Tag Archives: Illinois

Election Night Preview — Part Two — Prime Time Hour One (8:00 to 8:59 p.m. Eastern)

By tmess2 | Published October 28, 2024

While there are some significant states that close before 8:00 p.m. Eastern, that time marks when election coverage truly kicks off.  Aside from the realities of the broadcast networks that as for two basic reasons.  First, as discussed last weekend, vote counting is slow.  Since people in line when the polls “close” can still vote, it takes some time to actually shut down a polling place (both in getting the last people processed and out and in the procedures to secure the election materials after the polling place closes).  And then the counting usually have to be transported to some central location for the local election authority.  Thus, the first hour of returns tend to be the results of early voting and absentee ballots (in those states which release those separately from the election day returns) and a handful of smaller counties.  It is only in the second and third hour of counting that you start getting the rest of the smaller counties and the first returns from the really big counties.  Second, not every state closes at 7:00 p.m., local time, and a good chunk of the states are not in the Eastern time zone.  Only two states (Indiana and Kentucky) close at 6:00 p.m. local time.   While 7:00 p.m. is one of the more popular local times to close, only nineteen states close then (and only five of those are in the Eastern time zone).  Four states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia) close at 7:30 p.m. local time.    The most popular poll closing time is actually 8:00 p.m. when twenty-two jurisdictions close their polls.  You have two states (Tennessee and Nebraska) which despite being split in two time zones have opted to have all the polls close at the same real time (meaning in the eastern part of the state, the polls close at 8:00 p.m. local time while in the western part of the state, the polls close at 7:00 p.m. local time).  Lastly, two states (New York and North Dakota) close at 9:00 p.m. local time.

So when 8:00 p.m. Eastern time rolls around, you have polls closing in the ten jurisdictions wholly in the Eastern time zone that close at 8:00 local time.  You also have the polls in the western part of Florda closing at what is 7:00 p.m. local time in that part of Florida to finish out Florida.  You have the polls closing at 8:00 p.m. local time in the part of Michigan in the Eastern time zone (all but the Western part of the Upper Peninsula), You have the polls closing simultaneously at either 8:00 p.m. local time or 7:00 p.m. local time in Tennessee.  You have all of the polls closing at 7:00 p.m. local time in Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma.  And you have polls closing at 7:00 p.m. local time in the eastern parts of Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas.  Of those last three states, only South Dakota is roughly evenly divided geographically between Central and Mountain time and only tiny slivers of Kansas and Texas are in the Mountain time zone.  In short, you go from approximately ten jurisdictions being closed, to the majority of almost thirty jurisdictions being closed.  For all intents and purposes, election night starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

As the hour starts, we should have already had some expected projections from the early states.  And the early news is more likely to be bad news than good news, but it is expected bad news that should not cause people to panic.  Barring a miracle, by 8:00 p.m. Eastern, the networks and the AP will have projected Donald Trump the winner in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, and West Virginia.  They will also have projected the Republicans as winning two Senate seats (Indiana and West Virginia) to one for the Democrats (Vermont) for a gain of one although it is possible that the Virginia Senate seat might also be projected before 8:00 p.m.  And most of the early House seats projected will be Republican with a couple of seats gained in North Carolina. Continue Reading...

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Primary Elections — Week of March 18

By tmess2 | Published March 17, 2024

With the presidential nominations effectively wrapped up, the focus of primary season shifts to Congress.  States face conflicting incentives in terms of primary scheduling.  First, for presidential primaries, an early primary increases the chance that a state will vote before the nomination is effectively decided.  But, especially a state with a part-time legislature that only meets in the Spring, a Summer primary allows the legislature to wrap up its business (with appropriate goodies for the districts of favored legislators facing a tough race) and gives the legislators time to spend back in their district campaigning.  Second, it saves money for a state to combine presidential primaries with the primaries for other offices.  Thus, only some of the states with early primaries for president also have the primaries for other offices on the same day.

This week, three states have primaries for “other” offices.  The first is actually a special election.  That election is to fill the seat created by Kevin McCarthy deciding that he did not want to return to just being a member of the House after he lost the vote of no confidence (technically motion to vacate the chair) last fall.  For regular elections, California uses a “top two” primary in which, regardless of the vote for the leading candidate, the second-placed candidate advances to the general election.  For special elections, if the leading candidate gets a majority, that candidate wins.  If not, there will be a runoff between the top two candidates.  Two weeks ago, there was the regular primary for the seat.  Given how long it takes California to process its ballot, the race for second place is still too close to call.  Given that most of the votes remaining appear to be from the county in which the current third-placed candidate finished ahead of the second-placed candidate, the primary may actually be recount close.  Right now, the “second” Republican is still in second place.  That should discourage Republicans from unifying behind the current leading candidate in the special election (as supporters of the Republican currently in second have hopes that their candidate will make the general election and do not want to make the leading candidate the incumber candidate).  As the leading candidate did not get a majority in the primary, there is a good chance that there will be a runoff in this race.  If the leading candidate (Kevin McCarthy’s handpicked candidate, Vince Fong) can get the majority, the Republicans get this seat back.  If not, it remains vacant until after the runoff in two months (probably keeping the seat vacant through June).  Needless to say, the Republicans in Washington are praying for an outright winner on Tuesday.

The next state on the list is Ohio.  In recent years, ticket splitting has declined, and it has become harder for a Congressional candidate to win a state/district that voted for the presidential candidate of the other party.  Currently, there are only senators (three Democrats and two Republicans) representing states won in 2020 by the other party.  The three Democrats are up for election this year.  Joe Manchin of West Virginia has decided that, despite his personal popularity in his state, the presidential margin is just too much to overcome.  That leaves Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio to face their voters this year.  Given that Ohio has been getting redder in recent years, Republicans are hopeful that whomever they nominate might win the seat in November to give the Republicans a senate majority.  But with Republicans thinking that they can win, the primary attracted multiple candidates.  The race originally looked like a three-person race.  Objectively, if Republicans wanted somebody ready to be a senator, the obvious choice would be the current Secretary of State, Frank LaRose.  But serving in an executive position requires actually following the law.  And, while Secretary LaRose has definitely put his thumb on the scale as much as he can, those decisions disqualify him for “purists.”  Neither of the other two candidates would be a strong contender if the Republican primary was being held in the real world.  With Secretary LaRose struggling, the establishment has unified behind Matt Dolan.  What Mr. Dolan has going for him is that his family is wealthy, and he has been willing to spend enough of his own money to be competitive (both this cycle and two years ago when he put up a solid fight in the primary for the other seat).  The Trump candidate is Bernie Moreno.  As was the case back in 2022, for Democrats choosing to participate in the Republican primary, the question is whether to vote for the weaker candidate (Moreno) to increase the odds of winning in the general election or to vote for the sanest candidate (Dolan) just in case Brown loses in November.  The national party has run adds attacking Moreno as too extreme in the reverse psychology ploy to get Republicans to commit political suicide by nominating Moreno. Continue Reading...

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The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)

By tmess2 | Published October 30, 2022

The first states with polls to close are mostly in the Eastern Time Zone.  In the early states, we have two governor’s races (Georgia and Florida), four Senate races (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio), and seven House seats (1 in North Carolina, 3 in Ohio, and 3 in Virginia) that could be close.  There are also several seats that are likely to flip solely because of the new maps (4 flipping red in Florida, 1 flipping red in Georgia, and 2 flipping blue in North Carolina).

But the big closing time is 7 p.m. Central ST.  The remaining polls will close in Florida, and most of the polls will close in Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas.  And all of the polls will close in Alabama (except for a very small portion that closed an hour earlier), Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.  In short, when added to the states that close before 7 p.m., the polls will be closed in roughly half of the country by 7:01 p.m. (Of course, polls closed merely means that individuals need to be in line to vote at 7 p.m.  Because there are typically people in line to vote, voting might actually continue in some urban precincts for a very long time after 7 p.m. which will delay counting in those areas.)

Starting with Alabama, there are no races that are likely to be close at the state or federal level.  If the Supreme Court follows the Voting Rights Act, Democrats will probably pick up an additional seat in 2024, but the current maps which a district court correctly held violated the Voting Rights Act is in place for the 2022 election, and the 6-1 Republican advantage will remain in place for the next Congress.  There are a lot of propositions on the ballot in Alabama, the most significant of which requires changes to election law to be adopted at least six months prior to a general election. Continue Reading...

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Redistricting — Illinois

By tmess2 | Published July 31, 2021

Illinois concludes our tour of the midwestern states that lost a seat.  Like New York, Illinois is dominated by one city (Chicago) and its suburbs.  Eleven districts are at least partially in Cook County (Chicago) and another two are partially in a county adjoining Cook County leaving five districts for “downstate.”

Illinois’s current map has an overwhelming number of split precincts.  The current map has four minority-majority district.  Of those four districts, two (First District and Second District) have African-American majorities, one (Seventh District) has an African-American plurality, and one has a Hispanic majority (Fourth District).

The current map has six solid Democratic districts, two safe Democratic districts, two lean Democratic districts, and one toss-up that favor the Democrats.  On the other side, Republicans have one solid district (Fifteenth District), one safe district (Eighteenth District), one lean district (Sixteenth District), and four toss-ups that favor the Republicans.  Right now, Democrats hold three of the five toss-up seats. Continue Reading...

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Redistricting 2021 — The Numbers

By tmess2 | Published May 1, 2021

On Monday, four days ahead of its latest target date and almost four months behind the statutory date, the Census Bureau released the national and state-level results from the Census including the apportionment numbers that determine how many representatives each get.  As can be expected, there are multiple different tables summarizing the data in different ways for us number geeks.

The bottom line table shows the apportionment population (both those living in the state and those residing overseas — like military personnel — who call that state home), the number of representatives that each state is getting, and the change in representation.   We will get back to the change in a minute, but the big level number is that the apportionment population is slightly over 331 million.  As such, the average size (mean) of each congressional district is just under 761 thousand.  Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have fewer people than the average congressional district.  While the apportionment formula does not work for calculating the population needed for the first representative, even Wyoming has enough population to be entitled to three-quarters of a representative.

If, D.C. and Puerto Rico were states, Puerto Rico would be just ahead of Utah (which has four representatives) and just behind Connecticut (which has five representatives) and D.C. would be between Vermont and Alaska.  Given that Puerto Rico is only slightly larger than Utah (which was not close to getting a fifth representative and far enough behind Connecticut, Puerto Rico would be due for four representatives.  If  both were states, the five states that would lose a representative would have been Oregon, Colorado, and Montana (all of which gained a seat), California (which lost a seat), and Minnesota (which barely avoided losing a seat).  The chart of priority values that allows us to consider the impact of adding Puerto Rico and D.C. also shows that Minnesota barely held onto its last seat and New York barely lost its seat.  Apparently, given the formula, Minnesota would have lost that seat if it had 24 fewer people, and New York would have kept its seat if it had 89 more people.  (The disparity in numbers is caused by the fact that the two states have different number of seats. Continue Reading...

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Election Night Preview — Part 2 (8 PM to 9 PM EST)

By tmess2 | Published October 28, 2020

As noted in the previous post, by 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we should have a significant amount of precincts being reported in the two earliest states (Kentucky and Indiana) and should be starting to get some counties reporting votes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont.  During this hour, the counts in those states should be increasing.  By 9 p.m., we should be seeing either some projection in those states or an indication that the states are too close too call.  We may also be getting an indication in some of those states of how many absentee votes might remain to be counted (which could determine whether it will be possible to make any projection in those states on election night).

While it would be nice if we could get calls in a state like Virginia early in this hour, the bigger question as the hour goes will be the types of swings that we are seeing in these states.   Virginia in 2016 was a leading indicator as we were just not getting strong results compared to 2012.  So as this hour goes along and the networks start looking at the maps of the state, the key thing to pay attention to is how the numbers are comparing to 2016.  Even if the networks aren’t comfortable in calling a state yet, if the results are showing that Trump is underperforming in red parts of a state (i.e. rural counties) and Biden is overperforming in the suburbs, then that is a good sign for the rest of the evening as Trump only one by the slimmest of margins in 2016 and any erosion in his support could prove fatal.

This hour has the most states close.  You have partial closures in Florida (the rest of the state closed an hour earlier), Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas.  While a significant part of South Dakota will close an hour later, the polls close for most of the population in Kansas, Michigan, and Texas at 8 p.m. Eastern.  In addition to these states, polls for the entire state close at 8 p.m. Eastern in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — March 17

By tmess2 | Published March 15, 2020

After the sprint of twenty-four contests in fifteen days, this week’s four primaries represents a slowing of the pace.  After the March 17 contests, there will be only seven contests over the next three weeks concluding with the Wisconsin primary before there is a three-week break between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic primary on April 28.  (EDIT:  Now six contests, with Georgia’s primary being postponed until May.)

In the last two weeks, in the states that vote by mail, we have seen the early results showing significant number of votes for candidates that are no longer in the race.  As counting has continued, however, the later arriving ballots have swung away from the candidates who have suspended their campaigns and toward Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden.  There will have been some early voting in the states that are voting on March 17.  As such, the initial release of numbers will probably include some votes for these candidates, but that number should decline over the evening as election day returns are added in.

With the narrowing of the field, delegate math is now a state-by-state struggle.  And this state-by-state battle is different for the Democratic primaries than it is on the Republican side.  The media likes to focus on who wins a state.  And, in the general election (and in many states on the Republican side), the winner-take-all rule makes winning a state very important.  On the Democratic side, the proportional allocation of delegates means that it matters more whether somebody wins a state by a large margin than who wins the state.  As we have seen over the past seven days, a narrow in by Vice-President Biden is currently netting him around seven delegates in a large state, but his big win in Mississippi (less than half the size of Washington) is netting him over thirty delegates. Continue Reading...

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2018 Mid-Term Election Preview — The Great Lakes

By tmess2 | Published October 27, 2018

The Great Lakes region has some opportunities for Democrats, but those opportunities are mostly in races for Governor due to the way that Republicans in the region drew congressional district lines after 2010.

Starting in Kentucky, there is no race for Governor or Senator.  Republicans currently have a five to one advantage in the congressional delegation.  Right now, Democrat Amy McGrath is a slight favorite to pick-up the Sixth District from the Republican incumbent.

In Ohio, it looks like the Democrats are in pretty good shape to hold its Senate seat.  The race for Governor appears to be too close to call.  Ohio is another state where gerrymandering has led to a very distorted congressional delegation.  Republicans currently hold twelve of sixteen seats.  The Democrats have a decent shot (but are still underdogs) in the rematch of the recent special election in the Twelfth District.   The Democrats have outside shots in five districts, but it is almost certain that, even while possibly losing the state-wide vote, Republicans will control the majority of the Ohio seats in the next Congress. Continue Reading...

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Thinking 2021

By tmess2 | Published September 15, 2018

One weakness that the Democratic Party has had over the years is getting loosely attached Democratic voters to think beyond the current election.  But many components of the political system elect members in staggered elections (e,g,, the U.S. Senate); so gaining the ability to pass your legislation requires a multi-year plan.

While in the weeks ahead, posts on this site will undoubtedly focus on the race for power in D.C., this post is about the other offices that will be on the ballot in November — state positions.  In less than nineteen months, residents of the U.S. will receive and then return their census forms for the 2020 census.  In slightly over two years, the Census Bureau will release the numbers from that census to the states which will then begin anew the process of drawing the political maps that will control U.S. House (and state legislative elections) between 2022 and 2031.  And some of the people elected at the state level this November will still be around in 2021 to vote on these new maps.

The big office in most of the states is governor.  There are 36 governor’s offices up for election this cycle with Republicans currently holding 26 of them.  In 34 states, the term of office is four years; so the winner this year will be around in 2021.  (In two states — New Hampshire and Vermont, both held by Republicans — the term of office is two years; so we will get another shot at removing the Republican in 2020 and only New Hampshire is likely to have multiple congressional seats after the 2020 census.)   In some of these states — Arizona, California, and Iowa — the redistricting process minimizes the influence of the governor or legislature; so, while — for other reasons — holding California and picking up Arizona and Iowa would be useful, they will not have a big impact on redistricting in 2021.  There are also some states that currently only have one representative in Congress eliminating the need for Congressional Districts — Alaska (Independent); South Dakota (Republican), and Wyoming (Republican).  Even after eliminating these states, you have twenty states held by Republicans and eight states held by Democrats in which the winner of the 2018 election for governor will be around in 2021 and have the power to veto or sign any proposed congressional map. Continue Reading...

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Land of Confusion — Party Rules and the Illinois Primary

By tmess2 | Published March 11, 2016

If you were an Illinois voter taking a look at a sample ballot for the primary election for your district, the two parties would look relatively similar.  Both parties have a line to vote for the candidate of your choice for President.  Both parties also have a line to vote for delegate candidates.  The Democrats have more delegate slots, so you get to vote for more delegate candidates on the Democratic ballot, but — other than that — the ballots look the same.  The problem, however, is that the rules of the two parties dramatically change the meaning of your vote (and the “best” way to vote) depending upon which party’s ballot you choose to vote.

If you choose to vote the Republican ballot, the two lines are entirely separate election.  The “presidential candidate” line only matters for the fifteen state-wide delegates who will be bound winner-take-all to whomever finishes first.  However, the Republican Party rules exempt delegates from being bound by the presidential vote if the delegates are directly elected.  In Illinois, the district delegates are directly elected.  As such for the fifty-four congressional district delegates (three in each district), the state-wide result is irrelevant and the three delegate candidates who finish first in the delegate vote will represent that district (and be bound to the presidential candidate that they pledged to support) regardless of how their candidate does in their district.  Thus, the smart vote is to vote for all three of the delegate candidates pledged to support your candidate.  More importantly, you need to vote for the delegate candidates.

If you choose to vote the Democratic ballot, you are participating in what is commonly called an “open list” election.  In an open list election, your vote for a party (or in this case a presidential candidate) determines how many seats/delegates that party/presidential candidate wins.  Your vote for the individual delegate determines where that delegate ranks on the list.  Thus, on the Democratic side, voting for all of the delegates supporting your preferred candidate is a waste of your  vote because it has no impact on where the delegates supporting your candidate rank among each other.  On the Democratic side, you only have to vote for delegate if you care exactly who goes to the national convention.  If you do, the best thing that you can do is treat the delegate part of the ballot as four separate contests (rather than one):  1) male Sanders delegates; 2) female Sanders delegates; 3) male Clinton delegates; and 4) female Clinton delegates.  Depending upon how many total delegates your district has (the smallest district has four and the largest district has nine), voting for more than one or two candidates in each “contest” is essentially cancelling your vote out. Continue Reading...

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