What Went Down In The 2018 Midterms

How did last night’s voting-related ballot initiatives shake out? It was a mixed bag, both for people in favor of expanding voting access and those in favor of restricting it. In addition to Florida’s constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to many felons, several measures that could make it easier to vote were successful:

• Automatic voter registration passed in Nevada and Michigan, where people applying for driver’s license will now be automatically registered to vote, unless they affirmatively opt out.
• Michigan voters also approved several other sweeping changes to their election laws, adding same-day voter registration, making it easier to request absentee ballots, and reinstating the straight-ticket voting option that was nixed by the Republican legislature a few years ago.
• Maryland voters approved same-day registration.

Voter ID measures — which tend to be popular — also did well at the ballot box. Voters in North Carolina and Arkansas approved measures that will require voters to show some form of photo ID when they cast ballots in person. In North Carolina, the legislature will decide which kinds of photo ID will qualify. Back in 2013, North Carolina legislators passed a similar law, but it was struck down by the courts as racially discriminatory.

With 22 women winning seats in the Nevada Assembly, the state has scored a female majority in the chamber — a historic first for the state. And according to New York Times reporting from June, when the new legislative class is sworn in, Nevada will be first state legislature in U.S. history to have more women than men serving.

There will be at least 18 people headed to Congress who could count as members of a science caucus — meaning they have backgrounds in STEM fields or have demonstrated support for STEM issues. (Ten of the 18 are incumbents.) And this number could grow — another five races featuring candidates with STEM backgrounds haven’t been called yet.

In general, science candidates performed better than expected. Three of the winners — Elaine Luria in the Virginia 2nd, Joe Cunningham in the South Carolina 1st and Steve Watkins in the Kansas 2nd — weren’t favored by our forecast going in. It’s worth noting, though, that this block is unlikely to all vote the same way: Two are Republicans and one is a pro-life Democrat. As a country, we still haven’t decided what it means to be a science candidate — or whether it means anything at all.