Tag Archives: Alaska

August 20 Primaries — Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming

As we conclude the August primaries (there are runoffs next week in Oklahoma, but nothing above the state legislative level), the main focus will be on Florida.  Yes there are primaries in Alaska and Wyoming, but they will have little impact on November.

In Alaska, the only statewide or Congressional primary is for the one house seat.  However, Alaska uses  a top four primary.  Barring a major upset, the top three are all but set.  Democratic Representative Mary Peltola might lose in November, but she will get well beyond the 20% needed to be assured of a spot in the top four.  The top two Republicans are two-time third-placed candidate Nick Begich and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom.  It is possible that whomever of these two gets fewer votes might only end up in the mid to high teens.  If there were five strong candidates, that might be fatal to making the top four.  But there aren’t five strong candidates and a number in the mid-teens will probably be good enough for a top four finish.  Beyond those three, nobody has raised significant funds.  Somebody will do good enough to finish four and make the general, and that somebody might get some funds to run a general election campaign.  But that candidate is unlikely to get enough votes in November to avoid being the first candidate out in ranked-choice voting.

In Wyoming, there will be primaries on the Republican side for both the Senate and the House.  One of the two challengers in the Senate has raised a significant amount of money, but there is no indication that there is significant grassroots opposition to either incumbent.  My expectation is that both incumbents will have comfortable wins on Tuesday. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms-Preview (Part 5)

Finally, we reach the end of the evening.  Five hours after the first polls closed in Kentucky and Indiana, we reach 10 p.m. Central ST.  At this time the last polls close in North Dakota and Idaho (covered in part 4).  Likewise, the remainder of the polls (representing the vast majority of the state) close in Oregon.  And, even though both states have a significant number of mail-in votes (as is true for several of the western states discussed in earlier posts), the polls will close in California and Washington.

I’ll start with Washington.  Washington has a top two primary (as does California).  Unlike Califronia, all of the races feature a Democrat against a Republican.  While there are some polls showing a potentially competitive race for Senate, I’m just not seeing it.  Washington is too blue in recent years.  Even in a red wave, Senator Patty Murray should win.  Most of the polls making this state seem close come from polls sponsored by Republican-affiliated groups.  While they may end up being right, even they are merely showing a close race.  The current split in the House is seven Democrats and three Republicans.  There are three seats that could flip.   The Third District is currently held by the Republicans, but, in the primay, the incumbent representative barely finished in third after having the integrity to vote to impeach President Trump.  Whether moderate Republicans will vote for the Democrat in the general and flip this seat — for the next two years to the Democrats — is the big question.  In a red wave, the Republicans have a chance at taking the Eighth District and the Tenth District.  The Tenth District (basically a swatch southwest of Seattle from Tacoma to Olympia) is more likely to stay Democratic.  The Eighth District (an exurban/rural district to the east of Seattle) looks more like a swing district, but Democrats are still favored.  Because of mail-in ballots, it typically takes several days to figure out who wins close races.

Moving south to Oregon, the big race is for Governor.  And it’s a classic argument for ranked-choice voting.  Business interests have pushed a moderate Democrat to run as an independent, and this candidate may take just enough votes to allow the Republicans to win by a narrow plurality.  The race is a pure toss-up.   Senator Ron Wyden is solidly favored to be reelected which might just have enough coattails to allow the Democrat to win the open race for governor.  In the House, the current split is four Democrats to one Republican with one new seat.  In the Fifth District, the Democratic incumbent lost in the primary to a progressive challenger.  There is a risk that the progressive nominee is too progressive for the district which runs from the suburbs of Portland into a rural part of the state to the south and east of Portland.  The Sixth District is the “new” district and is a little bit geographically smaller than the Fifth, but like the Fifth it runs from the immediate suburbs of Portland into the rural areas to the south and west of Portland.    The Republicans also have outside chances in the Fourth District, an open seat, which runs along the Pacific Coast in the area to the south and west of the Fifth and Sixth.  If the Democrats get all three of the seats, they could potentially keep the House.  In a red wave, the Republicans could gain all three seats. Continue Reading...

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2022 Elections — A First Glance

The 2020 elections left both the House and the Senate closely divided.  And two years is a long time in politics.  But experience has taught politicians two, somewhat contradictory, things that will impact what can get done during the next two years.

The first, especially for the House of Representatives, is that the President’s party typically loses seats.  But the reason for this normal rule is that a new President has typically helped members of his party to flip seats.  As such, this might be less true for 2022 than in the past.  In 2020, the Democrats only won three new seats, and two were the results of North Carolina having to fix its extreme gerrymander.  And only a handful of Democratic incumbents won close races.  And the rule is less consistent for the Senate, in large part because the Senators up for election are not the ones who ran with the President in the most recent election but the ones who ran with the prior president six years earlier.  In other words, the President’s party tends to be more vulnerable in the Senate in the midterms of the second term than in the midterms of the first term.  But the likelihood that the President’s party will lose seats is an incentive to do as much as possible during the first two years.

The second is that one cause of the swing may be overreach — that voters are trying to check a President who is going further than the voters actually wanted.  This theory assumes that there are enough swing voters who really want centrist policies and that they switch sides frequently to keep either party from passing more “extreme” policies.  Polls do not really support this theory and there is an argument that, at least part of the mid-term problem, could be the failure to follow through on all of the promises leading to less enthusiasm with the base.  But this theory is a reason for taking things slowly and focusing on immediate necessities first and putting the “wish list” on hold until after the mid-terms. Continue Reading...

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Election Night Preview — Part 7 (Referendums)

The first six posts in this series have focused mostly on federal elections with a handful of Governor’s races.  Of course, there are also state legislative races, some local (mostly county) races, and referendums.

While I am sure that somebody has a complete list of every local bond issue or city charter issue, this post will focus on the state-wide issues.  More specifically, this post will focus primarily on the changes that will make structural changes to the political system.  It’s not that votes on legalization of marijuana or changes to the criminal justice system are unimportant, it’s just that many of these referendums are the results of the failure of the elected politicians to address these issues.  and it’s the structural changes that may (or may not) make legislatures more responsive to these types of issues.

Several states are considering changes to the structure of elections  In Massachusetts, voters will have the option of following in Maine’s footsteps by adopting ranked-choice voting for most state and federal elections (except for President). Continue Reading...

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Election Night Preview — Part 5 (11 PM EST to Sunrise)

Recent elections have been so close that between the inability to call states and the large number of electoral votes on the West Coast, the news media has been unable to call the presidential election before 11 PM EST.

Before going into the states that will be closing at 11 p.m. or later, some words about the process of projecting a winner.  Each network has a team that makes the decision on when to project.   For all intents and purposes, this team is in a sealed room with no knowledge about what the talking heads or saying or whether other networks have made a projection.   There are lots of data that these teams look at: 1) election day exit polls; 2) early vote exit polls; 3) polls of those who voted by mail; 4) the reported early vote; 4) how many mail-in ballots remain to be counted; 5) “key” precincts (key in the sense that the team knows the typical vote in those precincts and can judge the swing in those precincts); 6) which precincts (and counties) have not yet reported.  Basically, while the margin of error in exit polls makes it difficult to call a close (52-48) race based on exit polls, you can call a landslide (60-40) based on exit polls.  For those in which exit polls show a close race, you need enough votes to make a call.  And if the early results are consistent with a close race, you can’t make a call into the outstanding vote is too small to realistically swing the race (i.e. the remaining precincts are in areas that favor candidate X who is ahead or candidate Y would need 95% of the remaining vote and has been getting 80% of the vote in similar precincts).  One fact that could hinder making projections and lead to a state being uncalled on election night is a large number of uncounted absentee ballots (due to a state not being able to count before election day) or a large number of absentee ballots not yet returned in states that have a post-election day deadline for receipt of absentee ballots if postmarked by election day.

At 11 p.m., we will have partial closings in the remaining parts of Idaho, North Dakota, and Oregon.  Of these three states, most of the voters Idaho and North Dakota are in the part that closed at 10 p.m. EST.  However, in Oregon, most of the voters live in the Pacific time zone which will close at 11 p.m.  The entirety of the state also closes for California and Washington,  At midnight, the polls close in part of Alaska and in all of Hawaii.  Finally at 1:00 a.m., polls close in the remainder of Alaska. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Alaska (Updated)

With things somewhat up in the air about Wisconsin, Alaska is the next state to complete its voting.  Alaska is one of the states that moved from a caucus to a party-run primary since the last cycle.  In response to Covid-19, the Alaska Democratic Party has moved to a vote-by-mail election.  Ballots are supposed to be received by April 10, and the state party will release the results on April 11.

Alaska is using a ranked-choice ballot with candidates being eliminated (starting with the candidate with the least votes) until all of the remaining candidates are viable.  With only two candidates still running, even if some small segment of voters who voted early have another candidate as their first choice, the final count after preferences are distributed should leave only Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden with votes on the final count.  Under the rules for the primary, because only viable candidates will be left in the final count, there is no difference between the final total votes and qualified votes.

What makes delegate math unusual in Alaska is the fact that it is a single-district state.  Under the rules, the allocation of delegates is calculated separately for each of the three pools, but the state-wide results are used to allocate all three pools.  The fact that the pools are calculated separately gives a different result than if all the delegates were allocated as one pool. Continue Reading...

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Ranked Choice Voting and the Primaries

As the year comes to a close, we are approximately five weeks from the first votes of the 2020 election.  This post is to highlight one of the new features of this election — that several states will be using ranked choice voting.  (As described further below, Nevada will be using ranked-choice voting to allow early voters to participate in the caucuses.   Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and Wyoming will be using ranked-choice voting in a party-run primary.  Maine will be using ranked-choice voting in a state-run primary.)

In the past, we have had something similar to ranked choice voting in some of the caucus states.  Typically, many of the caucus states allow attendees to realign after the first vote if their preferred candidate does not receive enough votes to qualify for a delegate.  Of course, when this process occurs at a caucus, the attendees have some idea of where the candidates currently stand and have the ability to negotiate delegate slots in exchange for moving as a bloc.  (Even at the handful of remaining caucus, the ability to make deals will be greatly reduced.  In the past, it was possible — for example — for Richardson supporters to move to Edwards in exchange for a pledge that one of the delegate slots would go to a Richardson supporter who would be a free agent at the county convention.  Under the new rules, the national delegate allocations are locked after the precinct convention significantly reducing the value of such delegate deals.)

Ranked choice voting requires voters to decide in advance whom they would support if their candidate is not viable.  For the most part, there has not been large support for moving to ranked choice voting in general elections in this country.  For a variety of reasons, the two major parties are more dominant in the U.S. than in most other countries.  (For example, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all held parliamentary elections last year.  In those elections, the two main parties had a combined vote total of 67-76% of the vote.  By contrast, in the 2018 house elections, the two main parties had over 98% of the vote.  Even at the low point of the 1992 election, the two main parties combined for over 80% of the vote.)  The absence of significant votes for third-party candidates means that — most of the time — the winning candidate in U.S. elections gets a majority of the vote in their district.  (Again for comparison, in the 2019 elections abroad, the winning candidate only had a plurality in about one-third of the districts in the United Kingdom, and about two-thirds of the districts in Canada and Australia.  By contrast, combining the House, the Senate, and state-wide races, the winning candidate in the 2018 elections in the U.S. only had a plurality in 28 contests — less than five percent of the races. ) Continue Reading...

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Virtual Voting and the 2020 Nomination

As Doc Jess noted yesterday, the Rules and By-Laws Committee (the party entity with responsibility for reviewing state party delegate selection plans) has found problems with the virtual caucus proposed by Iowa.  The concerns, however, extend beyond Iowa.  According to news reports, the RBC has also made a similar decision concerning Nevada’s delegate selection rules.

As I noted several weeks ago, there are now seven states left that do not use a state-run primary  with Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming being the last pure caucus states and Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota using party-run primaries.  In the revised delegate selection rules, Rule 2.G suggested that the RBC would consider plans that allowed internet voting as a form of absentee voting if the proposed plan included sufficient security assurances.  In its recent decision, the RBC apparently decided that — under current conditions — such assurances are not possible.  It is, however, understandable why Iowa and Nevada put forth proposals that relied on internet voting.  Rule 2.K.8 requires that parties using a party-run process create some alternative means of voting for those who are unable to participate in person on the day established for the caucus/party-run primary.

In light of these two provisions in the national rules, it’s not just Iowa that has included the possibility of electronic voting.  The draft plans in Alaska, Iowa, and Nevada include provisions for electronic voting.  The plans in Hawaii and North Dakota  opted to use mail-in voting instead of electronic voting.  (Alaska’s plan also includes absentee voting, so they might just need to eliminate the electronic voting.)  The plan in Kansas notes absentee/advanced voting as a possibility without further details.  If I am reading their plan correctly, Wyoming permits surrogate voting (which looks to be a proxy vote permitted in limited circumstances).  (I am not sure that proxy voting is allowed by the national rules — although it looks like Wyoming has used it previously from the comments submitted on their plan.  However, Wyoming’s plan has other problems that will probably require them to redraft their plans.) Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Rules — Alaska, Maine, and Utah

At this time last week, eight of the eighteen states that had used caucuses or party-run primaries in 2016 had released their delegate selection plans for 2020.  This week three of the remaining ten released their plans and they are a very mixed bag.

This week, we start out west in Alaska.  In 2016, Alaska used a traditional caucus process with the caucuses occurring at the legislative district level.  When it came to allocating delegates to the national convention, Alaska used the raw vote totals from the legislative district caucuses to allocate the “district-level” delegates, but used the votes of the state convention delegates to allocate the pledged party leader and at-large delegates.

For 2020, Alaska is switching to a party-run primary that will allow early voting (either electronic or by mail-in absentee ballot).  Additionally, the party will run voting centers in key locations that will be open for at least four hours on the primary/caucus date (although there is conflicting language in the draft concerning the times that these centers will be open).  All of the delegates to the national convention will be allocated based on the results of the party-run primary.  (Like many “primary” states, Alaska will continue to use the local caucuses to choose delegates to the state convention which will elect the actual national convention delegates.) Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-term Elections — Pacific Coast

After starting in the Northeast with Maine. we finally reach the West Coast.  Given the number of Congressional seats in California, the West Coast will be a key part of any Democratic majority in the U.S. House.  The bad news, however, is that there are so few Republican seats left here (approximately 20 seats total), that the gains will be rather minimal as a percentage of the total seats available (71 seats).

In Washington, it looks like Democrats will keep the U.S. Senate seat by a comfortable margin.  In the House, Washington is one of two states (California being the other) with a top-two primary.  In practical terms, that creates the possibility that both candidates could be Democrats, both candidates could be Republican, or that the second candidate is an independent or third-party candidate.  Of the ten seats in Washington, Republicans were  shut out of the general election in two seats, leaving eight seats where a Republican will face a Democrat.  Republicans currently hold four seats.  Right now, the Democrats are slight favorites in the Eighth, underdogs in the Third, and have an outside chance in the Fifth (currently held by the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress, Cathy McMorris Rogers).

In Oregon, the Democratic governor is a slight favorite in her bid for re-election but this race is too close for comfort.  Democrats control four of the five U.S. House seats in Oregon, but the one Republican seat is so red that it is unlikely that the Democrats will win that seat.

In California, the top two system has resulted in a significant number of races in which one of the two parties was shut out of the general election.  At the top of the ballot, the U.S. Senate race features two Democrats.  Incumbent Senator Diane Feinstein looks likely to be re-elected.  She has done just enough to keep enough Democrats happy, and there are enough Republicans in the state to make it hard to win running to her left.  While the Republicans did manage to get a general election candidate in the race for Governor, a good result would be for their candidate to break 40%.  In the U.S. House, the Republicans were shut out in eight districts — three of which will feature two Democrats (Sixth, Twenty-seventh, and Forty-fourth) and five of which will feature a Democrat and an independent or third party candidate (Fifth, Thirteenth, Twentieth, Thirty-Fourth, and Fortieth).  However, the Republicans were long shots in all of these districts.  The Democrats only got shut out in one district which will be a Republican vs. Republican general election, but it was one which the Democrats would have had a shot at winning (Eighth).   Besides the Eighth, Republicans hold thirteen seats in which they will face a Democrat in the general election.  Democrats are strong favorites in three of these seats and slight favorites in four others.  There are three other seats in which Democrats have a decent shot at pulling an upsets.

In Hawaii, Democrats currently control everything, both Senate seats, the Governor’s mansion, and both U.S. House seats.  In the four races on the ballot (all but one Senate seat), Democrats are solid favorites.

That leaves Alaska.  Alaska is one of those interesting paradox.  While it is in actuality the most socialist state in the U.S. (earning enough revenue from control over natural resources to not only fund the state government but also give each resident a significant annual stipend), that allows its voters and politicians to otherwise follow very conservative policies.  Like some other red states, Democrats require the Republicans to overreach and go too far to the right (or be personally unpopular) for the Democrats to have much of a chance.  The current governor is an independent, but he has quasi-withdrawn (technically still on the ballot) and endorsed the Democratic candidate.  That should make the election somewhat close, but the Republican is still favored to regain the governor’s mansion.  Representative Don Young has represented Alaska for most of the time that it has been a state (since 1973).  His age (and questionable practices) has made him somewhat vulnerable in recent cycles (getting just over 50% in three of the last five races), but Democrats have not been able to close the deal yet (with a significant percent of voters supporting third-party candidates).  Once again, it looks like Representative Young will be near 50% (and maybe even below 50%) but the question is whether the Democratic candidate can pull together all the votes from people who think it is time to have a new representative.   Helping is the fact that there are no other candidates actually on the ballot, but there are two write-in candidates.

Looking at referendums, California, as always, has a handful of issues.  The most significant is an attempt by Republicans to repeal recent gas tax increases that help pay for transportation.  The problem for Republicans is that most voters recognize the need for that transportation spending.  Thus, this referendum may actually backfire on them.  Recent polling is split, but is trending against the proposal.  Washington has three significant propositions.   One establishes additional training requirements for law enforcement officers and would restrict their ability to use force during arrests.  Another establishes a carbon tax.  The last enacts a series of reasonable gun control measures (waiting period, background check, raising minimum age to twenty-one,

Looking at the region overall, because Democrats already control most of the U.S. Senate seats (all but the two in Alaska that are not on the ballot this year) and most of the Governor’s mansions (except for the independent in Alaska), this region will not see much change in those offices except for either a Democrat or Republican replacing the independent in Alaska.  Out of the twenty U.S. House seats currently controlled by Republicans, Democrats should win approximately eight seats, and could win as many as fourteen seats.  As with the other regions, turnout is the key to turning a significant gain into a big wave in the U.S. House.

With five days left until votes are counted (or at least the counting starts given the increasing reliance in this region on mail-in ballots), this post is the last of the regional summaries.  Over the weekend, I intend to make at least one (maybe more) posts on what to look for as results come in to estimate if the Democrats will take the House and what will happen with the Senate.

 

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