In the two gubernatorial races being watched nationwide, there weren’t any major surprises as Virginia and New Jersey did what they’ve done for a couple of decades now — elect a Governor of the opposite party from that in power in Washington:
Since 1989, the party holding the White House has gone on to lose both the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. The streak goes back even further in Virginia, where the party holding the White House has gone to lose the gubernatorial race since 1977. [CNN]
Nobody expected a Democratic win in Virginia after Creigh Deeds sank like a stone in polls starting a couple of months ago. A late surge in polling made it look for a moment like Democrat Jon Corzine might salvage his race in NJ after being behind for months, but it was not to be.
There was one huge upset, though, in a race that received a ton of National attention, and which says a lot about the implosion of the Republican party. Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in NY-23, a district the Democrats haven’t won in over a century. This is not a vote of confidence in the Democrats, but it is a sign of how the right’s internal bickering is going to cause major problems for them if they can’t get it under control.
There were no major surprises, and few chances to really see ranked-choice voting come into play in Minneapolis last night. Joe Bodell has the complete results at MN Progressive Project. There were a few races were 2nd-choice votes will be needed to officially put one candidate over 50 percent, but in all but one case the results are clear, with the leading candidate receiving 47 or 48 percent of the 1st-choice vote and the nearest challenger with under 40 percent. These races would all take miracles for the 2nd-place finisher on the 1st-choice votes to come from behind.
Park Board
District 5
1st choice
Carol
Kummer
2957
37.9%
Jason
Stone
2788
35.7%
Steve
Barland
1537
19.7%
McLaine
Looney
151
1.9%
Dan W. Peterson
368
4.7%
There were two cases, though, where we’ll see ranked choice voting (i.e. Instant Runoff Voting) come into play, both involving the Park Board. In District 5, Carol Kummer and Jason Stone are nail-bitingly close. This one will be determined by 2nd-choice votes — in fact, it may even need to be decided by the 3rd-choice votes of those whose first choices were Barland and Looney.
Because Minneapolis voting machines could not be calibrated to tabulate anything other than the 1st-choice votes, the ballots will all need to be tabulated by hand, which means it will be some time before we know the winner of the Park Board race.
The other race that will take some time to shake out is the Park Board at-large race, in which none of the eight candidates for three positions received enough votes on the first ballot.
The mayoral race certainly didn’t lead to a surprise, as RT Rybak beat his nearest competitor by 63 percentage points among 1st-choice ballots.
After all this time, after 2 years of non-stop campaigning, after 4 years of speculation, and after 8 years of watching the country I love so much abused by those put in office to protect it, tomorrow we get to turn the page. I know it seems like this is said about every election, but I have a feeling that this will be the most memorable and important election of my lifetime. No matter what the result is, tomorrow will begin new chapter in American history. I’m so excited that I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty excited about the upcoming elections. Heck, I even just changed our logo (only for this week) to reflect how nuts and exciting this cycle is. And now we’re announcing the return of our popular elections site. It’s still missing a couple items, but those should be coming shortly (Zack) and I just couldn’t wait to make it live, so now it is (you can see the new tab right below the logo up top).
Why an election site? Well, primarily for election day. If you come to the site this coming Tuesday anytime after 5PM, you’re going to see the results page of the election site instead of this, usual, frontpage. We’ll be updating the results live as they come in and we have a notification system built in to the results page to allow us to announce news, call races, and fun stuff like that. This provides you, our wonderful readers, with a one-stop scoreboard for all the hottest races this cycle. What’s more, we’ll even be counting-down to a veto proof majority in the Minnesota house (if we get there) as the results of state house races come in.
We’re making the site live today because in addition to the main feature that is the results page, we have pages dedicated to each one of the races with summaries of the race, our takes on it, the latest polling for that race, the newest posts, and all the TV ads for the DFL candidate. It’s a pretty cool little resources and I just wanted to share it with everyone.
Like everything else, the real fun will be on election day, but for now, enjoy.
It’s time to go to your polls if you live in St. Paul, Duluth, or almost 100 school districts around the state. As well it’s election day in a few states around the country.
This evening, if my wife should humor me I’ll be plopped in front of the computer watching the St. Paul Ward 1 and Ward 6 returns come in, where I am hoping for Melvin Carter and Pakou Hang, two great young DFL’ers to win, and the Duluth Mayors race, where I’m hoping for yet another great young DFLer, Donny Ness’s victory.
Around the country I’ll be looking at the Kentucky governors race and the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate.
The reason why I’ll be looking at the Kentucky Governors race is it could serve as a signal whether or not the Republican Culture of Corruption meme has hit it’s high water mark or if it is still resonating with voters. True, Ernie Fletcher (R), the current governor of Kentucky is in reality really really corrupt, and it may be the extravagance of his corruption that will do in his administration, but it’s still worth looking and analyzing to see if voters still feel that the Republican party has a credibility gap.
Every seat in the Virginia House of Delegates and State Senate is up for grabs this year and and these off year elections in Virginia are the lab in which new electoral and GOTV strategies are tested and refined before the next years national races. Look to see how immigration plays with voters in the state, and whether or not one or both houses switch to Democratic control.
So, St. Paul and Duluth readers, go vote! And check back to MNPublius for more information as we finish this cycle and really start next years!
CNN projects Democratic win in Rhode Island, beating incumbent Lincoln Chafee, giving the Democrats three of the six pickups they need to take control of the Senate.
We need 3 of the following Senate races for a Democratic Senate: Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, Montana
Like most Americans following the hype surrounding today’s election, I accepted at face value the Republican claim that they had a formidable 72-hour get out the vote machine that would turn the tables on the Democrats. I think it is bullshit and here’s why.
People Are Shouting
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