As the big day dawns (if that’s the right way to put it, taking time differences into account), here is a thread for discussion of the US mid-terms – and a piece I wrote for Crikey yesterday that proved surplus to their requirements. I will possibly supplement this post with live coverage tomorrow, depending on how I go. Also find at the bottom of the post a guide to when polls close, repasted from Adrian Beaumont’s previous post.
On the eve of America’s mid-term elections, all signs point to a dramatic upsurge in turnout compared with four years ago – something that would ordinarily be seen as a sign of robust democratic good health. However, the last few years of American politics have made a mockery of the word “ordinarily”, and this circumstance is no exception.
The high pitch of interest can instead be seen as a symptom of the dangerous polarisation that increasingly defines American society – one effect of which has been to raise the stakes as Republicans and Democrats vie for control of Congress. Unhappily for liberal America, the dice are loaded against the Democrats tomorrow, for reasons fair and foul.
Among the latter are the efforts of state Republicans to test the limits of what courts will allow in limiting the franchise and placing obstacles before pro-Democratic constituencies in the name of fighting “voter fraud”.
Other problems for the Democrats are more intractable – such as the allocation of two Senate seats per state, an incontrovertible constitutional reality that privileges conservative rural and small town America over the liberal metropolises. This is illustrated by two of the states with seats up for election tomorrow: Wyoming, the least populous in the union (less than 580,000), and a Republican lock; and California, the most populous (nearly 40 million), and a similarly sure bet for the Democrats.
The other difficulty for the Democrats in the Senate is that the seats up for election, accounting for around a third of the total, are mostly those whose six-year terms began in 2012. That was the year of Barack Obama’s re-election, and thus of strong performance by the Democrats, in contrast to the drafts of Senators elected in the 2014 mid-terms and in 2016. This leaves the Democrats and their independent allies defending 26 seats against just nine held by Republicans, from which they need a net gain of two to boost their representation from 49 to a bare working majority of 51.
In the House of Representatives, the Democrats are handicapped by dramatically unfavourable boundaries, owing to a combination of bad luck and bad design. The first of these refers to over-concentration of Democratic support in big cities, where its members enjoy wastefully large majorities. The second involves the distinctively American blight of gerrymandering, of which there has been an outbreak since Republicans seized state legislatures as part of their mid-term sweep in 2010.
Such are the challenges the Democrats face tomorrow, at elections in which they are sure to do well by normal standards – but in which normal standards are not the ones by which they will be judged.
Democratic Senate incumbents are favoured in the states where presidential elections are usually decided, including the mid-west rust belt states that famously tipped the balance to Trump: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. However, they must repeat seemingly unlikely victories from 2012 merely to break even, in such unpromising states as West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri and Indiana.
If a path to a Democratic majority exists, it most likely runs through the tricky terrain of Tennessee and Texas – the later presenting the most intriguing contest of the election, with Republican heavyweight Ted Cruz only slightly favoured to hold out against Democratic upstart Beto O’Rourke.
The House, being freshly elected in its entirety every two years, is greatly more promising for them, despite a consensus that their national vote will need to be fully 7% higher than the Republicans if they are to score a majority. Forecasting models suggest they are more likely to make it than not, partly reflecting the decisiveness of suburbia and the city fringes – places where the Republicans are vulnerable to the allergic reaction to Trump among better educated voters, female ones in particular.
As ever, everything depends on the demographic balance of turnout, and here the Democrats are encouraged by signs that the younger generation is at last shaking off its apathy. However, they will also know from bitter experience how elusive pre-election portents can prove when the scores start to go on the board.
Poll closing times
All times listed here are Wednesday November 7 AEDT. Some states straddle two time zones. In this case, networks will not call a state, and exit polls will not be officially released, until all polls in the state are closed. I will concentrate on poll closing times for the key Senate races below. Source: The Green Papers.
10am: Indiana Senate, eastern zone. Most of Indiana is in this zone, while a small part closes at 11am.
11am: Florida Senate, eastern, and Virginia. The part of Florida that closes at 11am is relatively Democratic-friendly. The deeply conservative “panhandle” closes at noon, and will assist Republicans. Several House races in both Virginia and Florida are contested.
11:30am: West Virginia Senate, where Democrat Joe Manchin is expected to win in a state that vote for Trump by a crushing 42 points.
12noon: Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan (eastern) and Tennessee, Missouri and Texas (eastern) Senate. New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania have many contested House seats. Most of Michigan and Texas are in the eastern zone. Republicans are a long shot in New Jersey Senate, and Democrats are a long shot in Tennessee and Texas Senate. Missouri Senate is expected to be close.
1pm: New York, Minnesota, Colorado, Wisconsin and Arizona Senate; many House races are contested in these states, and the Arizona Senate is close.
2pm: Nevada and North Dakota (eastern) Senate. Republicans are favoured to gain North Dakota, while Nevada is expected to be close. Polls in the trailing part of North Dakota close at 3pm.
3pm: California and Washington State, where many House seats are contested.
Missouri senate called for the Repubs, incumbent Dem Clare Macaskill defeated 🙁
Sheesh.
I would have thought the political ” pulse of the nation” would be better judged from the house results.
True enough, but the nation has an incredibly strong geographic partisan divide which through a combination of malapportionment and gerrymandering gives the smaller part of the partisan divide a very large political leg up. So what pulse are you talking about? The House result seems to confirm the sort of majority that would see an Australian government copping an historic thrashing sending a message to the Republicans. Yet they’ve significantly consolidated their hold on the Senate and the results don’t give a massive amount of encouragement to the idea that Trump can’t win again in 2020.
Perhaps this is my selective Twitter feed talking, but I’m getting the impression there have been a lot of liberal victories on ballot initiatives.
I will be hanging out for the subpoenas to start landing on desks.
Adam Schiff will be in charge of the house intel committee.
🙂
William Bowe @ #353 Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 – 1:04 pm
I was pleased to see felons in Florida get their vote back.
I hope Trump looses his shit with these elections.
Then his followers continue to make mistakes…
Watching TV in San Diego where they had an interesting discussion on just where Trump is sitting for 2020 on these results. White House correspondent believes Trump has won a battle for the Republican Party, most candidates that were knocked off where either hostile to Trump, or distanced themselves from him to try and get elected. She didn’t think it would help him be re-elected.
As for standing in the polls, they were uncommitted. Republicans pointed to the number of seats compared to Obama in 2010. Democrats pointed to gerrymander and pointed to Pennsylvania where a non-partisan court set the boundaries. The whole panel laughed him down at the idea that the judges were non-partisan.
The consensus was that Trump is pissing off the wrong people, suburban, educated middle class women. But the consensus is also that there will be gridlock in the political process, the Democrats will use their oversight committees to give Trump hell and how the voters will react is anyone’s guess.
Personally I have no idea if any of this is true, but that’s what they’re saying.
‘Ray (UK) says:
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 3:54 pm
Re the lesser of two evils argument
In the AZ Senate, the Green candidate (who dropped out last week urging supporters to vote Dem) is pulling 2.3% in a race the R is winning by 0.7%’
!
Puffy:
I’m looking forward to finally seeing Trump’s tax returns.
Is there something strange about Pennsylvania? Of the 18 House districts, nine changed sides, including three going against the flow (from Democrat to Republican).
Is the US Senate unrepresentative swill? Sort of, if you accept Paul Keating’s characterisation of ours. We modelled that part of our constitution on theirs.
Similarities:
– equal representation to states
– Senators voted for fixed, 6 year terms
– rotation of Senate terms
– both systems over-represent small states (deliberately so)
Differences:
– We’ve added Senators for Territories
– Much fewer staties: 6 vs 50
– We rotate half the Senators in each state every three years, they rotate one third of States every two.
– We have 12 Senators per State, normally voting for 6 at each election. This allows minor parties a look in. In the USA, most Senate contest are effectively single-member electorate contests – as difficult for minority candidates as House seats.
– Population represented per Senator: NSW about 650,000; Tas about 45,000; California about 20,000,000; Wyoming about 300,000.
There was the UK, of course. Make of that exception what you will.
How much of an overperformance was that really though? The polling showed a very strong surge of support to Labour during the campaign. The idea of a minority Labour government wasn’t exactly a completely outrageous prospect if my recollection of the late polling isn’t failing.
There’s been a few ballot initiative successes William .. on the other hand ‘Gerrymandering/Vote Suppression central’ North Carolina has passed a Photo ID law
Someone has probably already asked this. I’m on my way home from work and catching up.
What sort of cockamamy system has one party defending over half it’s seats in an election and the other just over 10% ?
Is there something strange about Pennsylvania? Of the 18 House districts, nine changed sides, including three going against the flow (from Democrat to Republican).
Redistricted to un gerrymander it.
Maine really needs to get with the “2PP indicative count” program.
Ante Meridian
Paraphrasing what I learnt from US TV today. In Pennsylvania the Republicans drew electoral boundaries so absurd Kim Kardashian’s dog could have been elected if it ran as a Republican.
Went to court where the judges threw it out and replaced it with an electorate map that was quite favourable to the Democrats, but not unreasonable.
Doyley:
[‘Would the House results not be a better guide to the current political mood in America than the senate results?’]
Yes. Each state has two senators despite the population of them. Thus the Senate vote is not a reliable guide to the national pulse. The last I heard on CNN is that there was a 9% swing to the Dems in the House. Further, the GOP only had to defend 9 of its seats whereas the Dems had 26 to defend; there were two independent senators also, who normally vote with the Dems. No matter how Trump spins these mid-terms, it was a pox on him.
Ray (UK) @ #346 Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 – 2:24 pm
There it is. Failure to deal with the real world and make the often unpleasant but always necessary compromises has consequences. Who knew?
But at the end of the day, it looks like the Dems have the House, which means the critical subpoena power, and also – as I understand it – they can now protect Mueller and the investigation.
Ratsak,
My unreliable memory of the UK election was the Tory vote going from +20 to about +8 during the campaign. The election was tighter.
Alabama, Virginia and West Virginia have voted to restrict abortions.
Michigan and Missouri have voted to legalize marijuana/medical mariuana.
Nebraska, Idaho and Utah have voted for a increase in Medicaid.
NathanA says:
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 4:17 pm
Ante Meridian
Paraphrasing what I learnt from US TV today. In Pennsylvania the Republicans drew electoral boundaries so absurd Kim Kardashian’s dog could have been elected if it ran as a Republican.
___________________
I thought gerrymandering was not about making ultra safe seats, but rather maximizing your vote in relation to seats, i.e locking up your opponents support. In effect, creating more ‘fairly safe’ seats at the expense of marginal and very safe seats.
Aqua,
I guess a system that has 6 year terms, so the election now reflects the result of the election 6 years ago. 🙂
Looks like my earlier pessimism may have been a bit premature.
Now that its mostly done and dusted, this seems like a mildly disappointing result for the Democrats, but one that nonetheless achieved their main goal – retaking the House. They should be celebrating this victory, but also reflecting on how the blue wave wound up being so meek and how to correct that come 2020.
Re the 2017 UK election
The last six opinion polls had the Tories ahead by an average of 8.5% and winning a comfortable majority vs. actual 2.5% lead and a hung parliament
Preferential voting in Maine!
Steve Shepard
Editor and reporter
4:15 p.m.
I want to update a race that’s about to get weird: Maine’s 2nd District. Currently, with 48% of the vote in, GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin leads Democrat Jared Golden, 46.1-45.7%. Obviously, way too close to call.
But it gets weirder still: If neither candidate wins a majority, the race will proceed to a semi-instant runoff. Voters today were able to rank their second and third choices, so among the 8% or so who chose a third-party candidate, their votes could go to one of the two major candidates when the votes are run through the computer (maybe next week).
Asha Leu @ #376 Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 – 4:21 pm
Asha,
A Democrat pollster last week said she thought it would be more like a Blue Swell.
However, they’ve done it. They’ve flipped the House. Only the 3rd time since WW2!
Thanks Ray,
My memory not so unreliable after all 🙂
But Steve 777, the Senate is the State’s House.
And since, the Territories are represented.
So, absent elections, the States appoint replacements.
This provides a jurisdiction for the lesser populated States.
The problem to me is not the Senate but that the Senate no longer performs to its responsibility evidenced by State Senators not voting as a bloc.
CNN panel saying Stacey Abrams is still in with a chance in George. I thought voting there closed a while ago?
Pardon me, but what the hell happened to Nevada?!
Did… Did it drop off the face of the earth?
nath
Yes, you’re right, I was using poetic license to describe how absurd the gerrymander was.
Poor septics, having to get their tiny little minds around preferential voting. How will they cope? 😉
ratsak @ #386 Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 – 3:58 pm
IT’S THE DEVIL’S WORK!
My memory not so unreliable after all
Indeed. Looked up the FT aggregation. Survation got the result almost bang on. Everyone else had Labour 5% or more under the result.
Confessions – I guess that if booths close late because there is a long queue that means a lot of votes are locked up and not counted in the booth. Maybe Kemp’s voter suppression (fewer booths) is producing a sting in the tail?
Seriously though, someone should go to Nevada to make sure it’s still there.
I wonder to what degree the U.S is still plagued by malapportionment. I assume both sides will use all the tricks if they can.
Confessions – Georgia
I have seen talk that the late precincts could drag the Republican under 50% and necessitate a run-off (he’s about 6% ahead now)
There’s a Libertarian getting about 1% but I don’t see she’d be a favourite in a run off
There are reports incumbent Dem senator Bill Nelson has conceded Florida to Rick Scott for another Repub gain
I guess what happened in Vegas is staying in Vegas.
antonbruckner11 @ #387 Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 – 1:30 pm
Around 93% has been counted I understand and she’s trailing by around 5 or so percent.
Area 51 was redistricted to match the state borders.
And just one other point in regards the USA.
In 2 years time, the Democrats will have their nominee for President, so a point of focus and competition for Trump.
There are “GOP” States which will never return Democrats, and equally Democrat States which will never return “GOP”.
Then there are the “swing” States the Democrats have to win back to give them the numbers they need (and had with Obama).
The nomination process is of huge significance – and hopefully there is a candidate who can not only retain but regain.
How old is Trump again?
And there (also) is his Achilles heel in my view.
The “rusted ons” are what and who they are – so engagement with the remainder will be the game in town including getting them out to vote.
The House results, allowing for there being a nominated Leader in 2 years time, offers hope that we will see the end of Trump and the TEA Party.
Arkansaw and Missouri have voted to raise the minimum wage.
Now watching an as for online auction site dealdash.com. Woman (not an actor) tells us she bought a $250 vacuum cleaner for $25!!!
Fine print at the bottom shows that because you pay 20c per bid, she actually spent $177.20 for the item. God bless America.
Back to the politics, they’re blaming the Democrats that blocked the Kavanagh nomination for losing the Senate. Calling it a good night for Democrats, a disappointing night for Republicans and a disaster for moderates of either side. They think that nature abhors a vacuum and someone will be creative in looking to the other side for common ground over the next two years.
Arkansaw
Don’t give me none of your sass BW.
I wonder if the Dems will win California District 27?