What Went Down On Election Night 2017

Chad, if we’re talking about general elections, I guess that’s about right. Roy Moore, who was Trumping before Trumping was a glimmer in Trump’s eye (at least in terms of style), is really the ideal Breitbart shoot-from-the-hip candidate. I suppose we have a couple of primaries, though, that will be interesting to watch — I still think that Arizona’s Republican Senate primary will tell us a lot about how a far-right candidate plays against a more mainstream tea party one.

Clare, if Gillespie was “swamp thing,” as Breitbart wrote, how many Breitbart-approved candidates on the ballot before Election Day 2018? Is it just Roy Moore in Alabama? Strikes me that analysts won’t have many more opportunities to evaluate how the Breitbart message plays in this environment before the midterms.

We’ve been monitoring whether Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates have hit their target vote margins in each county. It shouldn’t come as a shock that Northam is hitting more of his: He’s outpacing his benchmarks in 75 counties, compared with Gillespie’s 55.

We have no returns from areas outside of New York City, but in the city Con Con is getting crushed by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. That is, there will be no constitutional convention in New York next year. This would be a major victory for progressive groups, if it holds.

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham embraces the president’s view of Gillespie’s defeat: He was insufficiently Trumpian. https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/928080472504176640

I don’t normally project races, but to no one’s surprise, I can say that de Blasio will win re-election as mayor of New York City based on early returns.

Comparing the complete vote results of 10 Maine townships on Medicaid expansion with their presidential votes last year, there’s a pretty high correlation (r-squared of .68). On average, the “yes” vote is running 15 points ahead of where Clinton ran last year. The big outlier here is Madawaska.

Other than Quinnipiac, Virginia polls will have been pretty bad tonight; it now looks the polling average will have been low on Northam’s margin by 6 or 7 points. By comparison, the national polls were 1 or 2 points too low on Trump in 2016, and swing state polls were 2 or 3 points too low on him. There’s a danger that polls will overcompensate for last year’s mistakes by lowballing Democrats instead.

In Maine, South Portland has reported: Medicaid expansion won by 53 points. Clinton’s margin over Trump was closer to 40 points in South Portland. It seems to me Medicaid expansion is going to pass.

I do, Micah — I’d pick Democrats if forced to make a choice. But I’d have to do a lot more analysis before I was ready to conclude whether they were like 51 percent favorites or 75 percent favorites. My answer would have been pretty similar if you’d asked me 24 hours ago, by the way.

Do people agree with Dave that we now have to call Democrats favorites to win control of the U.S. House in 2018?

What’s normal here: State-level candidates in off-years (including midterms) not infrequently try to distance themselves from the president. Voters tend not to buy and punish the president’s party anyway. Obama aides even said in 2009 that losing Virginia candidate Creigh Deeds failed to embrace Obama fully. What strikes me as unique, at least, is the president’s overt distancing himself from the losing candidate, saying that “he did not embrace me or what I stand for.”

Again, I never thought I’d be saying this, but by my back-of-the-envelope count, Democrats are currently in the lead to pick up Virginia’s House of Delegates. They started the night with 34 of 100 seats and have already picked up 12 GOP-held seats. There are eight more GOP-held seats that are still too close to call, and Democrats are currently in the lead in six of them. If those leads hold, the speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2018 will be a Democrat. Given the GOP’s aggressive gerrymander of Virginia’s delegate districts in 2011, this is what you’d call a tidal wave.

The polls have closed in the city and state of New York. We’ll be getting returns shortly.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/928078212709650432

Micah, I tend to think politicians do what they will on policy and then justify it later. Democrats, for example, pushed through the Affordable Care Act in 2010, even after Republican Scott Brown’s Senate win in Massachusetts was such a huge political blow to them and suggested that the ACA was unpopular. Republicans want to do taxes. So I think that GOP leadership will say: “This result shows that we are not getting enough done. We need a win, to prove to our voters we are executing. So we will pass this tax cut.” My question is: Do GOP members in competitive/swing districts look at this result and conclude that Trump is an anchor around them and backing anything he is strongly for (like the tax plan) is a mistake? I doubt it. I also think we have to emphasize that candidates need donor support to win. GOP donors really want this tax bill passed.

Perry, do tonight’s results make tax legislation passing Congress more or less likely?

Virginia’s Democratic delegate success meter

The 25 most vulnerable Republican seats in the House of Delegates

Pickup opportunities for Democrats
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
2nd	McAuliffe +11	Warner +6	Clinton +17	D+44.9	60.90%
31st	McAuliffe +3	Gillespie +2	Clinton +7	D+9.0	96.20%
32nd	McAuliffe +7	Warner +2	Clinton +19	D+17.2	95.80%
42nd	McAuliffe +6	Warner +2	Clinton +20	D+24.5	68.40%
67th	McAuliffe +8	Warner +6	Clinton +22	D+17.4	71.40%
Toss ups
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
12th	McAuliffe +6	Warner +8	Clinton +2	D+25.1	60.00%
13th	McAuliffe +1	Gillespie +4	Clinton +14	D+9.2	95.00%
21st	McAuliffe +4	Warner +3	Clinton +4	D+7.0	75.00%
72nd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +6	Clinton +4	D+3.9	89.30%
94th	McAuliffe +3	Warner +2	Clinton +5	D+3.3	75.00%
Reaches
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
10th	Cuccinelli +3	Gillespie +8	Clinton +4	D+9.4	80.00%
40th	Cuccinelli +7	Gillespie +11	Clinton +8	D+1.3	87.00%
50th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +3	Clinton +12	D+9.1	93.80%
51st	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +7	Clinton +6	D+6.0	95.50%
68th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +4	Clinton +10	D+0.7	82.80%
73rd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +5	Clinton +7	D+3.4	95.70%
85th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +3	Trump +1	D+1.6	83.30%
100th	McAuliffe +2	Warner +1	Clinton +2	R+14.0	59.40%
Wave territory
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
26th	Cuccinelli +17	Gillespie +20	Trump +9	D+12.1	54.20%
27th	Cuccinelli +8	Gillespie +8	Trump +4	R+0.0	95.50%
28th	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +9	Trump +4	R+10.5	52.20%
33rd	Cuccinelli +15	Gillespie +20	Trump +16	R+7.9	77.40%
62nd	Cuccinelli +9	Gillespie +7	Trump +6	R+4.2	80.80%
83rd	Cuccinelli +4	Gillespie +9	Trump +8	R+18.7	50.00%
84th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +5	Trump +5	D+4.2	83.30%

Saco, Maine, is one of the first cities to report on Question 2, and there, 64 percent back the Medicaid expansion while 36 percent oppose it. That almost precisely matches the presidential results from 2016, when Trump got 37 percent of the vote there compared with Clinton’s 63 percent.

Uh, so Breitbart updated its Gillespie headline again: “Republican Swamp Thing Gillespie Rejected.” There you go! The Bannon wing is salty.

To parse a somewhat fine distinction — it’s not like tonight should necessarily change people’s priors all that much for what will happen in 2018. Democrats are doing well, but not necessarily any better than you’d expect when they’re running against a president with a 38 percent approval rating. However, those priors already ought to have been pretty bullish for Dems based on Trump’s approval rating, the generic ballot, special election results so far, and the history of the president’s party performing poorly at the midterms. Tonight’s result confirms all that other data.

Gillespie ran on some Trumpian themes but did not fully embrace the president. Gillespie did not, for example, do an event with Trump. Northam was excited to have Obama with him. Gillespie is a savvy guy with a long career in politics, so I suspect that his campaign’s data showed that embracing Trump more directly would have hurt them. So Gillespie did not embrace Trump. The president is right about that. But I’m not sure that embrace would have helped Gillespie win. It might have led him to lose by even more.

I disagree with the president’s electoral analysis. Gillespie lost because of the president’s unpopularity, not because he didn’t embrace the president enough.

For those of you looking at data from Maine, there’s a really interesting dynamic emerging there: Nowadays, the more educated, coastal towns tend to lean more to the left, while more inland areas tend to back Trump and the Republicans. So far, that’s appearing in the Question 2 returns.

Micah, I’d modify slightly to “the president’s party tends to lose in elections when the president isn’t on the ballot.” But, yeah, that’s been among the most empirically ironclad rules in American politics. It’s held true through many political environments over many years. And that’s why nothing about tonight should really be all that surprising.

First — why the hell would I need an electoral prior on a deserted island? But to answer the question: It’s close. Although I’d probably pack partisanship along with my copies of “Election” and “Little Earthquakes.”

Yeah, Micah — “midterms are big problems for the president’s party” is a cardinal rule. It would probably be my No. 1.

Question for the group: If you were stranded on a deserted island and had to choose only one electoral prior to bring with you, is “the president’s party tends to lose” the most effective one we have?

Just a little check in with right-wing media tonight: Breitbart’s front page is reading “Establishment Republican Gillespie Rejected.” Notice anything there? Bannon’s site is calling out what they see as Gillespie disingenuously dressed up in the trappings of Trumpism. Their Twitter feed has largely been silent tonight on the races. And guess what? Trump just tweeted that Gillespie didn’t embrace him enough: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928074747316928513

So far, I’ve looked at nine Maine towns, and it looks like the results are tracking Trump’s 2016 performance pretty closely. Put differently, the places that backed Trump also oppose the Medicaid expansion by similar margins. That could mean a close election, as the 2016 election in Maine was decided by around 3 points. But since Portland, Auburn and Lewiston had ballot measures locally, those are places that are likely to have higher turnout — and so are worth keeping an eye on.

I’m looking at this town data from Maine, and I think Medicaid expansion has a better shot of passing than not. I’m not sure it will be that close, but this could be a weird race. A lot of the areas that have reported are more pro-Republican, and Portland (pro-Democrat) is still out. Expansion is leading by 7 percentage points so far.

This just in: Democrat Chris Hurst has unseated Republican Delegate Joseph Yost in Blacksburg’s District 12. Hurst is a former news anchor whose girlfriend, reporter Alison Parker, was killed on live television in 2015. He ran with the support of gun control groups. By my count, this brings Democrats’ pickups to 12 seats. They need five more for control of the House of Delegates.

To Seth’s point, I think because of who Gillespie was, it’ll be a bit muddled to argue exactly what was repudiated tonight. But “Trump” is still a nice simple answer.

Pundits and party leaders will probably overinterpret campaign and candidate approaches from today — e.g., Northam was fairly moderate but also called Trump a “narcissistic maniac.” Which model should future candidates follow? In fact, it was just a good night for Democrats, a harsh referendum on Trump (similar with other elections earlier this year), and candidate tactics and statements have only a pretty modest influence on outcomes.

Someone just pointed out on CNN, correctly, that Trump is catastrophically unpopular for a first-year president. And Virginia was a state that Clinton won, as we’ve said. So I’m now contemplating what a huge victory it would’ve been, in that context, for Gillespie to have won tonight. The surprise result is often the most powerful one — that didn’t happen.

Per Perry’s point about interpreting elections, I wrote about this today. Why are Americans so into looking for meaning in elections? I think part of it is a search for legitimacy in our governing institutions and part of it is that polarization makes it easy to do. But I think it’s also that we have these fixed terms, which makes the idea of “signals” to the president seem important. And they’re winner-take-all, so there’s an incentive most of the time for losers to try to frame the results a bit.

I didn’t think I’d be saying this at 8:30 p.m., but Virginia has been swept up in such a Democratic tidal wave that Democrats may have a legitimate chance to win the 17 seats they need to pick up the House of Delegates. By my quick, rough count, Democrats have already picked up 11 seats (districts 2, 10, 13, 31, 32, 42, 50, 51, 67, 72, 72) and they still have a chance in 13 more. They’ve already pulled off a few upsets, unseating GOP incumbents in the outer suburbs of Northern Virginia like Dels. Jackson Miller, Rich Anderson and Randy Minchew. But they’ve also picked up two seats in suburban Richmond and have a chance at a third. They’re also knocking on the door in several Hampton Roads districts. This is just a massive night for Democrats.

Virginia’s Democratic delegate success meter

The 25 most vulnerable Republican seats in the House of Delegates

Pickup opportunities for Democrats
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
2nd	McAuliffe +11	Warner +6	Clinton +17	D+52.6	47.80%
31st	McAuliffe +3	Gillespie +2	Clinton +7	D+12.3	92.30%
32nd	McAuliffe +7	Warner +2	Clinton +19	D+17.2	95.80%
42nd	McAuliffe +6	Warner +2	Clinton +20	D+21.9	42.10%
67th	McAuliffe +8	Warner +6	Clinton +22	D+15.2	33.30%
Toss ups
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
12th	McAuliffe +6	Warner +8	Clinton +2	D+20.9	51.40%
13th	McAuliffe +1	Gillespie +4	Clinton +14	D+9.2	95.00%
21st	McAuliffe +4	Warner +3	Clinton +4	D+7.0	75.00%
72nd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +6	Clinton +4	D+3.9	89.30%
94th	McAuliffe +3	Warner +2	Clinton +5	R+2.0	50.00%
Reaches
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
10th	Cuccinelli +3	Gillespie +8	Clinton +4	D+9.4	80.00%
40th	Cuccinelli +7	Gillespie +11	Clinton +8	R+8.8	60.90%
50th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +3	Clinton +12	D+9.1	93.80%
51st	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +7	Clinton +6	D+6.0	95.50%
68th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +4	Clinton +10	R+2.0	72.40%
73rd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +5	Clinton +7	D+3.4	95.70%
85th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +3	Trump +1	D+1.4	77.80%
100th	McAuliffe +2	Warner +1	Clinton +2	R+23.4	40.60%
Wave territory
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
26th	Cuccinelli +17	Gillespie +20	Trump +9	D+19.8	41.70%
27th	Cuccinelli +8	Gillespie +8	Trump +4	R+0.0	95.50%
28th	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +9	Trump +4	—	0.00%
33rd	Cuccinelli +15	Gillespie +20	Trump +16	R+7.9	77.40%
62nd	Cuccinelli +9	Gillespie +7	Trump +6	D+0.6	61.50%
83rd	Cuccinelli +4	Gillespie +9	Trump +8	R+21.2	45.50%
84th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +5	Trump +5	D+6.8	77.80%

I’m seeing a lot of tweets/coverage making the argument that Virginia is now a totally blue state. I’d push back on that slightly. It’s a blue-leaning state, but tonight’s results look more like they’re a product of the national environment. Because it’s not just about Virginia: Democrats are getting solid results pretty much everywhere so far tonight. They also did pretty well in some very red districts in special elections earlier this year. And the polls look good for Democrats on measures like the generic ballot.

Early Maine results come from the town of Farmington and have the Medicaid expansion winning 62 percent of the vote, with just 38 percent in opposition to Question 2 there. The state’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, won 45 percent of Farmington’s vote on the way to winning re-election in 2014. An initial positive sign for the Medicaid expansion.

The Democrats I follow on Twitter are of course elated. I will be curious to see how people in the party interpret a win by Northam, a fairly traditional Democrat more in the style of Clinton than Sanders, who took liberal stands on economic issues and cultural ones but was not really particularly compelling on either front, who tried to win moderate votes but also liberal ones.

Here’s the metaphor that one of us just used in the office: “I’m jumping out the window with my boogie board to catch the wave.” I won’t say who it was. [Editor’s note: It was Harry.]

I think Nate is hitting the right point here: Does this kind of result push a few more Republicans in swing districts to retire? That makes holding the House harder for the GOP. Incumbents are almost always more likely to win in a tough district. Right now, we are seeing a lot of GOP retirements in the House, but many of them are members who are about to lose their chairmanships because of term limits or members who may just be ready to move on. They are in safe districts. Dems have to hope tonight leads to a few more GOP House members who live in competitive districts deciding to retire.

Another way to look at tonight is that it’s a case of the “fundamentals” proving more useful than either the polls or the conventional wisdom about the race. If you looked at the seemingly favorable national environment for Democrats and Virginia’s modest blue lean, you’d have expected Northam to win by something like 9 points. And it looks like that’s about what he’ll win by.

Virginia’s Democratic delegate success meter

The 25 most vulnerable Republican seats in the House of Delegates

Pickup opportunities for Democrats
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
2nd	McAuliffe +11	Warner +6	Clinton +17	D+52.6	47.80%
31st	McAuliffe +3	Gillespie +2	Clinton +7	D+15.0	88.50%
32nd	McAuliffe +7	Warner +2	Clinton +19	D+17.8	95.80%
42nd	McAuliffe +6	Warner +2	Clinton +20	D+12.4	31.60%
67th	McAuliffe +8	Warner +6	Clinton +22	D+17.1	28.60%
Toss ups
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
12th	McAuliffe +6	Warner +8	Clinton +2	D+16.9	42.90%
13th	McAuliffe +1	Gillespie +4	Clinton +14	D+9.2	95.00%
21st	McAuliffe +4	Warner +3	Clinton +4	D+7.1	65.00%
72nd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +6	Clinton +4	D+3.7	85.70%
94th	McAuliffe +3	Warner +2	Clinton +5	R+2.4	45.80%
Reaches
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
10th	Cuccinelli +3	Gillespie +8	Clinton +4	D+8.8	76.70%
40th	Cuccinelli +7	Gillespie +11	Clinton +8	R+8.7	52.20%
50th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +3	Clinton +12	D+9.1	93.80%
51st	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +7	Clinton +6	D+6.0	95.50%
68th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +4	Clinton +10	R+5.2	69.00%
73rd	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +5	Clinton +7	D+3.4	95.70%
85th	Cuccinelli +2	Gillespie +3	Trump +1	D+1.4	77.80%
100th	McAuliffe +2	Warner +1	Clinton +2	R+12.5	31.30%
Wave territory
	PAST RESULTS			TONIGHT’S RETURNS
DISTRICT	2013 GOVERNOR	2014 SENATE	2016 PRESIDENT	MARGIN	% REPORTING
26th	Cuccinelli +17	Gillespie +20	Trump +9	D+29.2	25.00%
27th	Cuccinelli +8	Gillespie +8	Trump +4	D+0.4	95.50%
28th	Cuccinelli +5	Gillespie +9	Trump +4	—	0.00%
33rd	Cuccinelli +15	Gillespie +20	Trump +16	R+7.8	67.70%
62nd	Cuccinelli +9	Gillespie +7	Trump +6	D+3.6	57.70%
83rd	Cuccinelli +4	Gillespie +9	Trump +8	R+21.2	45.50%
84th	Cuccinelli +1	Gillespie +5	Trump +5	D+4.4	72.20%

I’ve been puzzling this week about what the significance of Virginia is for the Democrats. In 2008, Obama was the first Democrat to win in a presidential race there since 1964. It was considered pretty solidly conservative, and the D.C. suburbs have changed that. If it becomes a place that Democrats start to count on as part of at least the likely coalition (a prediction that is perhaps premature given Clinton’s narrow margin there last year), what does that mean? It makes me wonder if the state is unique or if the Democrats will start to be more generally competitive in Southern states with urban centers — perhaps as the Rust Belt Midwest moves toward Republicans.

In the 70 Virginia cities/counties with at least 70 percent of the vote counted, Northam is up an average of 4.4 points over Clinton’s performance last year. Clinton won statewide by 5.

A key way tonight will have downstream consequences in Congress: It’s 2017, and that means that governors elected to four-year terms will in many states play a role in their state’s redistricting processes. By winning the gubernatorial race in Virginia, the Democrats have gotten a seat at the table in Virginia’s redistricting process.

Very early returns in Maine have Medicaid expansion ahead. We’ll see if that holds when more votes comes in.

I’d add to Perry’s point that this result came in a week when there were several key Republican retirements in Congress. So there was already a lot of worry, but before, Trump might have been able to say, “Don’t worry, because polls always overrate Democrats and they never win elections.” Now, that’s going to sound a bit emptier.

I’m very skeptical of the idea that Democratic wins in states like New Jersey and Virginia, where Clinton won in 2016, are going to move congressional Republicans decisively away from Trump. But I think tonight adds to an overall climate of congressional Republicans viewing Trump as a problem, not as an asset. They already did not trust him that much on policy. Now, the Virginia results suggest that Trump’s political strategy may only work for Trump.