What Went Down In The 2018 Midterms

Both ABC News and CBS News indicate that Arizona’s nailbiter of a Senate race will not be called until later this week (or even early next week). The delay is because more than 1 million outstanding early voting ballots still need to be counted. At the time of this writing, Republican Rep. Martha McSally held a slim 1 percentage point lead over Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema with 75 percent of expected votes reporting, according to ABC News.

We’re also still waiting on the outcome of 11 House races (largely in California and Washington; it’ll be awhile before we have final results there because so many ballots are cast by mail and may not even have been delivered to officials yet), but the Democrats have secured a majority in the chamber with 223 seats compared to the 201 seats Republicans won.

As for governors races, Stacey Abrams has not yet conceded in Georgia, but it looks as if Secretary of State Brian Kemp has secured 50 percent of the vote and is poised to win the contest there.

Because we don’t anticipate getting any more results soon, we’re going to shut down the live blog. (One exception: The forecast to the right, including the net seat change in the House and Senate, will continue to update.)

Thanks for following along with us for the past two days, and stay tuned for more analysis on the site!

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, is speaking now. Her party will take majority control of the chamber next year. Follow along with the ABC livestream.

If last night was a blur for you, we don’t blame you. We also have a good way to relive all the big calls. Have a watch of this compilation video, which shows our writers reacting to the election as it unfolded.

In Washington, Measure 1631, the Carbon Emissions Fee Measure, lost, with 56 percent voting no. The measure would have put a tax on carbon emissions, and it was the second time in two years that a ballot measure on a carbon tax was voted down in the state. Groups in favor of the measure were outspent by oil interests who poured more than $31 million into defeating it.

Carbon taxes are widely favored by economists, but this second failure to pass such a tax shows how difficult it can be to convince voters. This latest effort to install a carbon tax in Washington received 57 percent of the vote in King County, where Seattle is located, revealing an urban/rural divide. Supporters of the measure pledge to continue the fight. “This problem is not going away regardless of whether we come out on top or not,” Nick Abraham, communications liaison for Yes on 1631, told Crosscut Magazine.

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.

Another pattern I noticed is that partisanship proved more important than scandal. Several incumbents (from both parties) who have faced indictment charges in the last few years won, but they were certainly penalized. In the New York 27th, GOP Rep. Chris Collins won by 2 points in a district Trump won by 25 points in 2016. In the California 50th, GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter won by 8 points in a district Trump carried by 15 poitns. And Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez won re-election by 9 points in New Jersey, which went for Clinton by 14 points.

As of Wednesday morning, 108 women have been elected to Congress (96 women in the House and 12 women in the Senate). Combined with the 10 female senators already serving who weren’t up for re-election this year, that makes for a record-breaking 118 women who will serve in the new Congress. There is still one more Senate seat to be decided in Arizona, but all the candidates are women, so a woman will win that seat as well. Prior to Tuesday’s election, there were 107 women in Congress. That marks an 11 percent increase from the previous Congress. Gains were made by Democratic women (83 of the 95 women elected to the House are Democrats and 10 of 13 women elected to the Senate are Democrats).

I’ve been looking at patterns in House races all morning. One thing that jumped out to me: Making a viral video and becoming an overnight Democratic sensation didn’t translate into actual wins. MJ Hegar in the Texas 31st, Amy McGrath in the Kentucky 6th and Randy Bryce in the Wisconsin 1st all lost in what are pretty red districts. However, the money they raised almost certainly helped them run a more competitive race than they otherwise would have. Hegar lost by just 3 points in a district Trump won by 13 points in 2016; McGrath lost by 3 in a district won by 15 poitnts. And Bryce underperformed, losing by 13 points in a district Trump won by 10 points.

On Trump’s claiming credit for GOP Senate gains: Midterm elections were already pretty nationalized, but I think Trump was quite effective in nationalizing the Senate races, so that’s not out of touch with reality. The rest of this seems like standard Trump. Definitely on the defensive — maybe a bit more so than usual.

I guess I’d say that he deserves partial credit for the Senate and partial blame for the House?

So what do we make of President Trump’s presser where he’s taking credit for Republican gains in the Senate while Democrats take back the House? Does he have a point or is he totally off base? And his rationale for not releasing his tax returns was just … bizarre.

I have no idea what’s in Trump’s tax returns, but I think Democrats have this tendency to look for silver bullets to defeat Trump that come from outside the normal flow of politics, whether it’s hoping Mueller finds something or releasing the tax returns.

That just seems stupid — even if either or both turn something up. Every election Trump has been involved in has been pretty normal in terms of the results and what we’d expect based on the fundamentals. I think they need a “normal” plan to beat Trump, even if they also have more moonshot hopes.

In his address to the nation, President Trump actually listed several Republican incumbents who lost while running campaigns that didn’t “embrace” him, including Rep. Mike Coffman in the Colorado 6th and Rep. Barbara Comstock in the Virginia 10th. Of course, in most of those cases, a Trump acolyte probably would have done even worse than they did, since Trump is unpopular in their blue, suburban districts. But it’s another reminder that Trump is anything but a conventional politician.

With 88 percent of precincts reporting, Sen. Jon Tester currently holds a slim 0.3 percentage point lead in Montana, with 48.7 percent of the vote compared to 48.4 percent for his opponent Matt Rosendale. And according to POLITICO, a slim margin like this for Tester isn’t that unusual. He has won both of his previous contests without winning a majority of the vote.

President Trump addresses the nation on the results of the midterm elections, in which Republicans made gains in the Senate and Democrats won a majority in the House. Follow along with live ABC news coverage.

The success of the Florida ballot initiative to restore many felons’ voting rights may have gotten the most attention, but criminal justice reform advocates won a string of other victories on ballot initiatives last night.

• Deep-red Louisiana voted “yes” on an amendment to end a Jim Crow law that allowed non-unanimous juries in felony trials.
• Voters in Washington state passed an initiative that could make it easier to prosecute police for negligent shootings.
• In Oregon, voters rejected an effort to repeal the state’s sanctuary law, which limits the extent to which local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration officers.
• And Coloradans voted to remove language in the state constitution that allows prison labor without pay.

As I noted last night, though, it was also a good night for another set of criminal-justice ballot initiatives that are controversial in some corners. “Marsy’s Law” snagged victories in all six states where it was on the ballot. Referred to as a “crime victims’ bill of rights,” the law gives crime victims more control of their participation in trial proceedings — but it’s also been criticized by some who say it could undermine defendants’ rights.

According to an email update from Ballotpedia, if Brian Kemp does indeed win the Georgia gubernatorial race, there will be 37 state-government trifectas (or single party control of the governorship, state Senate and state House). Republicans will control 23 state governments, while Democrats will control 14. And an amazing stat from the National Conference of State Legislatures: Only one state legislature is split in control between Democrats and Republicans (i.e., one party holds the Senate, the other party holds the House) — Minnesota. It’s the first time that’s happened since 1914.

The popularity of Medicaid expansion was on full display last night. Voters in three states chose to expand the program to those with incomes 133 percent below the federal poverty line. Idaho’s measure passed by a wide margin, with 61 percent in favor, while 53 percent voted in favor in Nebraska. In Utah, the measure is projected to pass, and currently has 54.1 percent of the vote with 75 percent of precincts reporting.

But as I mentioned last night, there are other states where governors race results might renew a push for Medicaid legislation as well. The Kansas legislature voted to expand Medicaid in 2017, but the bill was vetoed by former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. However, Democrat Laura Kelly’s win in the governor race last night could mean another attempt in the state. And in Maine, where voters chose to expand Medicaid on a 2017 ballot measure but Republican Gov. Paul LePage refused to implement it, newly elected governor Democrat Janet Mills could see that expansion through.

But in Montana, where voters decided whether or not to make its 2015 expansion permanent and paid for by a tax on tobacco, $17 million in opposition spending by big tobacco appears to have paid off: 54 percent of Montanans voted against the measure.

Democrat Tony Evers will be the next governor of Wisconsin. In some sense, Scott Walker’s loss marks the end of a golden age for Republican politics in the Badger State. Of course, the state is still sending a number of Republicans to Washington, including Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, but hear me out.

Walker was first elected in 2010, then survived a historic recall election in 2012 and was re-elected again in 2014. He charted a staunchly conservative path for Wisconsin and championed polarizing legislation like Act 10, which limited the power of public unions, and “right-to-work” laws, which limited the power of collective bargaining generally. Walker was a (very) early darling for conservatives in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

During Walker’s time in office, other Wisconsin Republicans also rose to national prominence. Paul Ryan became the 2012 vice presidential nominee and went on to become speaker of the House. Reince Priebus chaired the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017 and left to serve as President Trump’s chief of staff. Trump himself (not a Wisconsinite) won the state in the 2016 presidential race, becoming the first Republican to do so since 1984.

When Walker leaves office in January, he will close the book on eight years of Wisconsin Republican dominance. Priebus is out of his job at the White House and Ryan is moving home to Janesville. A Democrat in the governor’s mansion in 2021 will prevent any overwhelming Republican gerrymandering of the state’s electoral maps heading into the next decade. It’s been quite the Republican stretch for a state famous for its progressive politics.

Remember that confusion over whether Nelson conceded in the Florida Senate race? Apparently he has not. This morning, he announced that he’s going the recount route. Scott leads by nearly 35,000 votes, and the deadline for the recount is Nov. 10, high noon.

The top-line narratives haven’t changed much since last night: Democrats have a House majority and Republicans will keep the Senate (with a net gain of two seats under their belt at the moment and the possibility for more).

First, updates on the races that are still too close to call:

• As Geoffrey Skelley wrote this morning, no winner has been projected in the Senate races in Arizona, Florida and Montana, but the Republican candidate is holding a razor-thin lead in all three races. (There have been mixed media reports regarding whether Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson has conceded in Florida, but ABC News has not yet projected a winner and the race may still go to a recount.)
• One bright spot for Democrats in the Senate? In Nevada, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen defeated GOP incumbent Dean Heller by 4 points.
• As for the House, Democrats have won 223 seats and Republicans have won 201 so far, according to ABC News. Several of the races where no winner has yet been projected are in Washington and California, and it might be a while before we have final tallies there, as so many votes are cast by mail. The Maine 2nd may be decided by special rules due to its ranked-voting system. Nathaniel Rakich has more on major upsets of the evening, plus what happened in Romney-Clinton districts (good news for Democrats) and in Obama-Trump districts (more of a mixed bag).
• In governors races, Democrats picked up seven seats from Republicans last night in Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin. The Connecticut governor race is still too close to call, but it looks as if Democrats will maintain control as Democrat Ned Lamont leads the race by roughly 1 percentage point and Republican Bob Stefanowski conceded this morning. Alaska and Georgia’s gubernatorial races also remain too close to call. But it looks as if the majority of Americans will now have a Democratic governor, despite a stinging loss for Democrats in Florida and what looks to be a loss in Georgia as well. Perry Bacon has more on what this means.

The big questions have been answered. Democrats have taken the House. Republicans will keep the Senate. Exactly how many seats will change hands, however, is still up in the air:

• There are currently just over 30 House seats yet to be projected; if the current leader in all of them ends up winning, the House will be 227 Democrats, 208 Republicans.
• In the Senate, three races remain outstanding (not including Florida, where Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has conceded). In Montana, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is fighting for his political life, trailing Republican Matt Rosendale by about 1 point. In Arizona, Republican Rep. Martha McSally has a 1-point lead — 49 percent to 48 percent — over Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. Hundreds of thousands of votes remain to be counted, so it could go either way. In Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller trails Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen by 7 points. (And, in fact, the race has been called for her by some networks,)
• The unresolved gubernatorial races are in Wisconsin, where it seems like Democrat Tony Evers will just eke out a win; Georgia, where Republican Brian Kemp is up by a few points but only just above the threshold to avoid a runoff; Connecticut, where Democrat Ned Lamont is trailing; and Alaska and Nevada, where only about a fifth of the vote has been counted so far.

So we’re going to get a few hours of sleep, and — being completists — we’ll close this out sometime Wednesday with the final numbers. 😴

ABC News projects a Republican win in CA-21 and a Democratic win in SC-1 (😲).

Time for a good ol’ late-night podcast. Clare, Micah and I gathered in the studio to share first impressions of an election night that went generally according to expectations — but left plenty of room for you to write your own narrative. Take a listen. We’ll have more podcasts tomorrow and later this week as we get more data.

ABC News projects a Republican win in MT-AL.

South Carolina’s 1st District has been called for Democrat Joe Cunningham. That’s the third “likely Republican” district to go blue tonight.

With 67 percent of the vote reporting in the Arizona Senate race, Republican Martha McSally is ahead of Democrat Kyrsten Sinema 49.4 percent to 48.3 percent.

ABC News projects Democratic wins in NH-1 and NH-2.

I do not see any clear patterns on messaging. Whether candidates talked more about health care, taxes or immigration does not seem predictive of outcomes. Each issue was likely effective mainly at convincing each party’s leaners to support their party’s candidates.

Republican Greg Gianforte, the Montana congressman who body-slammed a reporter the night before a 2017 special election, has won re-election, according to our colleagues at ABC News. He currently leads Democrat Kathleen Williams 53 percent to 44 percent.

ABC News projects a Democratic win in IL-14.

Democrats’ share of U.S. House seats is not likely to be too far from their share of votes (although in the past, the winning party has usually had a higher share of seats than votes).

This should put Evers back in front in Wisconsin, obviously:

I’m really impressed with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s 61-36 win in Minnesota. Appointed Democratic Sen. Tina Smith won her concurrent race just 53-42, and Klobuchar did well in the Iron Range, where Democrats lost a House seat tonight. She really strengthened her case for winning over Trump voters in 2020 tonight.

Here’s a nugget from preliminary exit-poll data in the Montana Senate race: Tester is winning voters who are younger than 30 by a 43-point margin over Republican Matt Rosendale. He won that demographic by just an 8-point margin in 2012, according to ABC News.

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.

Beep boop …

I might be an emotional robot, but tonight isn’t causing me much anguish. I had calibrated my expectations based on FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe forecasts for the House, Senate and gubernatorial races before the night began … and it seems they were a pretty good guide.

None of the races tonight were cause for alarm (😲🚨), although I was shocked (😲) by Democrat Max Rose’s win in the New York 11th, mostly in Staten Island, and by Democrat Kendra Horn’s win in Oklahoma’s 5th District, which covers much of Oklahoma City. I was also shocked by Republican Ron DeSantis’s win in Florida’s gubernatorial race.

I was surprised (😮) by a few Republican wins in statewide races. Particularly, Republican gubernatorial wins for Mike DeWine in Ohio and Kim Reynolds in Iowa, as well as Republican Mike Braun’s Senate win in Indiana. I was also surprised by the Republican win in Kansas 2.

Still, it looks like most of the races fell within my expected ranges. As my editor-in-chief said (yes, robots have bosses), it looks like polls are still a “pretty darn good instrument overall” if you are a robot that wants to avoid emotional turmoil.

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Mike Wagner:

As we get ready to wrap up, Democrat Tony Evers is up by about 100 votes in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial election.

ABC News projects a Democratic win in CA-7.

Republicans carried the national House popular vote by 1 percentage point in 2016, and based on The Upshot model, they look likely to lose by about 7 percentage points in 2018. That 8-point shift would be nearly as large as the 9-point shift toward Republicans that happened in 2010 and the largest shift toward the Democrats since 1948.

I’d be careful on Montana there. Our model is just looking at the overall vote count and not where the outstanding votes are from. The Upshot’s model thinks there’s a lot left from Missoula that will likely put Tester ahead.