The Senate has been called for the GOP.

The House has been called for the Democrats.

In 2016, the GOP took the popular vote for the House by 1.1 points, even though President Trump lost the popular vote for the Presidency by 2.1. This time the Democrats are up 3.8 points in the total raw vote in House elections. That is as of 7:00 AM Eastern. That swing in the popular vote will become much greater when the West Coast has been tabulated. RCP is currently predicting that the Democratic margin will go over 7 points!

Civics lesson for the day: the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House. (But every one has been.) It would be crazy if they selected some random non-member, because the Speaker is second in line to the Presidency in the event of a vacancy (assuming that person meets all the constitutional requirements for the Presidency). This is similar to the idea that the members of the College of Cardinals do not have to select one of their own as Pope. I encourage both the House of Representatives and the College of Cardinals to vote for me. I believe I could be both Speaker of the House and Pope simultaneously, while still churning out disrespectful and horny blog posts. In the case of some kind of national tragedy leaving the Presidency and Vice-Presidency vacant, given that I was born in the USA and am at least 35 years old, I could become President and Pope at the same time. That would allow me to put anyone on hold except Oprah.

Who’s on line three? Putin? Tell him I’m busy.

You think Pope Frank is cool? Wait until I take over the Papacy. We’re talkin’ non-stop party central at the Vatican with me and my new chief of staff, Cardinal Leo DiCaprio. First encyclical: celibacy is out and underwear is a sin!

A few events of national newsworthiness:

* Colorado has elected the nation’s first openly gay governor.

* Florida has failed to elect the state’s first black governor.

* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the only woman ever elected to Congress while still in her 20s.

* The people of Kansas have sent Kris Kobach to the showers. Don’t be surprised if Trump offers him a position in Washington.

* Ted Cruz has defeated Beto 51-48.

* We now have a Senator named Mitt. As expected, he won in a landslide. The chances of a Democrat winning in Utah are about the same as the likelihood of Andy Dick becoming an Ayatollah.

* Missouri passed Prop 1 overwhelmingly. That calls for electoral districts to be drawn up by a non-partisan professional demographer in such a way that a majority popular vote in the state will also be highly likely to result in majority representation for the party with the most votes. Many people consider this landmark legislation. It’s a possible model for all states to eliminate the corrupt gerrymandering which now exists in many areas. Colorado passed Amendments Y and Z, which basically do the same thing.

* The Wisconsin gubernatorial race is no longer a virtual tie. Incumbent Scott Walker is now down by 1.2% because of a large number of uncounted votes in urban Milwaukee, which went more than 5-1 for his opponent.

* The election has not been called yet, but it appears that Dana Rohrabacher, Putin’s favorite lapdog, is going to lose his seat in the House. Maybe Russia is losing its influence over our elections.

* Speaking of lapdogs, Trump’s own faithful puppy, Devin Nunes, did win his election, but he will lose his chairmanship of the Intel committee because the House went blue.

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Live coverage from fivethirtyeight.com

House coverage from the NY Times

Election Day in the US from CNN

Fox News Election HQ

CBS News live coverage

24 thoughts on “Election results

  1. In New Jersey, Democrat Andy Kim is now leading. That would make the Democrats +4 in New Jersey. The Republican won the Democratic open seat Minnesota 1st district, which is the second gain for the Republicans in the election (both Minnesota districts, while the Democrats also gained two seats from the Republicans in Minnesota.)

  2. Oh yeah. One last point in regards to whether this was a blue wave or not: also of significance is the state legislature totals.

  3. In regards to the accuracy of the polls, I believe it was the Cook Political Report that predicted there would be 25 Democratic and 25 Republican governors. The two states that they got wrong were Florida and Iowa. So, any claim that the pundits predicted the Democrats would gain Ohio and Georgia (which has still not been called) is false.

    These are my guesses as to what happened in Florida and Iowa.
    1.Florida, there were a number of polls that pretty much all had Democrat Andrew Gillum with a narrow lead over Republican Ron DeSantis. It is not really accurate to say that all of these polls were within the margin of error, so just forget about it. If all of these polls are combined (to the extent that can be done) since the survey sample is greatly increased, the margin of error drops.

    I think what happened is that there is still something of a ‘Tom Brady’ effect, in that some people said that they were going to vote for Gillum but did not vote for him in the end because he’s black. (There was at least one study by a political scientist in 2008 that argued that had Barack Obama been white he would have won by at least 2% more. So, that voters were willing to elect Obama does not negate the possibility that the ‘Brady effect’ is real.

    2.In the case of Iowa, there was significantly less polling, but the Des Moines Register released the poll they commissioned that is considered the ‘Gold Standard’ of Iowa state polls and it had the Democrat Fred Hubbell narrowly winning. I think what happened is that the survey was conducted around the same time as the latest Representative Steve King controversy, and many Republicans like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley refused to tell Republicans to not vote for him (I don’t know what the Republican Governor said.)

    I suspect that was an issue at the time of the survey, but when it came to marking the ballot, enough Iowa voters decided that shouldn’t effect their vote in the Governors race to pull the Republican incumbent over the top.

  4. Oh. My. God. They actually elected Alexandra Occasionally Coherent??

    The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse must surely be saddling up.

    1. I don’t know what you have against her, however, if you are referring to her economic views, or, more likely your false beliefs of her economic views:

      1.I read through her campaign promises website, other than healthcare, which is regarded as a public service like education in every other advanced major nation in the world, she does not call for the nationalization of any other industry or sector, which is ‘socialism’, she actually calls for methods to increase worker ownership of their businesses, which is ‘Democratic Socialism.’

      2.Her fiscal policy views are based on an economic theory called Chartalism which is a form of an economic theory called Modern Monetary Theory. MMT/Chartalism both argue that government deficits don’t matter. I agree that it is an incoherent economic theory. Elected Republicans however are inconsistent whether they agree with it or not (which actually isn’t even more incoherent, just completely dishonest and cynical) when a Democrat is President, elected Republicans (and many Republican voters) claim to be old-line Monetarists, however, when a Republican is President, in order to pass more tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest, they promote MMT arguments.

      For the most recent tax cuts, only 12 U.S House Republicans and 0 U.S Senators voted against (Walter Jones of North Carolina is the only clearly consistent Republican in these matters). So, if you are arguing that Ocasio-Cortez is incoherent based on her tax and spending views, you are also arguing that virtually the entire Republican Congressional caucus is also incoherent.

      1. I would suggest you find a more productive use of your time, Adam.

        Surely there must be a pig that needs tutoring in Latin somewhere.

        1. If you are saying that you don’t understand my comment, or that you think others won’t understand it, I’d say that says a lot more about you than it does about me or about anybody else who might read it.

          Since I am an economist and have no trouble understanding that, it only took me about 3 minutes to write up.

          1. No, I’m saying that trying to teach that to our friend Mr. Stanley is like trying to teach Latin to a pig.

            It wastes your time and annoys the pig. There’s no hope for some idiots.

    2. She not only won, it was close to unanimous.

      (In her district the only thing that matters is the Democratic primary,)

  5. I don’t think you can argue that such data are meaningless. Two years ago, people that flipped the red lever were one point more. This year the blue lever folks will be seven points more. That’s a pretty good indicator that the electorate is making a statement that there needs to be more blue in the mix in general.

    Now, mind you, there can be a lot of noise in that. And there can also be completely meaningless info. An 80,000-to-nothing victory in one district is not anywhere near as good as 200 victories by 400 votes each, even though that would show as a 50-50 split in the gross totals. But we look at the gross amount just to get a feel for how many people are voting donkey vs elephant, as compared to the previous time.

    And also, of course, it can be a red flag indicator for corruption. If the raw vote percentage is not reasonably proportional to the House seats, it may (or may not) indicate that some people have been gerrymandered out of a voice. You would hate to see an election where one side took 60% of the votes but the other side got 60% of the seats. (And there are some individual states where that is a problem.) You get a feel that this national election worked out with reasonable fairness. The Dems will end up with about 52% of the votes, and about 52% of the seats, so neither side really has a reason to whine, as I see it.

    1. While you do raise an excellent point about using the overall numbers as a gerrymandering meter, I just don’t see a ton of real value in the angles described in your first two paragraphs. For those purposes, sure, it was 8-point swing, and that seems interesting…until you consider it was an 8-point swing from 2 years ago with the next significant measure yet another 2 years away.

      Ultimately, the only real takeaway is who actually won & lost each election, and what that tells you more than anything else is that pitting Congress and the White House against each other continues to be America’s preferred state of affairs. It’s as if to say, “Neither side will be able to screw things up that badly if we just keep putting them in each other’s way.”

  6. This trend of tracking/discussing Congressional raw votes as if they’re one big cumulative election is a bit pointless and frankly a tiny bit alarming. These are internal state-by-state elections, each standing on its own, and it is that way for a reason.

    The cynic in me reads “popular vote for the House” as an early step in attempts to stray the country away from representative democracy altogether.

    I think I’ve mentioned here before how money being pumped in from other states to influence a given state’s Congressional election is another questionable trend in that vein.

    1. I totally disagree. With the exception of the mostly Southern and New England States that I mentioned (I forgot to add in Connecticut which is mostly smaller cities and the Bridgeport area which is suburban New York – including Greenwich) there are clear patterns across the entire country that I mentioned: suburbs are increasingly becoming Democratic, rural and small town areas are increasingly becoming Republican. That is a national trend.

      So, in regards to these being ‘internal state-by-state elections’ and it being ‘that way for a reason’ you are arguing based on how the system was set up to be: a De Jure argument (though I don’t know where the Framers said that the voters in one district shouldn’t be allowed to influence the voters in another district) , I am arguing based on the way things actually are: a DeFacto argument.

  7. Oops, the Democrats presently lead in California in districts 25, 48 and 49.

    Despite all the criticisms, the polls, especially the Senate and the Governor polls appear to have been reasonably accurate. Most of the criticisms of the polls during election coverage, that they overstated Democratic support, overlooked that polling stations were held open in a number of large heavily Democratic cities. The Democrat, for instance, was trailing in the Governors race in Georgia by 7% at one point in a race the polls called a tossup but ended up losing by just 2% (this doesn’t even take into account the vote suppression the Republicans engaged in in Georgia.) In Ohio, where the Republican candidate for Governor was slightly ahead in most of the polls, he led by a comfortable margin for most of the evening but ended up winning by 4.3%, not all that larger a margin than the polling indicated. However, Democrat Sherrod Brown, who the polls generally had winning by around 10% ended up winning by just 6.4%. Ohio also had some of the most inaccurate polls in 2016.

    Due to these polls, there was some discussion again of the ‘shy Trump voter’ factor: those who don’t want to tell pollsters they support Trump (although they have no trouble telling that to Rasmussen.) I don’t know if this is evidence to support that hypothesis, but in the open Republican New Jersey 2nd Congressional district where polls showed Democrat Jeff Van Drew had at least a 15 point lead in the polls over flaky Republican white supremacist Seth Grossman, Grossman ended up losing by just 5.8%.

    So, all in all, I’d guess the Democrats will end up something like +36 in the House, which will give them a 230-205 majority. Not a ‘blue wave’ but I’d say this is a continuing fast transition to heavily urban and suburban states becoming solidly Democratic and heavily (white) small city and rural states becoming solidly Republican, the southern states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas as well as Arizona (and Alaska) are still something of an exception for the Republicans while the white and fairly rural New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are an exception for the Democrats.

  8. Oh yes, the Democrats also will likely gain Maine. The net of 6 (counting Alaska as previously with the Democrats) leaves the totals at 27 Republican Governors and 23 Democrats.

    For the House these are the gains for the Democrats by state right now
    1.Arizona +1
    2.Colorado +1
    3.Florida +2
    4.Georgia +1
    5.Illinois +2
    6.Iowa +2
    7.Kansas +1
    8.Michigan +2
    9.New Jersey +3
    10.New York +3
    11.Oklahoma +1
    12.Pennsylvania +3
    13.South Carolina +1
    14.Texas +2
    15.Virginia +3

    These 15 states total to a net of +28 for the Democrats. Still outstanding though are
    1.California which has vote by mail. As the post here mentions, the Democrats have a national lead of 3%, however, only about 5.5 million votes have been counted in California. When all the votes are counted, I’d guess there will have been about 12.5 million ballots cast in California. At present the Democrats are +3 in California – though none have been called (districts 10, 48 and 49) however the later counted ballots tend to favor the Democrats so they still have a good shot to pick up districts 10, 39 and 45.

    2.Maine. The 2nd district is uncalled. In addition to the count being too close to call, Maine has also instituted ranked choice voting, meaning that the second choice votes of the non top two candidates will be redistributed to either the Democrat or the Republican (the top two candidates)

    3.Minnesota. The Republicans gained the 8th district previously Democratic open seat. At present, depending on who you regard the redistricted Pennsylvania 14 as being held by, that is the only Republican pick up. However, the Republican also has a narrow lead in the previously Democratic 1st district. The Democrats have gained two suburban Minneapolis-St Paul suburban districts, so Minnesota will either be +1 for the Democrats or a wash.

    4.New Mexico, The open Republican New Mexico 2nd district is too close to call.

    5.Utah 4, this Salt Lake County based district is too close to call with Democratic candidate Ben McAdams, the mayor of Salt Lake County holding a narrow lead over incumbent Republican (and idiot) Mia Love.

    6.Washington. Washington also uses vote by mail (as does Oregon) There are three districts that could still be too close to call with probably around 1 million ballots left to be counted. Unlike California though where the late counted ballots tend to favor the Democrats, the late ballots in Washington State aren’t as certain. Presently the Democrats are +1 leading in the open suburban Seattle district, the 5th district Eastern Washington Spokane based district looks good for the Republicans to hold, but I don’t think it’s certain and the Southern Washington Portland, Oregon suburban district is even closer.

  9. Oh yes, also for the U.S Senate, Florida has not been called, but all the votes are in and I’d expect Rick Scott to win any recall.

    Governors
    Gains for Republicans
    1.Alaska (taking the state from the independent governor who was nominally aligned with the Democrats and was a former Republican.)

    Gains for Democrats
    1.Illinois
    2.Kansas
    3.Michigan
    4.Nevada
    5.New Mexico
    6.Wisconsin

    Connecticut has not been called, but the Democratic candidate, Ned Lamont (you might remember him from running against former Democrat turned Connecticut For Lieberman Party, Joe Lieberman) who was down by as much as 30,000 is now ahead by 10,000 and most of the outstanding areas should be either neutral or pad his lead. There is a symmetry here I suppose in that the states with 2 of the three governors who were by far the most unpopular did not change parties: (Connecticut with outgoing Democratic Governor Dan(nel) Malloy and Oklahoma with outgoing Republican Governor Mary Fallin.)

    The one state that did change was Kansas which went Democratic after extremely unpopular Republican Sam Brownback was succeeded on the ballot this time by horrible person Kris Kobach.

  10. U.S Senate
    Gains for Republicans
    1.Florida
    2.Indiana
    3.Missouri
    4.North Dakota

    Gains for Democrats
    1.Nevada

    Montana and Arizona are still not called. It doesn’t look like there is any reason to expect any change in Arizona, Martha McSally has led by about 1% for the entire night. Democrat Jon Tester in Montana is down by 2,188 votes at present but most of the outstanding votes are in two counties: Gallatin and Missoula county that strongly favor him, so I’d expect Tester to be narrowly reelected.

    A net of three for the Republicans gives them a 54-46 majority in the U.S Senate.

  11. and only a 3% chance that Trump will win the Presidency. I prefer to wait for the actual results rather than the guesses, no matter how ‘intelligent’ they say they are.

    1. Remember this is a different game from a Presidential election. There is no electoral college involved, just raw votes to determine each election, and, as I have pointed out many times, the professional national pollsters have been very good at calling the popular vote, even in the 2016 Presidential election.

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