Category Archives: Senate

Primary Elections — Week of March 18

By tmess2 | Published March 17, 2024

With the presidential nominations effectively wrapped up, the focus of primary season shifts to Congress.  States face conflicting incentives in terms of primary scheduling.  First, for presidential primaries, an early primary increases the chance that a state will vote before the nomination is effectively decided.  But, especially a state with a part-time legislature that only meets in the Spring, a Summer primary allows the legislature to wrap up its business (with appropriate goodies for the districts of favored legislators facing a tough race) and gives the legislators time to spend back in their district campaigning.  Second, it saves money for a state to combine presidential primaries with the primaries for other offices.  Thus, only some of the states with early primaries for president also have the primaries for other offices on the same day.

This week, three states have primaries for “other” offices.  The first is actually a special election.  That election is to fill the seat created by Kevin McCarthy deciding that he did not want to return to just being a member of the House after he lost the vote of no confidence (technically motion to vacate the chair) last fall.  For regular elections, California uses a “top two” primary in which, regardless of the vote for the leading candidate, the second-placed candidate advances to the general election.  For special elections, if the leading candidate gets a majority, that candidate wins.  If not, there will be a runoff between the top two candidates.  Two weeks ago, there was the regular primary for the seat.  Given how long it takes California to process its ballot, the race for second place is still too close to call.  Given that most of the votes remaining appear to be from the county in which the current third-placed candidate finished ahead of the second-placed candidate, the primary may actually be recount close.  Right now, the “second” Republican is still in second place.  That should discourage Republicans from unifying behind the current leading candidate in the special election (as supporters of the Republican currently in second have hopes that their candidate will make the general election and do not want to make the leading candidate the incumber candidate).  As the leading candidate did not get a majority in the primary, there is a good chance that there will be a runoff in this race.  If the leading candidate (Kevin McCarthy’s handpicked candidate, Vince Fong) can get the majority, the Republicans get this seat back.  If not, it remains vacant until after the runoff in two months (probably keeping the seat vacant through June).  Needless to say, the Republicans in Washington are praying for an outright winner on Tuesday.

The next state on the list is Ohio.  In recent years, ticket splitting has declined, and it has become harder for a Congressional candidate to win a state/district that voted for the presidential candidate of the other party.  Currently, there are only senators (three Democrats and two Republicans) representing states won in 2020 by the other party.  The three Democrats are up for election this year.  Joe Manchin of West Virginia has decided that, despite his personal popularity in his state, the presidential margin is just too much to overcome.  That leaves Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio to face their voters this year.  Given that Ohio has been getting redder in recent years, Republicans are hopeful that whomever they nominate might win the seat in November to give the Republicans a senate majority.  But with Republicans thinking that they can win, the primary attracted multiple candidates.  The race originally looked like a three-person race.  Objectively, if Republicans wanted somebody ready to be a senator, the obvious choice would be the current Secretary of State, Frank LaRose.  But serving in an executive position requires actually following the law.  And, while Secretary LaRose has definitely put his thumb on the scale as much as he can, those decisions disqualify him for “purists.”  Neither of the other two candidates would be a strong contender if the Republican primary was being held in the real world.  With Secretary LaRose struggling, the establishment has unified behind Matt Dolan.  What Mr. Dolan has going for him is that his family is wealthy, and he has been willing to spend enough of his own money to be competitive (both this cycle and two years ago when he put up a solid fight in the primary for the other seat).  The Trump candidate is Bernie Moreno.  As was the case back in 2022, for Democrats choosing to participate in the Republican primary, the question is whether to vote for the weaker candidate (Moreno) to increase the odds of winning in the general election or to vote for the sanest candidate (Dolan) just in case Brown loses in November.  The national party has run adds attacking Moreno as too extreme in the reverse psychology ploy to get Republicans to commit political suicide by nominating Moreno. Continue Reading...

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Super Tuesday Week

By tmess2 | Published March 2, 2024

Tuesday is Super Tuesday — the first Tuesday of the primary cycle in which any state can hold a primary contest.  As most states use state-run primaries, there will be a large number of states on Tuesday.

But, before Super Tuesday, several states that are using party-run contests will be holding Republican contests as the “window” for the Republicans opened yesterday.  (The “window” for Democrats opens on Tuesday.)  As discussed last week, one of the contests today is the second half of the Republican’s Michigan two-step with the Republican state convention which will be allocating the “district” level delegates.  In addition to Michigan, today will see events in Missouri and Idaho.

The Missouri Republican rules are somewhat ambiguous.  It looks like they are doing a traditional caucus with a 15% threshold and an unspecified winner-take-all kicker at local option.  But rather than allocating delegates based on today’s vote (which is what the national rules appear to require), they are merely binding the delegates chosen today to vote the same preference at the district conventions (which should effectively have the same result).  Missouri is using a caucus because our current Secretary of State repeatedly lied and claimed that the state-run primary was nonbinding (when the rules of both party made the primary binding) and a repeal of the primary was slipped into an omnibus election bill which passed despite the unanimous opposition of Democratic legislature).  The Democrats will be holding a party-run primary in three weeks with a mail-in option. Continue Reading...

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A Manchin-less Senate

By tmess2 | Published November 12, 2023

This week, Senator Joe Manchin (I/D — WVa) announced that he would not be running for re-election.  If Senator Manchin does not end up on the “Let’s split the anti-Trump vote” “No Labels” ticket, this decision is both positive and negative for what Democrats might be able to do in the 2025-26 Congress.

To paraphrase a saying attributed to Karl Rove, progressive want to nominate the most progressive candidate that can win a general election.  In West Virginia, Joe Manchin might just have been the most progressive candidate that Democrats could nominate and still have a chance at winning.  His name recognition and reputation allowed him to win a state in which the average Democrat has hoping to receive 40-45% of the vote in the general election.

Is it possible that, one day in the future, Democrats could be competitive in West Virginia again?  Yes.  But, in one crucial way, West Virginia resembles the pre-Civil War South.  In today’s West Virginia, coal mining is a key industry.  While only 2% of the state directly works in coal (like only a tiny percentage of Southerners owned slaves), coal is the second largest industry (beyond the health sector) based on GDP generated.  In many parts of the state, if coal mining stopped tomorrow, there would be significant job losses in many areas of the state which would also cause retail and service industries to decline in those areas.  And the number who see their livelihood as tied to coal is a large enough percent to make the pro-coal vote a significant block in West Virginia elections.  This puts Democrats in a bind.  It is essential for the nation and the world for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on coal.  But recognizing and acting on this necessity hurts Democrats in West Virginia.   As such, the reality is that without Joe Manchin running, it is almost certain that Democrats will lose the Senate race in West Virginia.   And given how close the Senate is currently divided, the loss of this seat will make it harder for Democrats to have a majority in the Senate after the 2024 election. Continue Reading...

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That Senator From Arizona

By tmess2 | Published December 11, 2022

Just as Democrats were celebrating victory in Georgia, Senator Krysten Sinema from Arizona kicked off the 2024 election season by announcing that she was switching her registration from Democrat to Independent (or to use the Arizona terminology “Party Not Designated”).  With nothing else to talk about, barring any major developments in the lame duck session, here are my two cents on what is going on.

First, this decision will not change much in the U.S. Senate.  An old state representative from my area used to say that the most important vote that a representative cast was their vote for speaker on the first day of the session.  The party that won that vote would control the committees and the floor of the House (and, with them, would determine which bills would come up for a vote).  Similarly, for the Senate, that initial vote in January on the organization of the Senate is a big deal.  And Senator Sinema appears to still be intending to caucus with the Democrats and will support an organizational plan that reflects a 51-49 Democratic majority.  And, whether she is technically Senator Sinema (I-AZ) or Senator Sinema (D-AZ), her vote on individual bills is unlikely to change.  (And both due to the filibuster and the Republican majority in the House, the only thing getting through the next Congress will be consensus bills on which her vote will not matter.)

Second, one of Senator Sinema’s alleged reasons for the switch is that she is upset that the party leadership did not do more to protect her from pressure form progressives.  If that is true, Senator Sinema is too thin-skinned to be in the Senate.  The job of activists is to get the legislation that they want passed.  They are going to try to convince “friendly” or “persuadable” Senators to support that bill by any means available.  I’ve worked most of my adult life in various government offices.  Even though our decisions are not political (policy is made at other levels and we just apply it to individual cases), the electeds who I have served regularly get blowback over those decisions based on incomplete reporting of the facts.   To paraphrase President Truman, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of politics. Continue Reading...

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Georgia Runoff

By tmess2 | Published December 4, 2022

The last election of 2022 will conclude on Tuesday with the runoff election for U.S. Senator in Georgia.    While there are still some races that will go to recounts, all of the statewide and congressional races seem to be outside the margin at which a recount could make a difference.  (There are three races with margins between 500 and 600 votes — Arizona Attorney General, California Thirteenth District, and Colorado Third District.  In the Minnestoa Senate recount in 2008, the net swing from the original results to the recount results was 450 votes with an additional 87 votes gained in the election contest.  The closest of the three races going to recount is 511.   While other recounts have resulted in bigger swings, they were in races with bigger margins and Minnesota remains the largest swing that changed the results of a race.

The significance of the Senate race is not quite as big as it was in 2021 due to the Republicans apparently taking the House (but the Republican’s inability to reach a consensus on the next Speaker will be the subject of a future post) and the fact that the Democrats already have 50 seats.  But the result still matters for five key reasons.

First, the additional seat will alter the composition of committees.  With a 50-50 Senate, the committees are evenly divided.  While the rules currently allow a bill or nomination to proceed to the Senate floor on a tie vote, a 51-49 Senate would result in the Democrats having a majority on the committees. Continue Reading...

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Where Things Stand

By tmess2 | Published November 12, 2022

Four days after election day and we are waiting for results in the states with lots of mail-in ballots and the states that have ranked choice voting.    The Democrats seem to be holding their own in the Senate and Governor’s races — so far gaining one Senate seat (Pennsylvania) and a net of one Governor’s mansion (picking up Maryland and Massachusetts as expected and losing Nevada which was the most vulnerable seat).  Several potential Senate gains fell short — especially Wisconsin and North Carolina.   While votes outstanding in Nevada, it looks like that will be a hold given where those votes are.  That will make the Georgia runoff (which was expected) about the margin in the Senate rather than control.

As expected, we had a rough night/days in Florida and New York.  In Florida, the lines performed as the Republicans hoped — giving them four new seats and costing the Democrats three seats.   In New York, the new lines also worked as expected to give Republicans more seats.  The current numbers are 15-10 with Republicans leading in the last outstanding seat.  If they hold the Twenty-second, that would give them a sweep of the lean Republican/toss-up seats and a gain of thee with a loss of three for the Democrats.  In short, Florida plus New York combined gave Republicans a gain of six or seven seats.   Likewise, the new lines in Georgia flipped one seat to the Republicans.   Thus, three states represent half of the Republican gains to date.  In Virginia, Republican gains were kept to one seat — the one that was seen as most likely to flip going into the election.

Ohio and North Carolina, however, were good states for the Democrats at least at the House level.  Ohio was the opposite of New York with all of the tossups going to the Democrats for a gain of one seat (and a loss of two for the Republicans).  Likewise, the Democrats took the toss-up in North Carolina which, when combined with the new lines, gave the Demcocrats a gain of two (and a loss of one for the Republicans).  In short, these maps netted a plus three for the Democrats.   Similarly, the new maps in Illinois led to a gain of one for the Democrats and a loss of two for the Republicans. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms-Preview (Part 5)

By tmess2 | Published November 6, 2022

Finally, we reach the end of the evening.  Five hours after the first polls closed in Kentucky and Indiana, we reach 10 p.m. Central ST.  At this time the last polls close in North Dakota and Idaho (covered in part 4).  Likewise, the remainder of the polls (representing the vast majority of the state) close in Oregon.  And, even though both states have a significant number of mail-in votes (as is true for several of the western states discussed in earlier posts), the polls will close in California and Washington.

I’ll start with Washington.  Washington has a top two primary (as does California).  Unlike Califronia, all of the races feature a Democrat against a Republican.  While there are some polls showing a potentially competitive race for Senate, I’m just not seeing it.  Washington is too blue in recent years.  Even in a red wave, Senator Patty Murray should win.  Most of the polls making this state seem close come from polls sponsored by Republican-affiliated groups.  While they may end up being right, even they are merely showing a close race.  The current split in the House is seven Democrats and three Republicans.  There are three seats that could flip.   The Third District is currently held by the Republicans, but, in the primay, the incumbent representative barely finished in third after having the integrity to vote to impeach President Trump.  Whether moderate Republicans will vote for the Democrat in the general and flip this seat — for the next two years to the Democrats — is the big question.  In a red wave, the Republicans have a chance at taking the Eighth District and the Tenth District.  The Tenth District (basically a swatch southwest of Seattle from Tacoma to Olympia) is more likely to stay Democratic.  The Eighth District (an exurban/rural district to the east of Seattle) looks more like a swing district, but Democrats are still favored.  Because of mail-in ballots, it typically takes several days to figure out who wins close races.

Moving south to Oregon, the big race is for Governor.  And it’s a classic argument for ranked-choice voting.  Business interests have pushed a moderate Democrat to run as an independent, and this candidate may take just enough votes to allow the Republicans to win by a narrow plurality.  The race is a pure toss-up.   Senator Ron Wyden is solidly favored to be reelected which might just have enough coattails to allow the Democrat to win the open race for governor.  In the House, the current split is four Democrats to one Republican with one new seat.  In the Fifth District, the Democratic incumbent lost in the primary to a progressive challenger.  There is a risk that the progressive nominee is too progressive for the district which runs from the suburbs of Portland into a rural part of the state to the south and east of Portland.  The Sixth District is the “new” district and is a little bit geographically smaller than the Fifth, but like the Fifth it runs from the immediate suburbs of Portland into the rural areas to the south and west of Portland.    The Republicans also have outside chances in the Fourth District, an open seat, which runs along the Pacific Coast in the area to the south and west of the Fifth and Sixth.  If the Democrats get all three of the seats, they could potentially keep the House.  In a red wave, the Republicans could gain all three seats. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms-Preview (Part 4)

By tmess2 | Published November 5, 2022

By 9 p.m. Central ST, we will be getting some results from the early states which will give us some idea of how the night is going with a strong emphasis on the some.  As noted in Part 1 of this series, every state treats the counting of mail-in votes.  In some states, like Missouri and Texas, mail-in votes are likely to be the first results reported.  In other states, like Michigan, those votes are likely to reported after the election day results.  And for election day results, precinct sizes (more importantly the number of voters per election judge) and other factors have historically resulted in longer lines at closing time in urban area.  When combined with the number of precincts in urban areas, in early states, rural areas are likely to report a greater share of their results in the first couple of hours.  Both of these factors distort the conclusiveness of early vote counts (which is why the best analysts start looking at what vote is still outstanding — both where that vote is and the total number of votes — in forecasting whether it is possible to call the race).    But by this time of the evening, there is some hint at the level of turnout in the areas that tend to vote Democratic and the areas that vote Republican and which way swing areas are swinging.

In turn, this information gives us some idea of the accuracy of pre-election polls.   In viewing pre-election polls, there are three things to remember.  First, in viewing them, you should focus on two things — margins and the size of the “undecided” voters.  In every poll, there will be some undecided voters (and, because voters tend not to want to waste votes, the supporters of third-party candidates should be treated as undecided as a significant share of them will move to one of the two major candidates by election day).  Because undecided voters will not split 50-50, a large pool of undecided voters makes the margin less reliable.  An eight percent lead with ten percent undecided is more likely to hold than a twelve percent lead with twenty percent undecided.  On the other hand, it is likely that both candidates will pick up some undecideds.  So both candidates are likely to end up with something higher than their last poll number.  Second, in looking at the margin, every poll has a margin of error (typically between three percent and four percent).  That margin of error applies to each candidate.   Which means, in theory, that even a well-constructed poll can be off on the margin by six or seven percent..  Part of the error is that every pollster has their model on who is likely to vote and how to weight responders to overcome response bias.  Some years the actual pool of voters is bluer than the model shows and in other years the actual pool of voters is redder than the model shows.  Finally, a poll is a snapshot in time.  Events occurring after the poll is taken will move a small percentage of voters (both undecided voters and voters who were tentatively supporting a candidate).  In short, it is highly probable that the polls will be off by some margin.  And while the direction and size of the error will not be uniform nationally, the early returns can give an idea of the direction and size of the error.

As things stand four days out, the polls seem to be indicating a red ripple which will switch a narrow Democratic majority in the House to a narrow Republican majority in the House.  The Senate could go either way and the hold of state offices could swing either way as well. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms — Preview (Part 3)

By tmess2 | Published November 2, 2022

By the time that polls close in Arkansas at 7:30 p.m. Central ST, we should be starting to get votes from the early states, but most of the key races will still be classified as “too early to call.”  Arkansas has become so red over the past two decades that none of the races are likely to be close.  The big races will be the ballot issue.  From the right is a proposition to require supermajorities for propositions in future elections and a provision enshrining a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the Arkansas Constitution.  As we have seen at the federal level, this Free Exercise Clause on steroids will cause significant problems in Arkansas as everything will become somebody’s religious belief.  Arkansas will also vote on legalizing marijuana.

At 8:00 p.m. CST, polls will close in the remaining parts of Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas (with those races covered in Part 2 of the preview).    Polls will close for the entire state in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Arizona will feature several key races.  At the state office level, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State are all open seats.  The Republicans have nominated Trumpist candidates for these positions who refuse to commit to recognizing the election results in 2024.   Particularly for governor, they have nominated a media celebrity who is not qualified.  But these races are currently too close to call.  For Senate, the Republicans have also nominated an extremist.  It looks like Senator Mark Kelly will hold onto the seat, but the seat is probably the third most likely pickup for the Republicans after Nevada and Georgia.   If the Republicans have a good night, that seat could flip. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)

By tmess2 | Published October 30, 2022

The first states with polls to close are mostly in the Eastern Time Zone.  In the early states, we have two governor’s races (Georgia and Florida), four Senate races (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio), and seven House seats (1 in North Carolina, 3 in Ohio, and 3 in Virginia) that could be close.  There are also several seats that are likely to flip solely because of the new maps (4 flipping red in Florida, 1 flipping red in Georgia, and 2 flipping blue in North Carolina).

But the big closing time is 7 p.m. Central ST.  The remaining polls will close in Florida, and most of the polls will close in Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas.  And all of the polls will close in Alabama (except for a very small portion that closed an hour earlier), Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.  In short, when added to the states that close before 7 p.m., the polls will be closed in roughly half of the country by 7:01 p.m. (Of course, polls closed merely means that individuals need to be in line to vote at 7 p.m.  Because there are typically people in line to vote, voting might actually continue in some urban precincts for a very long time after 7 p.m. which will delay counting in those areas.)

Starting with Alabama, there are no races that are likely to be close at the state or federal level.  If the Supreme Court follows the Voting Rights Act, Democrats will probably pick up an additional seat in 2024, but the current maps which a district court correctly held violated the Voting Rights Act is in place for the 2022 election, and the 6-1 Republican advantage will remain in place for the next Congress.  There are a lot of propositions on the ballot in Alabama, the most significant of which requires changes to election law to be adopted at least six months prior to a general election. Continue Reading...

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