Tag Archives: Maine

Ranked Choice Voting and the Senate

By tmess2 | Published August 4, 2019

Earlier today, DocJess posted the first Sunday with the Senators of this cycle.  I am posting this follow-up on the weird features of Maine election law that could determine whether there is a Democratic majority in 2020.

In Maine, for federal elections, there is ranked choice voting — both for the general election and the primary.  While we do not yet know the full list of candidates who will be running in 2020, my hunch is that ranked choice voting probably hurts Senator Collins in the primary but may help her in the general election.

My thinking behind this is that a multi-candidate primary field would make it difficult for any candidate to get more first choice votes than Senator Collins.  However, I think that most of the primary challenge to Senator Collins will be from candidates who do not think that she is loyal to the new LePage-Trump version of the Republican Party and see her as a RINO.  The voters who support these candidates are likely to rank Senator Collins last among their choices.  So if Senator Collins only got 45% or so of the first choice votes, there would be a decent chance (assuming that everybody ranked the entire field) that the strongest of her opponents would pass her once all preferences are distributed.  A primary loss by Senator Collins would move the Maine Senate race from lean Republican to likely Democrat. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Rules — Alaska, Maine, and Utah

By tmess2 | Published April 6, 2019

At this time last week, eight of the eighteen states that had used caucuses or party-run primaries in 2016 had released their delegate selection plans for 2020.  This week three of the remaining ten released their plans and they are a very mixed bag.

This week, we start out west in Alaska.  In 2016, Alaska used a traditional caucus process with the caucuses occurring at the legislative district level.  When it came to allocating delegates to the national convention, Alaska used the raw vote totals from the legislative district caucuses to allocate the “district-level” delegates, but used the votes of the state convention delegates to allocate the pledged party leader and at-large delegates.

For 2020, Alaska is switching to a party-run primary that will allow early voting (either electronic or by mail-in absentee ballot).  Additionally, the party will run voting centers in key locations that will be open for at least four hours on the primary/caucus date (although there is conflicting language in the draft concerning the times that these centers will be open).  All of the delegates to the national convention will be allocated based on the results of the party-run primary.  (Like many “primary” states, Alaska will continue to use the local caucuses to choose delegates to the state convention which will elect the actual national convention delegates.) Continue Reading...

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2018 Midterm Election Preview — New England

By tmess2 | Published October 21, 2018

Sixteen days left to take our country back from the heirs of the anti-federalists and give voice to the silent majority that the President loves to ridicule and marginalize — women, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, the Native Americans whose ancestors were here before any of ours, those who have worked hard to get a college or professional degree so that their children will have better lives than they did,  the LGBT community, those who believe in science, those working hard at a minimum wage job trying to make ends meet, the list goes on and on under a president who only values those with money to burn and believes that there is no solemn commitment that we have made as a country that we can’t break merely because it is inconvenient to his agenda.

Over the next week or so, I will have a series of posts breaking down the election by region.  Writing from the dead center of fly-over country, I am likely to miss (a lot of) the interesting local races and local color while trying to identify what seem to be the key races.  So I am hopeful that we will get some comments pointing out what has slipped under the national radar.

We start with New England  — home to the Patriots, the Red Sox, and a tradition of moderate Yankee Republicanism that is on the verge of needing Last Rites (represented primarily at the national level by the Cowardly Lioness of the Senate — Susan Collins — stumbling desperately in the last two years of her career between the conflicting tasks of keeping a majority of Maine Republicans primary voters happy and keeping the majority of Maine general election voters happy).

Maine is an interesting state because it has opted to adopt the Australian system of preferential voting at least for the federal offices.   (Court decisions have barred the implementation of preferential voting at the general election for state offices.)  The Australian experience is that it is difficult but not impossible for the trailing candidate to win the race on “second choice” votes.   (In both primary races in which preferences came into play, the candidate who led after the first round ultimately won the election.)  Obvious factors in whether the trailing candidate win are the gap after the first round and how close the leading candidate is to a majority after the first round.  Independent Senator Angus King should be re-elected.  At this point, the big question is whether the “official” Democratic candidate will gain enough first choice votes to keep Senator King beneath 50%.   Even with preferential voting not applying to the Governor’s race, it looks like the Democrat — Janet Mills — will win ending the nightmare that has been Governor LePage.    The race for Maine’s second district (the only Congressional seat in New England currently held by Republicans) could come down to the second choice of voters.  Most of the polling shows a neck-and-neck race,  and I am dubious that any of the polling companies are polling using a ranked choice system.

Vermont is interesting in a different way.  In Vermont, a candidate for governor needs 50% of the vote.  If nobody gets 50%, the legislature chooses the winner.  There are only a handful of times that the winner has failed to get 50% and, each of those times, the legislature went with the candidate who finished first.  However, I don’t know if those past races reflect the fact that the winner’s party had the majority of seats or if legislators acted in a non-partisan fashion.  There is not a lot of polling in this race.  What is out there suggests that the Republican incumbent is likely to finish first but it is unclear if he will clear 50%.  There is likely to be a strong Democratic majority in the legislature; so — if the incumbent only gets 49.5% — the question is whether Democrats in the legislature would choose a Democratic candidate who trailed by 4-5% over the Republican who finished first.  You also have Senator Bernie Sanders looking certain to be re-elected.  The question is how his refusal to accept the Democratic nomination for Senator will influence his race seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 2020 (where he actually does need that nomination to get on the ballot in all 50 states unlike the situation in Vermont).

The rest of New England seems to be mostly calm.  Senators Murphy, Warren, and Whitehouse seem set for re-election.  The Democrats seem likely to keep all of the House seats that they currently hold.  The only seat that seems like it could even be sort of close is New Hampshire’s 1st district.  While Democrats would like to take back the Governor’s mansion in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the Republican governors in those states are personally popular even if the Republican party isn’t.  And in Connecticut, while the unpopularity of Governor Dan Malloy had given Republicans hopes of gaining that state, former Senate candidate Ned Lamont appears to have solidified enough of the Democratic majority in that state to be the likely winner.

Ballot questions in New England include a trio of measure in Massachusetts — one capping the number of patients per nurse in health care facilities, one challenging Citizen United, and one an attempted “veto” of legislation prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.   New Hampshire has a very dangerous constitutional amendment on the ballot.  The proposed amendment simply states that “An individuals right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.”  The reason that this amendment is dangerous is that it uses very broad terms with no clear limits for courts to apply.  As we have seen recently in the First Amendment context in the U.S. Supreme Court, judges can use broad rights to block what most people would consider fair and reasonable legislation.

In short, in New England, Democrats are realistically looking at gaining one U.S. House seat and one Governor position (with a very outside shot at a second).

 

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Primary Season — Late Spring

By tmess2 | Published April 29, 2018

Because each state gets to set its own primary date, primary season is a gradual thing.  Putting aside a handful of exceptions (and run-offs), most primaries fall into two clusters.  The first cluster occurs in May and June (starting on May 8 and ending on June 26).  The second cluster occurs in August and September (starting on August 2 and ending on September 13).  During both clusters, most primaries occur on Tuesday, and there is at least one state on each Tuesday (other than May 29).

On May 8, there are primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia.  Key primaries are the Republican Senate primary in Indiana and West Virginia.  Both are states won by Trump in which Democratic Senators are running for re-election.  In Indiana, you have three candidates running for the Republican nomination.  It’s not clear that it really matters who wins or that there is much difference between the candidates.  West Virginia is a different matter.  The Republicans are scared to death that Don Blankenship could get the nomination.  Blankenship is the former CEO of one of the state’s larger coal miner and did time in prison related to miners who died due to unsafe mining practices.  The national GOP has (through super-pacs) been running adds against Blankenship.  In Ohio, the key races are for Governor with both parties having primaries in the race to replace term-limited John Kasich and Ohio’s 12th District in which there is both a regular primary and a special election primary (most of the candidates are the same in both, so both parties should have the same winner for both primaries, but there is always the chance in a close race that there could be a split result).

On May 15, there are primaries in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.  The big story is likely to be the new congressional districts in Pennsylvania.   Amazingly, there are no incumbent against incumbent primaries although there could be an incumbent against incumbent general election.  Given the newness of the lines, it will be interesting to see how the local interests will influence the candidates chosen.

On May 22, there are primaries in Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky, and a run-off in Texas.   In Texas, there are key run-offs on the Democratic side for Governor and the Seventh District.  In both contests, the Republicans will be favored but Democrats have a shot.   The question for local Democrats will be whether to go with the “purer” candidate ideologically or with the candidate who could win over college-educated Republicans who do not like being part of the Party of Trump.

June 5 is the big day with primaries in Alabama, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota.  California is the tough one to call given its “first two system.”  Particularly in close districts, it matters how many strong candidates each party has.   In a district (or state-wide for the Democrats) that your party should win, you want a second strong candidate so that you can lock the other party out of the general.  If you are slightly behind in the district, you want one strong candidate to assure yourself of a place in the general (and hope that the other party nominate a divisive candidate that gives you a chance to pick up independents and moderates).  What you don’t want is three strong candidates which create the possibility (as has happened in the past) that your party could get the most primary votes but still not finish in the top two due to your vote being split too much.  (Districts where Democrats could find themselves locked out of the general include the 1st, 4th, 8th, 10th, 39th, 48th, 49th, 50th.  The last three are districts that would be targets in November if a Democrat makes it to the final two.)  Particularly with Governor being an open seat, the other big question will be whether the Democrats can get both of the general election slots (as they did for Senate in 2016) for Governor and Senate.  (The primaries in Mississippi do not include the special election for Senate which will be a “non-partisan” race in November with a run-off if nobody wins a majority.)

June 12 has primaries in Maine, North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, and Virginia.  In Maine, you have an open race for Governor.  In Nevada, you have an open race for Governor and two congressional seats (3rd and 4th).   In Virginia, Republicans have a three-way Senate race.  You also have an open seat in Virginia 6th and a very important Democratic primary in District 10 which will be a target race in November.

June 19 is the calm week with the only certain primary being for D.C. but the chance at a run-off in Arkansas.

The spring primaries end on June 26 with contests in Colorado, Maryland, New York (federal offices only), Oklahoma, and Utah.   There could be a run-off in Mississippi, North Carolina (depending on whether any of the federal offices need a run-off), and/or South Carolina.  In Colorado, Governor is an open seat.  Additionally, the 2nd District will be an open seat as the Democratic incumbent is running for governor and the 5th District might be an open seat as the incumbent Republican failed to get enough signatures on his petition.  (That issue is still being fought in court.)  In New York, the interesting race might be the Republican Primary for the 11th district where disgraced former Congressman Michael Grimm is challenging incumbent Congressman Daniel Donovan.  In Utah, the big race is the open seat for the U.S. Senate where Mitt Romney is hoping/expecting to do better with primary voters than he did at the Republican state convention with activists.

While technically not a primary, the special election (as in Mississippi, Texas special elections are nominally non-partisan with a run-off in nobody wins) for Texas’s 27th District will take place on June 30.  All four of the candidates who will compete in the run-offs on May 22 are on the ballot for the special election.  (Whether anybody will drop out after May 22 is to be seen, but you could have the unusual result that a candidate loses on May 22 but makes it to the run-off in the special election due to cross-over votes.)

There could also be run-offs in some states in July depending upon the results in the primaries noted above.

 

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Election Night 2016 — What to Look For (Part Three)

By tmess2 | Published November 6, 2016

animated flag glitterAs evening turns into night in the Eastern and Central time zones, the pace picks up.  For whatever reason, 8:00 p.m. is a popular time for states in the Eastern time zone to close their polls as is 7:00 p.m. in the Central time zone.  As discussed in part two, lines at the polls means that the networks typically only have enough results to call races if the races are not close.  Most of the states that will be called by 8:00 p.m. are not the races that will decide the election.  Because most of the polls will have been closed for two hours, there is a good chance that the Indiana senate race may be called by 8:00 p.m.  There is some chance that Georgia (an at-risk state that Trump needs to win) or Virginia (an at-risk state that Clinton needs to win) will be called before 8:00 p.m.  Sixteen states will close their polls at 8:00 p.m. as will the polls in part of several other states.  While the results from the early states give some clues about the shape of the race, the shape of the race will become much clearer when the returns from these states start to come in.

8:00 p.m. (EST) — The remainder of the polls close in Florida.  The polls close in Alabama, Connecticut, D.C., Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.  The polls close in the eastern part of Michigan, Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas.  Several of these states should have quick calls for president, but several states are key states for the outcome of this election.  (Assuming that none of the “close” states from early are called by 8:15 p.m., the projected electoral vote should be approximately 76 for Trump and 55 for Clinton.)

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