Live Commentary
4:15pm In Nevada Senate, Laxalt’s lead down to 48.9-48.0, or just over 8,000 votes, on more mail from Washoe county.
2:19pm It’s looking very good for Dem Kelly in Arizona Senate. He now has a 51.7-46.1 lead after 79% is counted. Maricopa’s votes increased his lead, but mail drop offs still haven’t been counted.
1:52pm Rep Laxalt’s lead in the Nevada Senate race narrows to under 12,700 votes (49.2-47.8) on more counting from Dem Clark county.
12:21pm In the House, Reps now lead by 209-195 per CNN, a 12-seat net gain so far. They now lead in 221 seats to 214 Dem leads after flipping a Dem lead in Colorado’s third district.
11:52am Friday I’m not sure when we’ll get big mail updates from Nevada today. In Arizona, the most populous county, Maricopa, will be releasing new numbers at 2pm AEDT. Dem Kelly currently leads for Senate by 51.5-46.3 with 76% reporting.
5:16pm In the House, CNN has Reps winning by 209-191, and they’ve gained 12 net seats. But this spreadsheet had Reps only leading by 220-215 at 2pm today AEDT counting leads which haven’t been called yet. Despite the narrow current House margin, the Cook Political Report’s national popular vote tracker currently gives Reps a 6.1% overall lead.
4:57pm Rep Laxalt’s lead in Nevada Senate down to 49.4-47.6, or about 15,800 votes on more late mail. Is there enough late mail for the Dem to overhaul Laxalt?
1:20pm Today’s late mail updates in Arizona have been more favourable for Dems than the overall results in the county they were from. Dem Kelly now leads for Senate by 51.4-46.4 with 76% reporting according to CNN. However, mail dropped off on Election Day instead of posted may boost Reps. In Nevada, Rep Laxalt’s lead for Senate has fallen to 49.6-47.5, a little below 18,000 votes on late mail counting.
9:55am In Nevada, Rep Laxalt leads for Senate by 49.9-47.2 or 22,600 votes. But it looks likely there’s at least 160,000 mail remaining to be counted in Nevada’s two most populous counties, Washoe and Clark, and that mail will probably put the Dem back ahead. In Arizona, the last Election Day votes reduced the Dem Senate lead to 51.2-46.6. We’ll see if late mail helps the Reps.
6:30am Thursday CNN has now called 203 House seats for the Reps and 187 for the Dems, a net gain for Reps of seven seats. With 99% of Election Day precincts reporting in Arizona, Dem Kelly leads for Senate by 51.4-46.4. But there are still lots more late mail to count there. In other developments overnight, Wisconsin’s Senate contest was called for Rep Johnson, and Georgia as going to a Dec 6 runoff.
9:25pm I’ve been writing an article about the US midterm results for The Conversation, but in the meantime Rep Laxalt has overtaken Dem Cortez Masto for Nevada Senate by 49.9-47.2. Dems will hope late mail will give Cortez Masto the win. And in Arizona, Dem Kelly’s lead for Senate has narrowed to 52-46 with 91% of Election Day precincts reporting.
7:43pm In Arizona, Dem Senator Kelly’s lead cut to 53-44 on more Election Day votes. And the race tightens further in Nevada too.
7:30pm Reps are still up five sets net in the House, with eight gains to three for Dems. CNN gives them a 195-176 lead with 218 needed for control. Other US media have called more House races.
7:15pm With 65% counted in Nevada, Dem Senator Cortez Masto leads by 50-47. That lead will shrink as more rurals report, but late mail will help Cortez Masto. A likely Dem HOLD.
6pm In the House, Reps lead by 193-170 with 218 needed for control. But Dems have gained two seats, while Reps have gained seven, for a net gain of five for Reps..
5:17pm With 88% counted in Wisconsin Senate, Rep Johnson’s lead falls back to 50.7-49.1.
5:15pm Pennsylvania has been officially CALLED for Dem Fetterman in the Senate. Dem GAIN
5:08pm Arizona Secretary of State website says 72% of Election Day precincts are already in. Seems like a very good chance for Dem Senator Kelly to hold onto his current 57-41 lead.
4:57pm We finally have some results from Nevada. With 44% in, Dem Senator Cortez Masto leads by 54-43. That includes Clark county, the big Dem stronghold in the south-east, but not much from the Rep landslide rurals or the swing county of Washoe.
4:39pm Dem Warnock back ahead in Georgia Senate by 49.1-48.8 with 93% in. Remember the runoff if nobody gets 50%.
4:26pm In Kentucky, the “no” vote against a constitutional amendment banning abortion is leading 52-48 with 80% counted, even as the Rep Senator Paul won a blowout with 61%.
4:15pm In Wisconsin Senate with 80% counted, Rep Johnson leads Dem Barnes by 51.5-48.3. I’m not sure if late mail can snatch that lead back.
4:07pm With 91% counted in Georgia, Rep Walker leads by 49.1-48.8 with 2.0% for a Libertarian. Remember that if nobody gets at least 50% in Georgia, it goes to a Dec 6 runoff.
4:03pm Nate Cohn on Twitter. This would be a Dem Senate GAIN
3:50pm In the House Reps still lead by 179-146 according to CNN and have gained five seats. The 538 live blog says that some House seats that were expected to go to Reps have been retained by Dems.
3:35pm CNN has also called Washington for Dem Murray, a Dem Senate HOLD. Reps have held Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio.
3:33pm CNN has CALLED New Hampshire for Dem Maggie Hassan, who leads by 55-43 with 60% in. That’s Dem Senate HOLD.
3:14pm Dems have GAINED two governorships in Maryland and Massachusetts after moderate Rep governors of those states retired. Reps have easily held their big states of Florida and Texas, while Dems will hold New York and California.
2:40pm Nate Cohn tweets that Dem Fetterman is doing better than Biden just about everywhere in Pennsylvania. Biden won by 1.2%, so that points to a Dem GAIN in Pennsylvania’s Senate race.
2:18pm In the House, Reps have made five gains according to CNN, and lead by 147-82 so far. But Dems have held their two marginal seats in Virginia.
2:13pm The early mail in Arizona has come in, and Dem Kelly leads by 56-41 with 41% in for the Senate. But Election Day turnout was very good for Reps in Arizona.
2:02pm In Iowa Senate, the Dem has a 13 point lead with 27% in. Iowa is another state where early vote is counted first, and Election Day should allow the Rep to win easily.
1:50pm Dem Bennett has been CALLED the winner in Colorado Senate, a HOLD for the Dems. He leads by 19% with 48% counted. Meanwhile Dem Fetterman’s lead in Pennsylvania Senate narrows to 10% with 32% in, and Dem Barnes is leading in Wisconsin by 2% with 28% in.
1:18pm Dem Warnock has recovered the lead in Georgia Senate by 51.3-46.9 with 64% in.
1:14pm And in Ohio with 44% counted, Rep Vance is now only just behind Dem Ryan for Senate 50.1-49.8. Projection: Vance overtakes Ryan and Reps easily HOLD Ohio Senate.
1:10pm In North Carolina, Rep Budd has overtaken Dem Beasley by 49.2-48.8 with 68% in. Budd will go on to win as Election Day votes now dominate. Projection: Rep HOLD North Carolina Senate.
1:06pm In Georgia, Rep Walker has just overtaken Dem Warnock and leads by 51.5-46.7 with 61% in. Warnock may recover with more counting from urban Georgia.
12:51pm With 51% counted in Georgia, Dem Senator Warnock’s lead narrows to 50-48. Meanwhile, Rep Governor Kemp is leading by 52-47.
12:34pm With 14% counted in New Hampshire, Dem Hassan leads by 61-38.
12:31pm Dems are well ahead currently in Senate contests for Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. But these reflect early votes, and leads will narrow or be overturned once Election Day votes report.
12:16pm In fact there are now three Rep projected House GAINS from the Dems just in Florida.
12:13pm And in more good news for Reps in Florida, they GAIN the fourth House district from the Dems.
12:09pm In Florida, Rep Senator Marco Rubio and Rep Governor Ron DeSantis are projected winners with Rubio leading by 12 points and DeSantis by 16. That’s with 72% counted, and Election Day votes will make Florida even more Rep. Miami Dade county in the south, which voted heavily for Hillary Clinton in 2016, has been won by both Reps.
12:03pm In North Carolina’s Senate contest, the Dem leads by 54-44 with 45% in. But that’s early vote, and Election Day will favour the Reps.
11:53am In Virginia’s 10th House district, the Dem incumbent has a 52.5-47.4 lead over the Rep with 53% in.
11:45am In Georgia’s Senate contest, Dem Warnock leads Rep Walker by 56-42 with 29% in. That lead will narrow as more Election Day votes are counted.
9:45am Wednesday In many US states, voters register as either Dem, Rep or Nonpartisan/Other. Localities in some of these states report Election Day turnout throughout the day. There’s HEAVY Rep turnout that isn’t being matched by the Dems, and is overwhelming Dem early vote leads. This is pointing to an ugly result for the Dems today, with Reps overperforming their polls.
I have a one hour appointment at 10:30am. We’ll see how early results are looking when I return at 11:30am.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
I covered the US midterm elections for The Conversation on Monday; polls close from late Wednesday morning AEDT. The final FiveThirtyEight forecasts give Republicans a 59% chance to win the Senate (54% Monday) and an 84% chance to win the House (83% Monday). The section below has been copied from The Conversation article.
Poll closing times
I will focus here on the close Senate races that are within five points in the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregates. All times are Wednesday AEDT. The first US polls close at 10am in the eastern time zones of Kentucky and Indiana; Republicans will win both states easily.
Georgia will be the first state with a close Senate race to close its polls at 11am, then North Carolina closes at 11:30am. New Hampshire and Pennsylvania will both close at 12pm. Polls in Wisconsin and Arizona will close at 1pm, with Nevada closing at 2pm. Polls in the Pacific coast states close at 3pm, with the final polls closing at 5pm in Alaska’s western time zone. Poll closing times are derived from The Green Papers’ list, with 11 hours added to UTC/GMT.
Counting will usually take at least several hours after polls close, and in close contests we may have to wait days or even weeks for an outcome. Exit polls will be released once all polls in a state are closed, but are unreliable.
In Georgia’s Senate contest, there will be a December 6 runoff if neither major party candidate clears 50% on Tuesday. There is a third party Libertarian candidate who could prevent this.
In some states, early counting is likely to skew Republican, as Election Day votes are counted first. In other states, Democratic-leaning mail will be counted first, so their early counts will skew to Democrats.
Israeli near final results
Final results of the November 1 Israeli election will be declared Wednesday, but are nearly complete now. Former PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing and religious parties won 64 of the 120 Knesset seats (up 12 since the March 2021 election). Netanyahu’s Likud won 32 seats (up two), the far-right Religious Zionists 14 (up eight) and the religious Shas 11 (up two) and UTJ seven (steady). The Religious Zionists are now the third biggest party.
If two parties had made the 3.25% threshold, Netanyahu would have been short of a majority. But Meretz, which has represented Israel’s left, was knocked out with 3.16%, losing all its six seats, while the Arab Balad had 2.90%. In a mark of Israel’s right-wing shift, Labor won just 3.7% and four seats (down three). Labor was once a major party of government in Israel.
Danish election and UK polls
The Danish election was also held November 1. The left-leaning “Red Bloc” of parties won 90 of the 179 seats, a one seat majority. The right-leaning “Blue Bloc” won 73 seats, and a new centrist party (the Moderates) won the remaining 16 seats. The left retained office after winning in June 2019. They will be relieved not to have to depend on the Moderates.
Two weeks after Rishi Sunak became Britain’s new PM, polls have stabilised at a large Labour lead after Sunak made gains in his first week. In nine UK national polls taken since November 1, Labour has led by 18 to 26 points. On November 17, the government will deliver another budget after the collapse of the September 23 attempt; this is likely to include tax rises and spending cuts.
Evan @ #506 Saturday, November 12th, 2022 – 2:30 pm
Evan,
As cool heads have commented, Walker got pull along from Kemp last Tuesday. Next time people are going to have to decide whether they want to vote for Walker and only Walker.
Ven @ #516 Saturday, November 12th, 2022 – 5:01 pm
Manchin got the Climate Change parts of the Inflation Reduction Act watered down. Plus Sinema got a tax raising measure to pay for it, which would have touched up the Hedge Fund Managers for some of their billions, thrown out of the legislation.
Republicans have 51.8% of the house vote compared to Democrats 46.6%, a difference of about 5 million votes.
In Australia they would now be forming government with a workable majority.
I suspect that if they do not win control of the house, this will be the bedrock of the conspiracy that the election was stolen or that there is a Democrat gerrymander. This would conveniently ignore Biden’s victory over Trump by more than 7 M votes
It will be interesting to see analysis of voter turnout in the seats. It is likely that Republical votes have been wasted in safe seats
Source:
https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022
As at midnight, Nevada time, 95% of votes in:
Adam Laxalt Republican 468,437 +48.50%
Catherine Cortez Masto*incumbent Democrat 467,575 +48.41%
None of these candidates 11,533 +1.19%
Total reported
965,784
@Oakeshott Country
That number will trend towards the Democrats over the next couple of weeks. There’s still a lot of Western state votes to count, since they tend to be slower to count than other states. California in particular.
However, I think it will be a narrow Republican control of the house in the end, with at least 220 seats for them. It was too small of a majority for the Democrats to defend, and so far the Republicans have flipped and are ahead in too many seats for there to be anything but a miraculous turnaround of that.
Apologies if this is rehashing, but reverting to the impossible dream of finding a pathway for the Dems to get to 218 seats in the house, I can see one in the table below. The current score, as rated by the other ABC, is 205 Dems to 211 Repugs with 19 remaining. Allowing for a whole panoply of excuses like low vote count and my total ignorance of where the uncounted votes come from, let’s suppose that all things are equal (ceteris paribus) and the Dems have to ‘find’ 13/19 and the Repugs 7/19. Let’s concentrate on the latter. The table below makes an interesting observation that only a small swing is required based on present margins to get the Dems across the line. For the purpose of this argument, we can give away the 4 seats with current Repug margins above 2.3%. That leaves 6 seats – AZ-6, CA-13, CA-41, CO-3, NY-22 and OR-5 – with margins of 2.3% or below. Only 2 of these 6 seats have incumbents and winning any 3 of them will get the Dems over the line. This obviously assumes they win all of the seats they currently lead.
AK-1 Peltola i Palin 72% 44,406 D+20.7
AZ-1 Hodge Schweikert i 85 4,029 D+1.3
AZ-6 Engel Ciscomani 87 2,906 R+1.0
CA-3 Jones Kiley 51 9,962 R+5.9
CA-9 Harder i Patti 36 9,918 D+12.5
CA-13 Gray Duarte 46 84 R+0.1
CA-21 Costa i Maher 49 7,463 D+9.1
CA-22 Salas Valadao i 39 2,878 R+5.1
CA-27 Smith Garcia i 50 15,633 R+12.0
CA-41 Rollins Calvert i 47 1,598 R+1.2
CA-45 Chen Steel i 60 12,701 R+8.0
CA-47 Porter i Baugh 67 4,555 D+2.3
CA-49 Levin i Maryott 69 9,073 D+4.3
CO-3 Frisch Boebert i 99 1,122 R+0.3
ME-2 Golden i Poliquin 88 15,013 D+5.4
NY-22 Conole Williams 94 3,925 R+1.5
OR-5 McLeod-Skinner Chavez-DeRemer 86 6,792 R+2.3
OR-6 Salinas Erickson 80 4,058 D+1.7
WA-3 Perez Kent 92 4,959 D+1.7
This is the best, easiest to understand, analysis of who may end up controlling the House:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/11/democrats-house-midterm-elections-00066436
Santa, nice job. (Elves?) All I managed was 215 for D using The Guardian’s map and counting up where D was leading. It’s tight.
OC @ 5:15, I agree that ‘Republican votes have been wasted in safe seats’. Not just their safe seats, but also in safe Dem seats. After all, there’s no value in campaigning in seats where either you have Buckley’s chance, or the other side has Buckley’s chance. Gerrymandering distorts the whole system and equates the US polity with the developing world. It’s a product of a society without institutions that are impartial and independent. For example, electing judges for local courts may sound fine, but leads to a form of corruption. No re-election without a recent record of draconian sentences and all that…
C@tmomma @ #548 Saturday, November 12th, 2022 – 3:57 pm
I was going to add that it allows Biden to ignore one or the other or play them against each other. Either approach would get him closer to what he wants. But then a distraction arrived. I was reminded when I spotted this.
Here’s hoping.
Late Riser,
I think it’s going to be quite significant as far as the Democrats wanting to get rid of the Filibuster in the Senate, something Manchin would never agree to, pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the Electoral Count Act and to codify Same Sex Marriage and Abortion Rights.
GOP might be leading 5% / 6m votes but raw vote counts for the House of Reps aren’t the correct measure for national votes, in the way they are for Presidential elections or for Senate elections (at a state-wide level only for Senate in practice, simply because only 1/3 of senate seats are up for election every 2 years).
The reason for this is because many Reps are elected unopposed. This happens in safe seats for both sides, but much more prevalent for GOP – so naturally all those zero vote tallies for Dems will artificially make it look like GOP have won lots more votes when tallied up nationally.
Sidenote: one of the houses of congress in USA is the House of Representatives, the races for which we are watching closely on this thread.
The 435 members of this house are called ‘Reps’ in common parlance – meaning everywhere in USA media etc. – whether Democrats, Republicans or Independents.
Therefore please can we stop calling Republicans the abbrev of ‘Reps’ as this is quite confusing. GOP or Repubs work fine. 🙂
Frankly I don’t like Republicans being referred to as the “GOP”, which means either “Grand Old Party” or “Good Old Party”, which is a title they frankly don’t deserve with their current behaviour. It’s just an innocent folksy façade for what their true intentions are these days.
Kirsdarke @ #565 Sunday, November 13th, 2022 – 12:03 am
The Grossest Old Party?
I caught this on ABC Radio National the other day – “the Republican Party and its embrace of far-right extremism”. What happened to the party of Abraham Lincoln?
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/us-far-right-extremism/14095238
Tom Bonier
@tbonier
·
7h
What stands out about the turnout in Nevada at this point is the youth vote. Should Cortez-Masto win this race, young Nevadans deserve a lot of credit. Voters under 30 were 12% of the vote this year, as compared to 11% in ’18, and only 6% in ’14.
Tom Bonier
@tbonier
·
7h
Of course, the increases in youth vote and unaffiliated voters are connected as younger voters are less likely to register with a party, In terms of modeled party, the Nevada electorate was slightly more Dem than ’18 and ’20.
Nov. 12, 2022, 2:40 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Nate Cohn
The Clark County, Nev., registrar of voters, Joe Gloria, announced at a news conference today that all of the county’s remaining mail ballots — except for those that have been rejected but may still be cured by voters — will be reported this evening. This is expected to be around 22,000 ballots, potentially enough to put Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, into the lead in Nevada’s Senate race.
Edit: wrong thread
“ The Clark County, Nev., registrar of voters, Joe Gloria, announced at a news conference today that all of the county’s remaining mail ballots — except for those that have been rejected but may still be cured by voters — will be reported this evening. This is expected to be around 22,000 ballots, potentially enough to put Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, into the lead in Nevada’s Senate race.”
________
She will get a net 7,000+ gain from that last batch.
By my back of a beer coaster calculations there are about 16-18K of mail in ballots still to count Washoe county (based in Reno). Whilst the whole county appears to favour the dems by about 3% (as opposed to Clark [vegas] county, which favours them by 8%) from the earlier mail-in dumps the dems are still picking up around 62% of the vote, and the reps less than 35%, so Sen. Cortez Masto should pick up a net 5,000 or so votes there as well. I reckon, she wins by around 12,000 votes.
Dave Wasserman
@Redistrict
·
8h
New House math:
Dem called/likely (212), incl. #AKAL, #CA09, #CA21, #CA47, #CA49, #CO08, #ME02, #OR06
GOP called/likely (217): incl. #CA03, #CA27, #CA45, #CO03, #NY22, #OR05
Toss Ups (6): #AZ01, #AZ06, #CA13, #CA22, #CA41, #WA03
Dems need to run the table on Toss Ups for 218.
———————————
I’m shocked that a Dem win is even a possibility now. It’s the “blue slow drip” after the “red wave” didn’t show up
Of the US aggregators, RealClearPolitics have long been known as boosters for Republican aligned astroturfing outfits.
I wonder will they adjust their algorithms to avoid this abysmal pre-election prediction?
One of the quaintest features of the US state-based electoral system, is that some states who encourage mass mail-ins – Like Nevada which pretty much issues postal ballots to everyone – also allow ‘curing’ of signatures.
Signed returned envelopes have to match the signature on file, along with other details such as address. So how do the ballots get ‘cured’? In Las Vegas at least, the Culinary Union is please to assist…
UPDATE: @Culinary226 has reached out to 5,100 Nevadans to cure their ballots so far, daily cure program continues with 200 canvassers in the streets, full time phone bank,& organizers inside the casino Employee Dining Rooms to reach workers on their lunch breaks. #WeVoteWeWin
Culinary Union spokesperson says the union’s ballot cure outreach has reached 5,100 people
(Of note: more than 7,000 people have cured their ballots in Clark, a little more than 7,000 remain)
About 4 hours away from Washoe /Reno for the next drop…
https://electionresults.washoecounty.gov/
The link is worth a scroll to see who gets elected ‘down ticket’
Steve Kornacki with a jaw dropping prediction….
https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1591572930575495169?s=61&t=CyLI2HbbXBpqze6Q-o7U6A
Hey guys, William has gotten Adrian to put up a newer ‘late count thread’. Maybe we should shift all our comments over to there?