Tag Archives: Hawaii

Primary Elections — Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Washington, Hawaii

Another week, another set of primaries.  While the national media is focused on who will be the next Vice-President of the United States,  the results of these elections will determine what seats might be competitive in November, and, in some cases, the winner is all but certain to be holding office in January.  On Tuesday, there will be primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington.  On Saturday, there will be primaries in Hawaii.

In Kansas, Republican engaged in extreme gerrymandering.  The Republicans’ problem in drawing lines is that half of the state’s population is in a handful of counties in Eastern Kansas covering the western suburbs of Kansas City, the state capitol in Topeka, and the University of Kansas in Lawrence.  While not deep blue, this area is definitely bluer than the rest of the state.  Under the pre-2020 lines, the Second District was a lean Republican district and the Third District was a swing district with a slight edge for the Democrats.  To try to “fix” this, the Republicans in Kansas drew some weird lines to make the First District (western Kansas) and the Second District (Topeka and Lawrence) into a weird interlocking jigsaw puzzle which allowed moving some blue areas out of the Third District (K.C. suburbs) into the Second District while adding enough red areas into the Second District to make it redder. The impact was to make the Second District relatively safe while keeping the Third District competitive but slightly favorable to the Republicans.

During the past several cycles, the Second District has been something of a revolving door.  The candidate elected in 2018 was scandal plagued and lost the primary in 2020.  The candidate who won in 2020 got tired of the shenanigans in Washington after a mere four years and opted against seeking a third term. As a result, there are five candidates seeking the Republican nomination, three of whom are roughly equal in fundraising.  The two leading candidates appear to be Jeff Kahrs who serves on the staff of the current representative and appears to have the endorsement of what passes for the Republican establishment in Kansas and former state Attorney General and failed gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt who has the support of the Trump wing of the Kansas party. 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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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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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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Delegate Selection Rules — Hawaii

This week we continue our review of the draft delegate selection plans from the 2016 caucus states with Hawaii.  The focus of this on-going review has been how these states are implementing the new provisions for state parties that do not have the option of or choose not to use a state-run primary.  Under Rule 2.K of the DNC’s Delegate Selection Rules, such state parties must make efforts to increase participation in these party-run processes and (just like states that use a state-run primary) the state must use the vote at the “first-determining step” to allocate its pledged delegates to candidates.  Of course, the simple way to comply with these rules is to follow the suggestion to use a state-run primary which is what this week’s draft plan from Nebraska does (like prior draft plans from Colorado and Idaho and one of the two draft plans from Washington). 

For states that do not have a state-run primary in the Spring of 2020 that they can use, however, the only option is to use a party-run process.  In 2016, Hawaii used a traditional precinct caucus.  The individuals present at those caucuses cast a presidential-preference vote.  The results of that preference vote from the individual precincts were totaled and used to determine the allocation of district-level and state-level (party leader and at-large) delegates.

Since the allocation of delegates in Hawaii already complies with Rule 2.K, the issue for Hawaii was what steps to take to make it easier for Democrats to participate in the caucus process.  For 2020, Hawaii has opted to use a party-run primary (sometimes called a firehouse primary) instead of a traditional caucus.  Under this system, there will be two ways that voters can participate in this primary.  First, a person can vote absentee by mail.  Apparently, all individuals registered as Democrats by February 18 will receive a mail-in ballot by March 3.  If the voter would rather vote absentee, they can mail in that ballot at any time before March 28.  Second, a person can vote in person on April 4 during the eight-hour voting period.  Individuals choosing to use the in-person option apparently will be able to vote at any location even if it is not their “home precinct.”  (For the most part, there should not be much of an issue in making sure that a ballot is counted in the right congressional district.  The only island that is in the First Congressional District is Oahu.  Only a small number of voters from the First Congressional District will be on another island on April 4 and likewise only a small number of voters from the other islands will be on Oahu on April 4.  The issue is most likely to be voters from Oahu casting votes in the part of Oahu that is in the “other” district.) 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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