What Went Down On Election Night 2017

That’ll do it for us tonight, dear readers. We got a lot of interesting new data to sift through, and we’ll have more analysis of the day’s results soon. But for now, Democrats pick up governor’s mansions in Virginia and New Jersey. The Virginia House of Delegates maybe could flip to the Democrats (a surprise). Medicaid expansion passes in Maine. In short, it was a good night for Democrats. As always, though, I asked members of our live-blog team for their headlines coming out of Tuesday. (And as always, many of them responded with about three or four headlines-worth of characters.) Clare: Dems Sweep Virginia; Bannonites crush sour grapes to make victory wine for insurgent, swamp-draining 2018 midterms. Nate: I guess I’ll make mine polling-focused to mix things up a bit. Still, this is an important sub-headline: Republicans should stop taking comfort in the fact that polls underestimated Trump in 2016. They could just as easily wind up overestimating Republicans instead in 2018, as they did in Virginia tonight. Dave: With all the evidence in front of us, Democrats are slight favorites to retake the U.S. House in 2018. Perry: All the fundamentals favored Northam: 1. Virginia is Democratic-leaning, 2. Republicans control the presidency and 3. that president is deeply unpopular. But a Gillespie win would have been a “holy shit” kind of thing — an establishment GOP pol had embraced Trump tactics and won in Virginia. So to me, the headline is something like, “In Virginia, Nervous Democrats Get a Much-Desired Victory Over Trumpism.” Harry: Democrats Romp As Republican Run For The Hills Ahead Of 2018 Midterms Meena: TV News On Election Nights Is Just Louder, More Annoying Twitter. Dan: My take-homes: While many things in politics aren’t predictable, the fact that unpopular presidents take down their parties when they’re not on the ballot is. And state politics is looking less like a distinctive arena and more like a isplaced version of national politics. Meghan: Live Blog Copy Comes In Messier And Messier As The Night Wears On

One final note: It’s hard not to conclude the August events in Charlottesville had a galvanizing effect on Democrats in that area. Across the state, raw votes cast were up 16 percent over 2013. But in the city of Charlottesville, raw votes cast were up 31 percent. Northam took 84 percent of the vote there.

We’re about to wrap this live blog, but here’s the current count for the Virginia House of Delegates. There are 100 seats, and Democrats currently hold 48, Republicans 47. Here are the five outstanding races that will determine control — and may be in recount territory:

• House District 27 (Chesterfield County): Del. Roxann Robinson (R) is up by 129 votes.
• House District 28 (Fredericksburg): Bob Thomas (R) is up by 86 votes.
• House District 40 (Fairfax): Donte Tanner (D) is up by 68 votes.
• House District 68 (Richmond): Dawn Adams (D) up by 316 votes.
• House District 94 (Newport News): Del. David Yancey (R) up by 12 votes.

If every one of these races breaks to the current leader, Virginia would have a 50-50 House of Delegates come January.

It’s hard to overstate what a terrible night this was for Republicans in Northern Virginia, but just to drive the point home, they may no longer hold a single delegate seat in Fairfax County after tonight. GOP Del. Tim Hugo, who was thought to be a strong favorite owing to his retail strength in southern Fairfax, is currently trailing Democrat Donte Tanner by 68 votes.

Democrat Manka Dhingra is leading in early returns in Washington’s 45th Senate district, 55 percent to 45 percent. (Polls there closed at 11 p.m. Eastern.) There’s no reason to believe that result won’t hold as more votes are counted. If every other race goes as expected (and we believe it will), this is a pickup for the Democrats and with it they pickup control of the Washington state Senate. That means they control every legislative body and governorship on the West Coast.

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Atlantic City mayor is another race where control has flipped from Republican to Democratic. https://twitter.com/News12NJ/status/928105290729492481

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Well, Bemused Redneck, these districts are not overwhelmingly Republican. Trump won 117 by 3 percentage points and 119 by 7 points. The flips there are obviously not bad news for Democrats; they are good news. But I don’t think they are particularly surprising. I think they fit with a national environment that is in the Democrats’ favor right now.

As I wait for the Nassau County website to reload (quite slowly), I can report that 20 percent of precincts have reported. The Republican candidate in the county executive contest, Jack Martins, is now up by 1 percentage point. This one will take a while to call, it seems.

In a rare loss for Democrats, independent Ben Walsh has defeated Democrat Juanita Perez Williams in the Syracuse mayoral race. He’s up 53 percent to 39 percent, with 84 percent of precincts reporting.

Virginia’s Democratic delegate success meter

The 25 most vulnerable Republican seats in the House of Delegates

View more!

To bring the point home a bit, Democrats have won — or are leading in — literally every race that Daily Kos Elections decided to highlight on its scoreboard tonight, except the 45th state Senate District in Washington state, where polls are still open. Some of those wins are by large margins, and some are narrow — but it’s a pretty comprehensive sweep so far.

The biggest result still out is Washington’s 45th Senate District special election. If Democrats win there (and outside some shocking result in that state), they will control the state Senate. That means Democrats will control every state legislative body and governorship on the West Coast.

Democrats are hoping to go two-for-two in executive races in the suburban counties around New York. Democrat Laura Curran is ahead by 7 points in Nassau County, with 13 percent of precincts reporting. Democrat George Latimer is ahead by 20 points in Westchester County, with 19 percent of precincts reporting. Both seats are currently held by Republicans.

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As Dave said, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to make a call tonight on who will control the Virginia House of Delegates. Here’s where each seat’s race stands:

The Virginia House of Delegates races, by margin

Margins and absolute vote differences as of 10 p.m. Eastern time

View more!

We’re getting more results from New Jersey, and Murphy’s margin is now up to 15 points, according to The New York Times (which has more results reported than the networks do). But looking at a more comprehensive set of counties, I’m less sure about my earlier assertion that Murphy’s margin will eventually get into the high teens — 15 points may be about where it settles.

The Associated Press has called Question 2 in Maine — voters there have chosen to expand Medicaid. What happens next? First, the legislature will have a chance to repeal or amend the measure. But it has already passed the Medicaid expansion five times, and this time, it is not subject to a veto from Republican Gov. Paul LePage. So if Question 2 becomes law and Maine expands Medicaid, estimates indicate that somewhere in the ballpark of 70,000 people are likely to gain health insurance. There also might be an effect on other states: Idaho advocates recently filed to put the Medicaid expansion on the ballot there.

With 45 percent of precincts in the special U.S. House election in Utah’s 3rd District in, Republican John Curtis leads 59 percent to 25 percent over Democrat Kathie Allen. As I wrote before, it’s unclear how exactly to read that result in the context of the national environment. It’s a district that was very heavily in favor of Romney in 2012 but where Trump underperformed. What I can say is that Curtis will be the next representative from that district.

If I had to put a bet on it, I’d bet Democrats will ultimately win control of Virginia’s House of Delegates. They’ve captured 47 seats, and they’re ahead in four more races, pending absentee and provisional ballots. So far, absentee ballots have broken more Democratic than the Election Day vote, so that’s no comfort to Republicans. But the bottom line is, we probably won’t be able to call control tonight.

I’ve been watching the Syracuse mayoral race with some interest. There were a lot of candidates on the ballot. With 18 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Juanita Perez Williams leads independent Ben Walsh 47 percent to 45 percent.

It has likely flown under the radar, but an interesting race is drawing to a close here in Philadelphia. Democrat Larry Krasner is cruising to victory in the race for district attorney, currently winning more than 73 percent of the vote against his Republican opponent. Krasner is an outspoken advocate of criminal justice reform and has been fiercely opposed by the main Philadelphia police union.

Dave pointed out that control of Virginia’s House of Delegates may depend on provisional ballots. And although that will in turn hinge on the specific districts that have yet to be decided, it’s worth noting that overall, late election canvassing tends to favor the Democrats, as Edward Foley and Charles Stewart note in this paper.

I’ve been tracking Maine’s Medicaid expansion by comparing how Question 2 is performing to Clinton’s performance in 2016. And as this chart shows, Question 2 is typically doing a bit better than Clinton in most towns, setting it on track to pass.

I’ve been watching New York City politics for a long time, and I’ve seen very few campaigns as incendiary as independent mayoral candidate Bo Dietl’s. Right now, he’s getting just 1 percent of the vote, which is good enough for sixth place.

Exit polls from Virginia and New Jersey show continuation of polarization by race, age group, and education level, but not by income, which may be declining as a predictor of party voting.

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.

There are still some precincts whose votes haven’t come in yet in the New York City mayoral election, but Democrats’ dreams that de Blasio would have a record performance in a New York City mayoral race seem to be falling short. So far, with 72 percent of precincts reporting, de Blasio has 64 percent of the vote. He’s falling short of his 2013 performance in every borough except Manhattan, where he is basically running even.

I noted some demographic trends from the Virginia exit polls earlier tonight, but I just wanted to point out something that’s going on with the women’s vote in the state, and more specifically the white women’s vote. Northam is outpacing Clinton with women in a way that’s pretty striking to me: He’s winning 60 percent of women overall, compared to Clinton’s 56 percent, according to the exit polls. He’s winning white women with 48 percent compared to Clinton’s 41 percent, white women without a college education 32 percent to Clinton’s 29 percent and white women with a college degree 57 percent to Clinton’s 50 percent. He isn’t, however, winning black women at the same rate that Clinton did. Hm!

Paris, China and Poland have all weighed in on Maine’s Question 2 — yes, they are all Maine towns (in addition to being foreign cities and countries). In China, Question 2 eked out a victory by one vote. But Medicaid expansion went down narrowly in Poland and Paris. Overall, Question 2 looks on track to pass, as it’s been slightly but predictably outperforming Clinton’s performance in 2016 in most towns, and she won the state.

That county executive result wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, since Westchester has become quite blue. But there are a lot of GOP seats for Congress up next year in more purple suburbs in New York and New Jersey — so not a great sign for the GOP if moderate Republicans are having trouble holding on there.

One of my key races to watch was the county executive contest in New York’s Westchester County, where Republican incumbent Astorino is trying to hold on. In very early returns, he’s down 14 points.

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New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Cy Vance is winning, with 91 percent of the vote, against a write-in campaign. Vance was criticized for the handling of his office’s investigation of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations.

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Alabama is still a deep red state, while Virginia — the race we’ve been most closely eyeing — leans blue. That said, GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore is pretty out there; he’s been removed from the state Supreme Court twice. So, I guess a Democrat could have a chance if they ran up margins in urban areas, turning out minorities, and if suburban, college-educated Republican-leaning voters just stayed home. But again, very red state.

Bad news for those who want a constitutional convention in New York. We now have over 200,000 votes counted. Voters are going 4-to-1 against a convention.

Quick geographic observation: Northam has led Democrats to a sweep tonight, including possibly picking up the House of Delegates. But in a sign of just how gigantic the urban/rural divide has become, he appears to have lost Virginia’s rural Eastern Shore, his one-time political base.

Bangor joins the ranks of Maine towns reporting — and it voted 67 percent in favor of Question 2. Clinton won 62 percent of the major-party votes there, and she won the state — so Question 2 continues to modestly outperform the 2016 Democratic nominee.

Murphy is currently only up by 9 points in New Jersey. That will almost certainly expand as we get more votes from urban and suburban areas around New York City. Just now Hudson County returned some votes, and Murphy’s lead statewide jump by 3 points!

New York City is also becoming more polarized — while de Blasio is ahead by almost 30 points citywide, Nicole Malliotakis is ahead in Staten Island by almost 45 points.

Since pollsters and pundits seem to have missed a Democratic surge today, can I assume that there will now be a flood of articles and books on urban non-white liberals?

A Virginia House of Delegates update: Kelly Convirs-Fowler, a Democrat, has unseated Delegate Ron Villanueva, a Republican, in Virginia Beach’s District 21. Democrats have now picked up 13 seats and need four more for control.

Virginia’s Democratic delegate success meter

The 25 most vulnerable Republican seats in the House of Delegates

View more!

In Maine, Question 2 is up 58 percent to 42 percent, with 34 percent of precincts in. From the count I’ve been doing, in 23 cities and towns, the ballot measure is outperforming Clinton’s 2016 performance. She won the state by around 3 percentage points. In 16 cities and towns, the ballot measure is underperforming Clinton. So there is still plenty of counting left to do, but the ballot measure is on track to pass.

Conservative pundits are arguing that a) Gillespie should have been more embracing of Trump and that b) Trump should have enacted more of his agenda. This seems unlikely. Trump is pretty toxic right now, and for him to have signed bills that are even less popular than he is probably would have made things even worse for GOP candidates today.

2020 is a census year, and that means that from now until then, there is an added layer of meaning to some state elections: Which party will be in control of redistricting in 2021? States redraw their congressional and state legislative districts every 10 years, after the census is conducted. In most states, the state legislature draws the maps, and the governor approves them. Virginia’s district maps are widely considered to be gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. According to the efficiency gap measure (which, yes, has flaws), both its congressional and state legislative maps show a bias. We don’t know yet which party will be in control of Virginia’s General Assembly after the 2020 election, but after tonight, we do know that the state will have a Democratic governor. At the very least, Gov. Northam will be able to veto district maps that disadvantage Democrats. If Democrats control the General Assembly after 2020, they might be able to gerrymander in their own favor.

Responding to Micah’s question about whether Democrats are favorites to win the House in 2018: I’d be a little more cautious. As I recall, Democrats were running about 8 percentage points ahead of their 2016 numbers in special elections earlier this year. We have yet to see the final results tonight, but Northam, while winning comfortably, only seems to be about 5 points ahead of Clinton last year. Dems will likely need a larger surge than that to take the House.