What Went Down In The 2018 Midterms

A little more data has come in from Montana, and now Republican Matt Rosendale has taken the lead over Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, 49 percent to 48 percent. It’s still difficult to say how this will shake out. Many of the blue counties in the state have a lot of outstanding vote, including Missoula. But there are some small GOP-leaning counties that have not reported anything yet. Note that Tester has never won an outright majority in his two Senate win (49.2 percent in 2006 and 48.6 percent in 2012), so if he does eke out a win, this would be par for the course.

California’s Senate results are eyebrow-raising. Sen. Dianne Feinstein leads fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon just 54 percent to 46 percent — a lot closer than most people thought it would be. Is it huge turnout among progressives? (De Leon was challenging Feinstein from the left.) Is it that Republicans just instinctively voted against their old nemesis Feinstein? My guess, looking at the county-by-county results, is the latter.

In Arizona, it looks like the remaining vote is almost entirely from Maricopa, Pima and Apache counties. Those are three of the four most Democratic counties in the state. Given that Sinema is just 1 percentage point behind McSally in what’s currently reporting, I like her chances.