What Went Down On Election Night 2017

In the nine New Jersey counties that have reported at least 75 percent of their results, Murphy is outperforming Clinton’s margin by an average of 3 points, although with a lot of variation from county to county. Clinton won the state by 14 points, so that would project a margin of victory in the high teens — or perhaps the low 20s since Murphy has been doing especially well relative to Clinton in the most populous counties so far.

I am watching for trifectas (that’s when one party controls both houses of a state’s legislature and its governorship). Coming into tonight, Democrats were in total control of six states. Murphy’s win in New Jersey makes it seven. The GOP is in total control of 26 states. Republicans could have had 27 if Gillespie had won (and they go on to hold onto the House of Delegates). So Republicans will remain at 26. I’m still keeping an eye on Washington state, where there is a special election for a state Senate seat. If the Democratic candidate wins that race, Democrats will be in total control there.

Control of Virginia’s House of Delegates is likely to be decided by absentee and provisional ballots. Right now, by my math, Democrats have won 47 districts to Republicans’ 46. There are seven races left uncalled: Democrats lead in four and Republicans in three. Amazingly, the margins in five of the seven districts are less than 150 votes. For example, in Newport News’s 94th District, Delegate David Yancey, a Republican, currently leads Shelly Simonds, a Democrat, 11,587 to 11,575, with all precincts reporting. But provisional votes won’t be processed for days. Altogether, that means it may take days instead of hours to find out which party will be in control come January.