state Senate district 24, which takes in low-density portions of Montgomery, Bucks, Lehigh, and Northampton Counties in between Philadelphia and Allentown. This district does reach up to take the old industrial town of Easton (where they make Crayola crayons), which — having added up precinct-level results — pushes the district a little more to the left than I’d originally thought. Barack Obama won this district in 2008, in fact by a margin that gives this about as close to “even” a PVI as you’ll ever see: he beat John McCain 52.9%-45.8%. (More than one-third of the votes are in MontCo, where Obama won 52-47. Easton and environs are in Northampton, where Obama won 59-40. Fewer votes are in Bucks and Lehigh, both of which Obama won 50-49.)

Unfortunately, Democrats don’t seem poised to capitalize on the district’s lean after higher-profile candidates passed on the race; against a Republican state Representative, Bob Mensch, the Democratic candidate, Anne Scheuring, has only been on the Lansdale city council since 2008. Results can be followed at the SoS website.

Jeffmd and I have started working with Dave to bring election data to Dave’s Redistricting App. In the meantime, some folks (like Nico, doing Arizona) have delved into precinct-level data to add all-important political information to their redistricting projects.

Some states make this information readily available; others force you to collect it county-by-county. Below is a list of states which have complete statewide precinct files (graciously hosted by another Dave – Dave Leip of the indispensable Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections):

And, as always, you can find precinct data (that isn’t otherwise available on the web) for a whole bunch of individual counties at SSP’s Document Collection on Scribd. Hope you find these helpful!

222 of 222 Precincts Reporting

Candidate	Party	Votes	Percent
Gil Cedillo	(D)	11,244	23%
Judy Chu	(D)	15,338	32%

RESULTS: LA Times | CA Secretary of State | LA County

11:50: Calitics says Judy Chu has declared victory. 86% reporting: Chu still at 33%, Cedillo 24%, and Pleitez 14%. Betty Chu leads the GOP field, with 10%. Bring on Chu vs. Chu, in July!

11:30: With 76% reporting, it’s now Chu with 33%, Cedillo 24%, Pleitez 14%.

10:55: This isn’t over yet. With 46% reporting, Chu is at 35% and Cedillo is at 23%. Pleitez’s share is increasing too, up to 12%.

10:38: Picking up speed now; with 32% reporting, Chu leads 38% to 21%.

10:15: Ganja break at LA County is over: now we’re up to 16% reporting, with a little narrowing but still a big Chu edge, 40% to 19%.

9:30: Still nothing more to tell you about CA-32, but there’s a barnburner going on in the runoff for the Los Angeles City Attorney. Carmen Trutanich leads Jack Weiss 52-48, with 12% reporting.

8:45: We’re finally seeing some action. With 10% reporting, Judy Chu is at 42%, with Cedillo far behind with 17%. Betty Chu is in third at 13% (consolidating most of what little Republican vote exists in this district), and Pleitez is next at 8%.

8:18: We’ve still got bupkus from CA-32, but there are over 1 million votes tabulated statewide on the six ballot measures. Props 1A through 1E are all failing, mostly by greater than 40-60 margins, but Prop 1F (no pay raises for legislators if there’s a deficit) is passing with 77%.

7:52 Pacific: We’re going to be doing a half-assed liveblog of CA-32 tonight. Polls close shortly, at 8 p.m. Check back periodically for updates!

Until 20 years ago the suburbs around New York City were strongly Republican. Now they are strongly Democratic. In the area I would consider the NYC metro area there are 30 Congressional Districts. These are NY-(01-19), NJ-(04-13), and CT-04. (I know, it’s debatable what is and what isn’t.) Only 5 of the 30 are represented by Republicans: NY-03, NJ-05, NJ-11, NJ-07, and NJ-04. Amazingly, there are 6 districts in this area that have a PVI of D+30 or better.

All across the country, suburbs are trending Democratic. Older suburbs are now reliably Democratic. However it looks like some of the suburban areas around New York City may have peaked in around 2000. Some of these “traditionally Republican” areas may be trending Republican again.

For a reference to the names of counties, see this map provided by Wikipedia.

The Bad News

County	2000	2004	2008
Staten Island	50/42	43/56	48/52
Nassau County	56/36	52/47	54/45
Suffolk County	52/39	49/49	53/47
Rockland County	54/37	49/50	53/47
Bergen County	55/42	52/47	54/45
Sussex County	37/58	35/64	39/59
Monmouth County	50/46	45/55	47/51
Ocean County	47/49	39/60	40/58

The Good News

County	2000	2004	2008
Westchester County	57/35	58/40	63/36
Orange County	45/47	44/55	52/47
Fairfield County	52/43	51/47	59/40
Essex County	71/26	70/29	76/23
Somerset County	47/50	47/52	53/46
Morris County	43/54	42/58	45/53
Hunterdon County	38/57	39/60	43/56
Mercer County	61/34	61/38	67/31

Some of the biggest Democratic losses at the presidential level from 2000 to 2004 came from the suburban counties around New York City. It’s tempting to dismiss these as short-term losses, and blame them on September 11. But we did worse in some of these counties in 2008 than in 2000, so this could be the beginning of a long-term trend. If we don’t take it seriously it could eventually cost us elections.

NY-13 and NY-03 currently have PVI‘s of about D+1. After they are recalculated to consider 2008 results, they will probably be about R+4.

Of the 5 Republican-held districts, we should strongly contest these 2 in 2010:

NY-03 will be an open race in 2010. Its Republican incumbent, Peter King, will vacate the seat in order to unsuccessfully run for the Senate. This race is a toss-up, depending on what the political situation is like in 2010. It’s tempting to take it for granted, because Tim Bishop and Steve Israel were able to flip NY-01 and NY-02 earlier this decade. If we win it’s because we had an excellent candidate and and excellent campaign that earned every last vote.

Meanwhile, Republican-held district NJ-07 is trending in our direction. NJ-07 was designed to be Republican, but now it’s a swing district that Obama won. I’m on the record stating we should try again in 2010 to win NJ-07.

Cross-posted to Daily Kos.

It’s become something of blogospheric conventional wisdom, over the last few years, that running for the House two times in a row was the right approach: that in some cases it takes one cycle to build name recognition and make fundraising connections, and one more cycle to close the deal with voters. Fans of Paul Hodes, Jerry McNerney, Nancy Boyda, or Joe Donnelly (he must have a netroots fan somewhere?) could point to their successes in 2006, on the second try, as evidence.

On the other hand, for every Hodes or McNerney in the House, there’s a “where are they now?” bin with Lois Murphy, Diane Farrell, Patty Wetterling, or Francine Busby in it. 2008 seemed to have a particularly large number of Democratic candidates giving it a second shot, so it may be worth stopping to examine those races.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a particularly high success ratio: of the 14 races that were considered competitive where the Democratic candidate was making a second run, only three four made it over the finish line (Dan Maffei, Eric Massa, Mary Jo Kilroy, and Larry Kissell). These candidates seemed to benefit from a perfect storm of traction from a repeat run, and running against weakened opponents (a different opponent for Maffei in the wake of Jim Walsh’s retirement and a bungled GOP recruitment, and befuddled, unlikable opponents for Massa and Kissell). (On the following table, * indicates a different opponent in 2008.)

The others seemed to falter, either in the face of a nutty GOPer but too red a district (Brown, Wulsin, probably Esch) or an uncontroversial ‘moderate’ incumbent with a strong hold on a suburban district (Seals, Burner, Feder). By contrast, because of the confluence of swing districts and craptacular opponents, NY-25, NY-29, and NC-08 seem like races we likely could have won with or without a returning opponent (although the prospect of a Maffei rematch may have caused Walsh’s retirement)… which isn’t to say that we should avoid rematches, simply that it may not provide as much of an advantage as conventional wisdom currently holds.

Also, I can’t help but notice one troubling pattern: the male reruns improved on their 2006 numbers. The female reruns declined. If you look at the names above from the 2004-06 cycles, you see the same pattern (Nancy Boyda excepted). I won’t attempt to psychoanalyze that, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.

UPDATE: A reader helpfully points out that I left out Mary Jo Kilroy, who ran against a different opponent in 2008. I was prepared to have to admit that this screws up my theory, but interestingly, even though she won on her second try, the rate at which she improved her margin was still lower than any of the male rerun candidates.

UPDATE II: Another reader points out Gary Trauner, another repeat runner but against a different opponent. So there is, in fact, one male candidate who lost ground (albeit while running in Wyoming in a presidential year).

District	Dem	2006 margin	2008 margin	Diff.
NY-25	Dan Maffei *	-1.6 (49.2/50.8)	12.9 (54.8/41.9)	14.5
NC-08	Larry Kissell	-0.2 (49.9/50.1)	10.8 (55.4/44.6)	11.0
NE-02	Jim Esch	-9.4 (45.3/54.7)	-3.8 (48.1/51.9)	5.6
NY-29	Eric Massa	-3.0 (48.5/51.5)	2.0 (51.0/49.0)	5.0
CA-04	Charlie Brown *	-4.5 (45.4/49.9)	-0.6 (49.7/50.3)	3.9
IL-10	Dan Seals	-6.8 (46.6/53.4)	-5.2 (47.4/52.6)	1.6
OH-15	Mary Jo Kilroy *	-0.5 (49.7/50.2)	0.7 (45.9/45.2)	1.2
WA-08	Darcy Burner	-3.0 (48.5/51.5)	-5.6 (47.2/52.8)	-2.6
VA-10	Judy Feder	-16.3 (41.0/57.3)	-20.0 (38.8/58.8)	-3.7
NV-02	Jill Derby	-5.5 (44.9/50.4)	-10.4 (41.4/51.8)	-4.9
OH-02	Victoria Wulsin	-1.1 (49.4/50.5)	-7.3 (37.5/44.8)	-6.2
NJ-07	Linda Stender *	-1.5 (47.9/49.4)	-8.0 (42.2/50.2)	-6.5
WY-AL	Gary Trauner *	-0.5 (47.8/48.3)	-9.8 (42.8/52.6)	-9.3
FL-13	Christine Jennings	-0.2 (49.9/50.1)	-18.0 (37.5/55.5)	-17.8

Just to make sure that I wasn’t focused on high-profile losses while missing races that flew under the radar (which, as best as I can remember, was where Hodes, McNerney, Boyda, and Donnelly all flew in 2004), I looked at all the non-competitive races where I could find Democratic reruns as well. With a couple exceptions in California (which may have to do mostly with the surprisingly strong coattails Obama generated for Dems downticket in that state), the lower-profile reruns also gained little traction.

District	Dem	2006 margin	2008 margin	Diff.
CA-03	Bill Durston	-21.6 (37.9/59.5)	-5.5 (44.0/49.5)	16.1
CA-48	Steve Young	-22.8 (37.2/60.0)	-15.1 (40.6/55.7)	7.7
NC-03	Craig Weber	-37.2 (31.4/68.6)	-31.8 (34.1/65.9)	5.4
NJ-11	Tom Wyka	-25.5 (36.6/62.1)	-24.8 (37.0/61.8)	0.7
AZ-02	John Thrasher	-19.7 (38.9/58.6)	-22.2 (37.2/59.4)	-2.5
FL-05	John Russell	-19.8 (40.1/59.9)	-22.4 (38.8/61.2)	-2.6
PA-19	Phil Avilo	-30.5 (33.5/64.0)	-33.2 (33.4/66.6)	-2.7
PA-09	Tony Barr	-20.6 (39.7/60.3)	-27.8 (36.1/63.9)	-7.2
TX-04	Glenn Melancon	-31.0 (33.4/64.4)	-39.5 (29.3/68.8)	-8.5
IN-06	Barry Welsh	-20.0 (40.0/60.0)	-30.5 (33.4/63.9)	-10.5

During the election season, people seemed to assume that Swing State Project has long been in the business of handicapping congressional races. However, believe it or not, 2008 was the first time that SSP attempted to rate and predict every congressional race. It was an extremely fun project, as we argued back and forth, trying to sell each other on particular candidates’ hidden strengths or districts’ unique quirks, parsing the meaning of “Lean” and “Likely,” or simply trash-talking each other. (In order to briefly return to those golden days, this is a fully collaborative post, and David and James have their say further down too.)

Now that every House race has finally been called and things have settled back down to business as usual here, we thought we’d do a little retrospective and see how our predictions matched up with the actual results. (Our final predictions are here.) Our table is broken into races where Team Blue was on the offense and on the defense, ordered in terms of the margin of victory (or loss). (An asterisk refers to a race that was once on the chart, but dropped off by the end.) Even if you aren’t that interested in our slightly belated soul-searching about our predictive skills, this should be a very useful chart for our readers, as the decreasing margins give a pretty clear picture of who’s vulnerable going into the next cycle.

District	Offense	Margin	Rating	District	Defense	Margin	Rating
NY-13	Open	27.6	Safe D	FL-16	Mahoney	-20.2	Likely R
IL-11	Open	23.9	Lean D	LA-06	Cazayoux	-7.8	Tossup
AZ-01	Open	20.5	Likely D	TX-22	Lampson	-7.0	Tossup
FL-24	Feeney	16.1	Lean D	KS-02	Boyda	-4.4	Lean D
NY-25	Open	12.9	Likely D	LA-02	Jefferson	-2.7	Safe D
CO-04	Musgrave	12.4	Lean D	PA-11	Kanjorski	3.2	Tossup
NM-02	Open	12.0	Tossup	AL-05	Open	3.6	Lean D
VA-11	Open	11.7	Lean D	NY-24	Arcuri	4.0	Safe D *
NM-01	Open	11.4	Lean D	NH-01	Shea-Porter	5.9	Lean D
NC-08	Hayes	10.8	Lean D	TX-17	Edwards	7.5	Safe D
OH-16	Open	10.8	Lean D	WI-08	Kagen	8.1	Lean D
MI-09	Knollenberg	9.5	Lean D	FL-22	Klein	9.4	Safe D
NV-03	Porter	5.1	Tossup	AZ-05	Mitchell	9.6	Lean D
OH-01	Chabot	4.9	Tossup	ME-01	Open	9.8	Safe D
VA-02	Drake	4.9	Lean R	CA-11	McNerney	11.6	Lean D
NJ-03	Open	4.2	Tossup	MS-01	Childers	10.6	Likely D
FL-08	Keller	4.0	Tossup	PA-04	Altmire	11.8	Likely D
CT-04	Shays	3.7	Tossup	AZ-08	Giffords	11.9	Likely D
PA-03	English	2.4	Tossup	PA-10	Carney	12.6	Lean D
MI-07	Walberg	2.3	Tossup	TX-23	Rodriguez	13.9	Likely D
NY-29	Kuhl	2.0	Lean D	IA-03	Boswell	14.3	Safe D
ID-01	Sali	1.2	Tossup	GA-08	Marshall	14.4	Lean D
MD-01	Open	0.8	Tossup	NH-02	Hodes	15.0	Safe D *
OH-15	Open	0.7	Lean D	PA-08	P. Murphy	15.2	Likely D
AL-02	Open	0.6	Lean R	IL-14	Foster	15.4	Likely D
VA-05	Goode	0.2	Lean R	PA-12	Murtha	15.8	Lean D
LA-04	Open	-0.4	Tossup	OR-05	Open	16.0	Likely D
CA-04	Open	-0.6	Tossup	KS-03	Moore	16.8	Likely D
CA-44	Calvert	-2.4	Safe R	NY-01	Bishop	16.8	Safe D
MO-09	Open	-2.5	Tossup	NY-19	Hall	17.4	Safe D *
MN-06	Bachmann	-3.0	Tossup	OH-10	Kucinich	17.9	Safe D
NE-02	Terry	-3.8	Tossup	IA-02	Loebsack	18.4	Safe D
SC-01	Brown	-4.0	Lean R	KY-03	Yarmuth	18.8	Likely D
PA-06	Gerlach	-4.2	RTW *	PA-07	Sestak	19.2	Safe D
CA-50	Bilbray	-5.1	Likely R	IN-09	Hill	19.4	Likely D
AK-AL	Young	-5.2	Lean D	TX-27	Ortiz	19.5	Safe D
IL-10	Kirk	-5.2	Tossup	OH-18	Space	19.8	Safe D *
KY-02	Open	-5.2	Lean R	CT-05	C. Murphy	20.2	Likely D
CA-03	Lungren	-5.5	RTW	TN-04	Davis	21.0	Safe D
WA-08	Reichert	-5.6	Tossup	IL-08	Bean	21.4	Safe D *
MI-11	McCotter	-6.0	Safe R	WI-07	Obey	21.7	Safe D
FL-25	M. Diaz-Balart	-6.2	Tossup	CO-03	Salazar	23.2	Safe D
OH-02	Schmidt	-7.2	Lean R	FL-02	Boyd	23.8	Safe D
SC-02	Wilson	-7.5	RTW	ND-AL	Pomeroy	24.0	Safe D
MN-03	Open	-7.6	Tossup	NY-20	Gillibrand	24.2	Lean D
NJ-07	Open	-8.0	Tossup	SC-05	Spratt	24.6	Safe D
AL-03	Rogers	-8.2	Likely R	WA-02	Larsen	24.8	Safe D
CA-46	Rohrabacher	-9.5	Likely R	NM-03	Open	26.2	Safe D
WY-AL	Open	-9.8	Lean R	NC-11	Shuler	26.2	Safe D *
IL-13	Biggert	-9.9	RTW	NC-04	Price	26.6	Safe D

As you can see, by the time you get up to 50, the Democratic defense list has started to get kind of uninteresting, while there are still some hotly contested offense seats left to discuss. It’s a pretty good illustration of how lopsided the playing field for the two parties was this year. For instance, there’s only one Democratic defense seat that we had left on our big board that fell off the list: Tim Walz in MN-01, who was Likely D but won by 29.6% (good for 67th place).

On the other hand, here’s the continued list for offense seats!

51) NV-02, Heller, -10.4, Lean R

52) TX-10, McCaul, -10.8, Lean R

54) AZ-03, Shadegg, -11.1, Lean R

57) NJ-05, Garrett, -13.5, Lean R

58) TX-07, Culberson, -13.5, Likely R

59) WV-02, Capito, -14.2, Lean R

60) NY-26, Open, -14.5, Lean R

67) NC-10, McHenry, -15.2, Likely R

68) IN-03, Souder, -15.3, Tossup

72) FL-18, Ros-Lehtinen, -15.8, Likely R

73) FL-21, L. Diaz-Balart, -15.8, Tossup

77) OH-07, Open, -16.4, Likely R

80) NC-05, Foxx, -16.8, Likely R

81) PA-15, Dent, -17.2, Likely R

83) FL-13, Buchanan, -18.0, Likely R

89) VA-10, Wolf, -20.0, Likely R

95) IA-04, Latham, -21.2, Likely R

103) MO-06, Graves, -22.5, Likely R

128) LA-07, Boustany, -27.6, Likely R

142) LA-01, Scalise, -31.4, Likely R

The first thing I notice is that there are only six places where we got it “wrong,” where wrong means we felt that, rather than leaving a race as “Tossup,” we could move it to “Lean” or even “Likely…” only to see it go the wrong way. On the defense side, that means Bill Jefferson at Safe D, whose loss I think absolutely no one saw coming (the NRCC’s four-digit campaign expenditures notwithstanding). It also means Nancy Boyda at Lean D. Although she seemed to have a comfortable edge in polls, her surprise loss provides a nice object lesson for incumbents defending tough districts: don’t try to run a campaign that actually appeals to your constituents’ logic and good judgment. Accept the DCCC’s money, and use it to run negative TV spots, instead of trying to engage them intellectually with policy-specific newspaper ads.

On the offense side, the big screwup is Don Young at Lean D; again, this is one that basically no pundit saw coming, thanks to extremely consistent polling in favor of Ethan Berkowitz. The lesson here: never underestimate Alaskans’ willingness to vote for more pork, even if it means supporting a felon (or soon-to-be felon) in the privacy of the voting booth.

We also had something of a crisis of faith in Bobby Bright in AL-02, in the face of tepid campaigning and a crimson district. Despite our dropping him late in the game to Lean R, his name rec and DCCC spending seemed to pull him over the line. Finally, we were caught off guard by the magnitude of the Obama coattails in Virginia, where we left Glenn Nye (VA-02) and Tom Perriello (VA-05) at Lean R. The polls just weren’t there for them, in GOP-leaning turf, but the bluening of Virginia lifted them far enough. (If there’s one candidate I’m personally shocked that won, it’s Perriello; I was miffed to see the DCCC pouring money into a guy who seemed way too progressive for such a rural and downscale district. Here’s one race where I’m super-happy to eat some crow.)

Where else did we whiff? IN-03 and FL-21 seemed like Tossups at the time, given the very close polling and baffled-seeming incumbents, but these ones are languishing up around #70. Apparently the constituents decided late in the game that, in IN-03, they had a challenger they just didn’t know enough about (Mike Montagano), and in FL-21, probably a challenger that they just knew too much about (Raul Martinez).

We may also have been a little generous on the Louisiana challenges in LA-07 and LA-01 (both listed as Likely R). Jim Harlan, with a conservative profile and his own fat pocketbook, seemed like the best possible candidate for LA-01; however, given that this is one of the nation’s most right-wing districts, I guess we have to take a 30-point loss (instead of the usual 50-point beatdown that we take in that district) as some sort of moral victory.

On the flipside, we missed a number of strong performances in California, especially the near upsets of Ken Calvert in CA-44 and Dan Lungren in CA-03. What’s most interesting is that the rising blue tide in California seemed very evenly distributed throughout the state and probably tied to an Obama-driven boost in infrequent voters voting straight-ticket D, as higher-profile challenges to Dana Rohrabacher and David Dreier did only slightly better than completely under-the-radar challenges to guys like Buck McKeon, Wally Herger, and Elton Gallegly.

Where did we buck the odds? I’m pleased with how well we did at moving the right people to “Lean D” in the weeks before the election; at the time, it seemed a little audacious to call a win in advance for Gary Peters, Larry Kissell, Suzanne Kosmas, Betsy Markey, and Eric Massa in their fights against (lame) incumbents, but they all pulled it out… as did last-minute change Mary Jo Kilroy, who finally managed to pull it out in overtime and save us a lot of egg on our faces.

On the whole, we ran up a pretty good track record (while using the ass-covering category of “Tossup” a lot less than certain other prognosticators). The lesson here is that prognosticating is more art than science; your predictions are only as good as your polls and your scuttlebutt.

DavidNYC: This was indeed a very fun project and a tremendous learning experience, and I expect will continue to do race ratings in the future. It was also remarkably time-consuming, especially as we got toward the end – as Crisitunity suggests, there was a lot of back-and-forth as we pored over Google spreadsheets – plus the occasional bit of smack talk. But I think we’d all gladly take more cycles like the one just concluded!

I just have a few additional thoughts. I think our Senate ratings hit the mark, and I think we were in general pretty disciplined in not moving races until we had sufficient evidence to justify a change. Some examples I’m thinking of include OR-Sen and CT-04, where we insisted on seeing polling before concluding that popular, “moderate” Republican incumbents were truly in jeopardy.

On the flipside, I think sometimes you just have to acknowledge an open seat is gone, as we did early on by moving VA-Sen to Safe D in August, and later NY-13 in October. (Both of these were thirty-point races.)

One of our biggest flubs, though, was NY-24. We had the race as Likely D until a week before election day, when we moved it to Safe. A lack of polling, zero outside spending, and a seemingly unimpressive Republican who had been substantially outraised all convinced us that there was nothing to see here.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. In the end, Mike Arcuri raised “just” $1.6 million (unimpressive compared to fellow freshmen like Chris Murphy, Patrick Murphy or even Paul Hodes), while Richard Hanna took in almost $1.1 mil. The final four-point margin was hair-raising, and suggests Arcuri still has a lot of work to do to establish himself. It also tells us that there will always be surprises – and that absence of evidence is not evidence of a Straniere.

James: Crisitunity and David touched on a lot of key points above, but I’ll just add that I think that we all were a bit caught off guard by just how much of a focal point our race ratings exercise became in the day-to-day operations of this blog.

When I first drafted a preliminary set of race ratings at the tail end of 2007, David’s response after I asked him for his thoughts was merely: “Nice work!” David later admitted to me that he felt as if he were a busy parent being handed a crappy piece of crayon art by a proud six year-old son. But once that crayon drawing was slapped on the fridge, if you will, we all realized that we would have to put in a great level of care into making sure we felt that each rating had a strong leg to stand on. In that sense, our race ratings project became the engine of SSP: we all had to step up our game to make sure that no major (or even minor) developments in the key House races would slip past us unnoticed — especially after we achieved some early success by noticing MS-01 before anyone else did.

Our goal of making this ratings project as honest and credible as possible, I believe, had a great impact on our front page coverage, and I know we caught on to a lot of stories and developments that we may have otherwise missed had it not been for our relentless commitment to stay on top of things. There’s no doubt in my mind that our ratings exercise, even if it provided no great revelations to anyone else, helped improve the work and quality of this blog immensely over my output in the summer and fall of 2006.