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Political Roundup for November 6, 2020

House:

AZ-6: Rep. David Schweikert (R) has increased his lead over Hiral Tipirneni (D) to 10,338 votes

CA-25: Rep. Mike Garcia (R) has taken his first lead over Christy Smith (D), leading by 265 votes as of 8:00 ET.

IL-14: Jim Oberweis (R) holds a 716 vote lead over Rep. Lauren Underwood (D), which is slightly smaller than his lead on Wednesday. The race still has not been called.

MN-1: The MN-1 race was finally called for Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R) yesterday evening. Hagedorn defeated his 2018 opponent Dan Feehan (D), by 3 points, a significant improvement on his close 1300 vote win from 2018.

PA-10: The AP called the PA-10 race for Rep. Scott Perry (R) yesterday evening, taking another Republican seat off the board that Democrats felt confident about winning. Although counting is not yet finished, Perry has about a lead of about 26,000 votes or 7 percent with about 88% counted.

UT-4: Burgess Owens (R) currently holds a 2,284 vote lead over Rep. Ben McAdams (D). Owens took his first lead of the counting yesterday with a 2,400 vote lead after Utah County released new numbers. The margin was cut to 18 votes after Salt Lake County released new numbers, but rose again later. A winner may not be declared until next week.

States:

AZ-leg.: Republicans appear to have comfortable enough leads to retain control of both houses of the Legislature, despite a major effort by Democrats to flip one or both chambers. Republicans will control by the slimmest margins possible, by 16-14 in the Senate(representing a 1 seat gain by Democrats) and 31-29 in the House(no change).

KS-leg.: Aaron Coleman (D), the 20 year-old who defeated incumbent state Rep. Stan Frownfelter (D) in the Democratic primary and later was found to have threatened to shoot a fellow student and admitted to circulating revenge porn but nevertheless remained in the race, won his race on Tuesday over a write-in bid by Frownfelter. State Democrats had already disowned his candidacy and were already considering refusing to seat him, but now they have even more ammunition to use against him as Coleman sent out a tweet blasting Gov. Laura Kelly (D) as being too conservative and said she would be ousted in an “extremely bloody” Democratic primary in 2022 and said he would “call a hit out” on her. House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer (D) said he or other Democrats would file a complaint against him after he’s sworn in and work for the two-thirds vote needed to remove him from his seat.

NH-leg.: The New Hampshire Senate and House going from Democrat to Republican represent the only legislative chambers to flip control this election, becoming the fewest number of legislative chambers to flip control since 1944 when 4 chambers flipped. The New Hampshire legislative chambers are particularly swingy, with the Senate changing hands 4 times in the last 8 elections, and the House 5 times.

SC-leg.: Republicans defeated 3 incumbent Democrats in the state Senate to get to a 30-16 margin, their highest ever. But among the more surprising losses was state Sen. Vincent Sheheen (D). Sheheen was a 16 year incumbent, but was also a two-time Democratic nominee for governor, losing in 2010 and 2014 to Nikki Haley (R). Republicans also gained seats in the state House, with an 82-42 margin, also their highest ever. Among the Democratic incumbents who lost was state Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell (D), who was the LG running mate for 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee James Smith (D).

WY-leg.: Libertarian Marshall Burt upset an incumbent Democratic state representative, becoming the first Libertarian to be elected to a state legislative seat anywhere since 2002, and the first since the 1990s that was not previously elected as a member of a major party. Another Libertarian came within 33 votes of winning another seat in the Wyoming House. Democrats lost two seats in the House, leaving them with 7 in the 60 member body, and lost a seat in the Senate, giving them just 2 out of 30 seats.

November 6, 2020 by
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Uncalled Races Roundup for November 5, 2020

President: Counting continues in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada; there have been no significant developments since this morning.

Senate: Aside from AK-Sen, a likely GOP hold where ballots won’t be counted until next week, the only remaining item of business is GA-Sen-P, where David Perdue looks likely to fall just short of winning 50%, setting up double-barrel runoffs in January. Democrats will need to win both to flip the Senate.

House: Here’s where the action is. Updates since yesterday:

  • GOP Gains (8): FL-26, FL-27, IA-1, MI-3, NM-2, MN-7 NY-11,* OK-5, SC-1. Notably, only one of those 8 gains came with a white male candidate, and he (MI-3’s Peter Meijer) was running for an R-turned-I-turned-L seat.
    • * NY-11 has not yet been called, but analysis of the outstanding absentee vote strongly suggests no path to victory for Democrat Max Rose
  • Dem Gains (3): NC-2, NC-6, GA-7. Dem offense remains limited to two redistricted races and Rob Woodall’s open seat.
  • Uncalled GOP Targets:
    • CA-21: No news here. Ex-Rep. David Valadao (R) remains ahead by 3,000 votes with perhaps 45,000 votes left to be counted across the district’s 4 counties, but primarily in Kern County. Valadao will likely need late ballots in Kern to be better than early ballots in order to win his rematch with Rep. TJ Cox (D).
    • CA-39: Young Kim (R) picked up a few hundred votes yesterday as all three counties reported batches. She leads Rep. Gil Cisneros (D) by 1,500 votes; over 35,000 additional votes are expected.
    • CA-48: Michelle Steel (R) widened her lead to 2,800 votes after a favorable ballot drop yesterday. With perhaps only 20,000 votes, this looks like the GOP’s best bet in California.
    • IL-14: No news. Jim Oberweis (R) leads by 1,600 votes; Illinois accepts ballots until November 17(!) so it may be a while before all absentees are counted here. There is no reliable word on how many ballots remain uncounted, or whether anything will be reported before the November 17 deadline.
    • IA-2: No news. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) has a 286-vote lead with only late mail ballots left to be counted after the deadline on Monday, November 9. There are over 12,000 unreturned mail ballots in this district, but in 2016, over 10,000 mail ballots went unreturned, so it’s possible the actual number of ballots to be counted is far lower than 12,000.
    • NV-3/4: Democrats have slightly expanded their leads in these races, both of which are close but neither in recount territory (the Dems lead by 6-7,000). These seem unlikely to flip this year.
    • New York: No news, as absentee ballots cannot be counted until a check of in-person voting records is complete. That check was expected to wrap up today, but most counties are expected to wait to count until Tuesday, the deadline for late mail ballots. In general, Republicans ran extremely strongly on Election Day and Democrats are expecting to make up ground in the absentees.
      • NY-3: George Santos (R) surprisingly leads Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) by 4,200 votes. Suozzi thinks there are 80,000 absentees. Everyone is expecting Suozzi to end up winning comfortably, but if this is close it may have redistricting implications in 2022.
      • NY-22: Ex-Rep. Claudia Tenney (R) leads Rep. Tony Brisindi (D) by about 28,500 votes, with an estimated 50,000 absentee votes to be counted in the coming weeks. Brisindi will need to grab over 75% of those to catch Tenney, and the general tenor of the cycle suggests he won’t, as this was one of the redder districts to fall in the 2018 wave.
      • NY-18, 19: Dems currently lead narrowly in both of these seats, which were long-shot targets, and all evidence suggests absentees will be Dem-heavy. The races are technically uncalled but shouldn’t be competitive.
    • Pennsylvania: Counting is expected to wrap up tomorrow, with a potential Supreme Court challenge to ballots received between Tuesday night and Friday. Absentee ballots have strongly favored Dems statewide.
      • PA-7: Lisa Scheller (R) leads by 2,200, but about 37,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted in Lehigh County, where Rep. Susan Wild is winning (and winning strongly among absentees). The Lehigh count is expected to wrap up tonight, and Wild will likely win by an underwhelming margin.
      • PA-8: Rep. Matt Cartwright (D) has steadily build a lead as absentees are counted; he’s up to 7,000 votes and should win by a similar margin to Wild.
      • PA-17: Rep. Conor Lamb (D) has also retaken the lead by about 5,000 votes. There are fewer outstanding ballots here, and Lamb also looks likely to win by an underwhelming margin.
    • UT-4: Burgess Owens (R) has made up almost half his deficit since yesterday, cutting Rep. Ben McAdams’s (D) lead to 2,600. However, there are only 17,000 votes left to be counted in Owens’s base in Utah County, while there may be 100,000 or more in Salt Lake County (the county as a whole has 200K, and this district covers a little more than half the county). Owens will need late Salt Lake ballots to be better than early ones in order to flip this seat.
    • VA-7: Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) has a 5,000 vote lead with almost all remaining vote from her base in Henrico County, so we can call this one, even if the networks haven’t.
    • Others: Tom O’Halleran (D) is up by almost 13,000 in AZ-1, and Kim Schrier (D) is up 23,000 in WA-8. Neither race has moved much since election night, and both are uncalled only out of an abundance of caution.
  • Uncalled Dem Targets:
    • AZ-6: Rep. David Schweikert (R) has seized a 6,400 vote lead on the strength of the R-heavy Maricopa ballots keeping Trump alive statewide. There are perhaps over 50,000 more ballots here, but the trends would need to reverse almost exactly for Schweikert to lose.
    • CA-25: Rep. Mike Garcia (R) made up about 40% of his deficit in the first batch of late votes from Los Angeles County, cutting the margin to 1,700 votes with perhaps 44,000 votes still out. Garcia would win if the late ballots continue to break as they did yesterday.
    • Other California: CA-4, CA-8, CA-42, and CA-50 all have Republicans leading by between 11,000 and 20,000 votes with lots of absentees out. Given the state voting patterns this year, none of these look likely to flip, but all are uncalled.
    • MN-1: Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R) leads by 11,000 and has declared victory, but there may be as many as 20,000 absentee ballots and Dan Feehan (D) has not conceded.
    • NJ-2: Counting in New Jersey is frozen until Tuesday, the deadline for absentee ballots to come in. Most of the mail vote has been counted, but none of the election day vote has, so what’s left is in-person and late-arriving mail vote. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R) is up by 10,000, or 3.5 points. Looking at the math, Van Drew will need to improve in Cumberland County, which had a relatively small but very Dem-friendly mail vote. If Van Drew recovers in Cumberland with the in-person vote, he’s on track in the rest of the district to win narrowly. If in-person voting leans R throughout the district, Van Drew will win comfortably.
    • TX-24: No news. Beth Van Duyne (R) leads by 4,500 votes and has claimed victory. According to Van Duyne, the only remaining uncounted ballots are in Tarrant County, where she leads, and there are only 14,000 uncounted ballots in the entire county (TX-24 has roughly a quarter of Tarrant). Assuming Van Duyne is correct and there are no ballots in any other counties, she’s won.
    • Others: A number of other GOP-held seats are uncalled, but not particularly close. These include (with GOP margins in parenthesis): NY-1 (Zeldin +75K), NY-2 (Garbarino +56K), NY-22 (Katko +55K), PA-10 (Perry +34K), WA-3 (Beutler +38K)

Row Offices: North Carolina has paused counting until Tuesday with 117,000 mail ballots still out, with no guarantee as to how many will be returned. Democrats lead by 10,000 votes for NC-AG and 90,000 for NC-Aud. Republicans lead by 98,000 for NC-Lab. Republicans lead in both uncalled Supreme Court races: one by 3,000 and one by 74,000. In Pennsylvania, Republicans remain on pace to pick up PA-Aud and PA-Treas, and Dems remain on pace to hold PA-AG.

State Legislatures: The only uncalled chambers are in Arizona, where the GOP holds very slight majorities with many races too close to call. Republicans have generally been gaining as waves of late votes have been counted.

November 5, 2020 by
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Political Roundup for November 5th, 2020

Crawling out from under my rock to give y’all an update on where things stand.

President

An update on the uncalled states

  • Georgia: Biden trails Trump by about 22,500 votes as counting continues.
  • Arizona: The state continues to narrow, with Biden currently leading by 2.4%.
  • Nevada: No update yesterday, a vote dump is expected this morning. More here.
  • Wisconsin: Called for Biden. Trump has demanded a recount that probably won’t do much.
  • Michigan: Called for Biden
  • Pennsylvania: Counting continues, with a 164k vote lead for Trump at the moment
  • North Carolina: Vote counting resumes on the 12th.

Trump’s path to victory continues to narrow. Arizona’s last ballots must break for him enough to push him over the top, and it does not seem likely to happen. Beyond that, there is a real path for Biden to win in Pennsylvania and Georgia at the moment. Last, Nevada appears more likely than not to sustain a Biden lead, meaning the former Vice President would cinch the election with or without Pennsylvania or Georgia via Nevada and Arizona.

Senate: ME-Sen was called for Susan Collins (R) this afternoon. Counting the uncalled races in NC and AK as Republican holds, that’s a 50-47 edge for the GOP, with these three races outstanding:

  • Michigan: Gary Peters (D) clinched reelection here.
  • Georgia-Perdue: Even as counting continues, it is now apparent David Perdue (R) will be locked in a runoff with Jon Ossoff (D) in January, on the same ballot as Loeffler’s race.

CT-Sen: Onward to 2022! War hero Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D) announced he will seek re-election in 2022.

House

  • IN-5: Victoria Spartz (R) has sealed the deal and won this race.
  • VA-7: Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) has clinched a second term over Nick Freitas (R).
  • IL-14: Jim Oberweis (R) declared himself the winner here even as he begins fundraising for a recount. Yesterday DDHQ had called this one for Underwood, but Oberweis has taken the lead.
  • AZ-6: Perennially weak Rep. David Schweikert (R) has retaken a lead here and looks likely to win reelection.
  • PA-17: Wasserman says Rep. Connor Lamb is headed for reelection.

Puerto Rico: Pro-statehood candidate Pedro Pierluisi (PNP) won the gubernatorial race, and a pro-statehood referendum narrowly passed. Statehood will still have to somehow pass through McConnell’s Senate.

The Hispanic vote in Texas: A look at Democrats’ lackluster efforts in the Rio Grande Valley this cycle.

Marijuana and Drugs: Marijuana legalization and decriminalization was a big winner in referendums across the country last night.

TX-Leg: The day after the election, State Rep. Dade Phelan (R) announced he had the votes to become the next speaker in Texas, which caused much belly-aching from the usual suspects.

RI-Leg: Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D) lost reelection to Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, wife of Cranston Mayor Allen Fung.

VT-Leg: Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D) lost reelection as well.

GA-Sen: Raphael Warnock (D) is up with the 1st ad for his January runoff against Sen. Kelly Loeffler(R).

International

Today there is a general election in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. St. Vincent is an island nation in the eastern Caribbean west of Barbados. It has a population of 110K and a land area about half the size of New York City; while 9 islands are inhabited, roughly 90% of the population lives on the main island of St. Vincent. A former British colony, most of the population is Afro-Caribbean in origin, with small ethnic East Indian and Portugese populations. A lower-middle-income country, banana cultivation is the near-sole staple of the economy, though the tourism sector has been growing in recent years.

St. Vincent has a 21-member parliament. 15 seats are elected by the traditional first past the post system in single-member constituencies. The remaining six seats are appointed, four by the government and two by the opposition. PM Ralph Gonsalves is seeking a renewed mandate. Gonsalves and his social-democratic Unity Labor Party are reaching the ranks of the longest-serving freely-elected governments worldwide, as they have held power continuously for 19 years with four election wins. However, the ULP has just a one-seat majority in parliament, with 8/15 elected seats; it is generally most popular on the east side of St. Vincent. The other 7 seats are held by the opposition New Democratic Party, a center-right pro-business group, which is more popular on the west side of St. Vincent and dominates the outlying Grenadine islands. The last few elections have been quite close, with the ULP winning small but consistent victories; not a single seat changed hands in 2015, but a swing of 2% in one constituency would have given the NDP power. This election is also expected to be close and there is no clear favorite.

November 5, 2020 by
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Uncalled Races Roundup for November 4, 2020

Howdy y’all. We’ll be posting these roundups in the afternoons for the next few days at least to track what’s still out there:

President: Wisconsin was called for Biden today, and the math looks favorable for Biden in Michigan, where he leads narrowly. That means Trump needs to win Pennsylvania and Georgia (both places that he leads, but pending Dem-heavy absentee ballots) as one of Arizona or Nevada. Arizona was called for Biden by several outlets, but late returns have been heavily Republican and at least theoretically give Trump a path to victory. Nevada is very close, with Biden up by about 8,000, and there are more than enough outstanding mail ballots to swing the race, although it’s unclear which side they’ll favor.

Senate: ME-Sen was called for Susan Collins (R) this afternoon. Counting the uncalled races in NC and AK as Republican holds, that’s a 50-47 edge for the GOP, with these three races outstanding:

  • Michigan: John James (R) narrowly trails Gary Peters (D), and it’s unclear how much else is out.
  • Georgia-Perdue: David Perdue (R) has a 50.6-47.1 lead, and almost certainly will end up with more votes than Jon Ossoff (D) in this round. Whether Perdue will finish above 50% is another question, as outstanding ballots appear to favor Dems, perhaps strongly so. Since Ossoff has no realistic path to 50% here, the worst-case scenario for Perdue is being forced into a runoff in January.
  • Georgia-Loeffler: This race is, as expected, going to a runoff regardless of whether the Perdue seat also does. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) picked up a quick and gracious endorsement from Rep. Doug Collins (R), whom she outpaced by about 6 points. The combined vote is about 50R-45, and Loeffler will start as a favorite in the runoff with Raphael Warnock (D).

House: The GOP is set to gain seats, but how many is a question. Here’s what’s been called:

  • GOP Gains (7): FL-26, FL-27, IA-1, MI-3, NM-2, NY-11, OK-5, SC-1. Notably, only one of those 8 gains came with a white male candidate, and he (MI-3’s Peter Meijer) was running for an R-turned-I-turned-L seat.
  • Dem Gains (3): GA-7, NC-2, NC-6. Notably, no GOP incumbent has lost yet, though a couple aren’t out of the woods yet.
  • Uncalled GOP Targets
    • California seats: It’s the usual game of wait-and-see in California, but Republicans have very narrow leads in CA-21, CA-39, and CA-48. In the past, we’d have expected Dems to wipe out those margins in late returns, but the pandemic shift in voting may have turned the old model upside-down. We likely won’t know on these races for a few weeks.
    • IL-14: Jim Oberweis (R) leads Rep. Lauren Underwood (D) by 895 votes with all precincts reporting, but DDHQ has called the race for Underwood, suggesting the uncounted absentee vote looks very good for her.
    • IA-2: On her fourth bid for this seat, Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) has a 286-vote lead with all election day, early, and early mail ballots apparently counted. Mail ballots arriving by 11/9 will be counted, and sources differ on how many votes may be left.
    • MN-2: Rep. Angie Craig (D) leads by a little over 9,000 votes (48-46). Barring something odd, this will be a close loss for Tyler Kistner (R), who was significantly outfundraised and overperformed expectations.
    • NV-3/4: As usual, the two suburban Las Vegas districts are close, with the Democratic incumbents up by 4 points in each. Those leads should hold unless the uncounted mail vote is strongly Republican (which Trump is also relying upon).
    • NY-3: Here’s the surprise uncalled race of the cycle, as George Santos is up by 4,200 votes on Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) in a light-blue Long Island district that has normally been safe for Suozzi. The numbers here and elsewhere strongly suggest a lot of Dem absentee ballots in Nassau County remain uncounted, so we’re not expecting Suozzi to lose this one in the end.
    • NY-22: This one’s also awaiting absentee ballots, but the GOP is in much better shape. Ex-Rep. Claudia Tenney (R) leads Rep. Tony Brisindi (D) by about 28,500 votes, with an estimated 50,000 absentee votes to be counted in the coming weeks. Brisindi will need to grab over 75% of those to catch Tenney, and the general tenor of the cycle suggests he won’t, as this was one of the redder districts to fall in the 2018 wave.
    • Pennsylvania seats: Like California, Pennsylvania has three Republican challengers leading as we enter the “how bad are the Dem mail ballots” phase. Republicans lead by 1,600 votes in PA-8, 8,000 in PA-7, and 23,000 in PA-17.
    • UT-4: Rep. Ben McAdams (D) leads Burgess Owens (R) by about 7,000 votes (3.5 points). Utah’s elections website says only 64% of ballots have been processed, and we have no idea whether what’s still out skews one way or another.
    • VA-7: Nick Frietas (R) leads Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) by 914 votes, with 35,000 absentees from Spotsylvania County not counted yet. Presidential swing suggests those ballots will be about 50-50. There’s also a smaller number of votes left in Spanberger’s home base of Henrico, which could be enough to push her over the top if Spotsylvania splits.
  • Uncalled Dem Targets
    • AZ-6: Hiral Tipirneni (D) leads Rep. David Schweikert (R) by 1,800 votes with perhaps over 30,000 left to be counted. If those skew substantially Republican, as the Trump campaign believes they will, there’s enough left for Schweikert to pull this out.
    • CA-25: See California races blurb above–Dem Christy Smith leads by a point here, which makes it plausible that the GOP could pick up 3 California seats but lose Rep. Mike Garcia (R).
    • CA-50: Darrell Issa (R) is up 52-48 (12,000 votes) in his comeback bid, making him a somewhat safer bet than the trio of Republicans with slight leads.
    • IN-5: Victoria Spartz (R) has a 25,000-vote (7-point) lead in a district that caused some heartburn for the NRCC. There is an unknown number of absentees in Indianapolis, the Dem base in this seat, still uncounted, which has prevented the networks from calling this one.
    • NJ-2: The notorious JVD–that’s Jeff Van Drew (R)–is up by 10,000, or 3.5 points, with an estimated 75% in.
    • TX-24: This is Democrats’ last chance to flip a seat in Texas this year, and Beth Van Duyne (R) is up by 5,000 votes with about 95% in. Van Duyne has had a consistent 1-point lead since last night.

Governors: No outstanding races here–everything went as projected, with Republicans flipping MT-Gov as part of a statewide sweep.

Row Officers: Republicans generally had a solid night here, highlighted by a pickup of NC-LG, which could keep Gov. Roy Cooper from running for Senate in 2022. Republicans completed their statewide sweep of West Virginia by knocking off an incumbent in WV-Treas. In uncalled races:

  • North Carolina: Democrats lead by 10,000 votes for NC-AG and 90,000 for NC-Aud. Republicans lead by 98,000 for NC-Lab. Republicans lead in all three Supreme Court races: one by 3,000, one by 74,000, and one by 131,000.
  • Pennsylvania: As with the presidency and the House races, Republicans lead in all three row office races and it’s a question of whether they hold up. Republicans are running 5 points ahead of Trump for PA-Aud and 3 points ahead for PA-Treas, so if the presidential toplines end up close, both of those races look like GOP pickups. The Democrat in PA-AG is running 2 points ahead of Biden, so that’s a likely Dem hold.
  • Washington: Republicans are on pace to hold WA-SoS 52-48, but Dems will pick up WA-Treas, which the GOP won on a Top Two fluke in 2016.

State Legislatures: It was a good night for Republicans here too. The GOP flipped both chambers in New Hampshire and will have a trifecta, and are also in position to win the powerful Executive Council with 3 races still too close to call. The GOP held the Minnesota Senate to prevent a Dem trifecta, and easily held the Texas House to preserve their own trifecta there. The GOP held the Michigan House and both houses in Pennsylvania, and made notable gains in Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. The one major question mark is Arizona, where both chambers are still uncalled.

November 4, 2020 by
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Morning After Roundup for the 2020 General Election

So, about last night…

President

The presidential race remains too close to call. The love affair between Florida Man and Orange Man continues to stun Democrats; on account of the rumored Trump surge with Miami-Dade Cubans (and Venezuelans?) materializing, the President won Florida by just over three percent. Ann Selzer nailed Iowa; Trump won by her predicted seven percent. With 95% reporting, Trump is winning North Carolina by 1.4%, and the New York Times presidential election forecast needle predicts Trump will win by just over one percent. But the Sun Belt remains an obstacle along Trump’s path to 270. Despite the president’s slight lead in Georgia with 92% reporting, the needle predicts that Biden will very narrowly flip the Peach State as urbanized counties finish reporting. Joe Biden probably flipped Arizona and appears on his way to hold Nevada. Yet almost paradoxically, strong performances with Mexican-Americans helped counteract Trump’s unstanched bleeding in Texan suburbs, and Trump carried the Lone Star State by over 6%. Biden failed to crack 60% in any Rio Grande Valley county, putting the political future of the Fajita Strip districts in question. In the coming days, coastal eyes’ quadrennial gaze on the Midwest linger. Trump is losing Wisconsin by 0.7% with 97% in but carrying Michigan by .5% with 87% in and Pennsylvania by 11.5% with 75% in. All three states have significant numbers of absentee ballots to count and could break either way, but Biden looks like a modest favorite in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Senate

In most competitive races, Republican Senate candidates ran ahead of President Trump—a sign of GOP brand strength independent of the President’s personal brand. Sen. David Perdue (R) is comfortably ahead of generic Millenial hologram Jon Ossoff (D) and seems more likely than not to avoid a runoff, even if Trump loses Georgia. In a big win for Gov. Brian Kemp, appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) resurrected her political career despite being left for near-dead early in her battle with Rep. Doug Collins (R). Thanks almost entirely to her strong performances in suburban Atlanta and Savannah, Loeffler will face Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) in a January runoff. As predicted, Tommy Tuberville (R) defeated Sen. Doug Jones (D) in Alabama. Pour one out for Sen. Cory Gardner (and Sen. Martha McSally, but…), who predictably lost his seat to John Hickenlooper (D) by almost 10%. Democrats lit hundreds of millions of dollars on fire challenging incumbents in red states; Lindsey Graham, Steve Daines, Dan Sullivan, and “Cocaine Mitch” McConnell are en route to comfortable victories. Cal Cunningham (D) couldn’t keep it in his pants, and Thom Tillis (R) managed to narrowly out-run Trump en route to victory. Cunningham’s wife must be on her way to a divorce lawyer this morning. Joni Ernst rode Trump’s strong Iowa performance to victory. On the backs of increased GOP support from Latinos, Mark Ronchetti (R) lost to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D) by just 5.4% and will be a very strong recruit for a future race. Even bombastic ex-Rep. Jason Lewis (R) ran a respectable race for Senate. But in perhaps the sweetest news of the night for Republicans, deeply embattled Susan Collins (R) is at 49.5% with 70% in (and just about all Portland-area votes reporting). If John James (R) can hold his lead on Sen. Gary Peters (D), the GOP may break even despite conventional wisdom pointing before the election to a net result of several GOP losses—if not an outright Democratic majority.

House

Check back soon for House analysis.

November 4, 2020 by