Tag Archives: Ruben Gallego

Election Night Preview — Part Three — Prime Time Hour Two (9:00 To 9:59 P.M. Eastern)

As the major networks into the second hour of coverage, the focus begins to move from exit polls to actual returns.  Counting the split states in their main time zone, polls have now closed in the overwhelming majority of states.  For the first group of states (the ten that closed before 8:00 p.m. Eastern), you now have a good chunk of the returns from rural counties and you will have most of them by the end of this hour).  For the second group of states (the twenty that closed between 8:00 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. Eastern), those returns are just starting to come in.  In both cases, the people doing the math are comparing those returns to the results from 2016 and 2020 to see what, if anything has changed (percentages, margins, turnout).  And while you tend to have good exit polls for the statewide races, many congressional districts need these early returns to confirm the anticipated results.

This hour will see the remaining polls close in Michigan, Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas.  We will also see the polls close in Nebraska, which like Tennessee in the previous hour, opts to close all polls at the same time even though the state has two time zones (so the eastern part of the state closes at 8:00 p.m. local time and the western part of the state closes at 9:00 p.m. local time).  You have the last of the Eastern Time Zone states, New York, close its polls at 9:00 p.m. local time.  You have four Central Time Zone states — Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, and most significantly Wisconsin — close at 8:00 p.m. local time along with the eastern half of North Dakota.  Finally, polls close at 7:00 p.m. local time in four states located in the Mountain Time Zone of which the most significant is Arizona but also includes Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming.  At the end of this hour, we will only be waiting on polls to close in ten states.

Arizona is one of the two big states closing this hour.  While the easiest way for Kamala Harris to win the election is by sweeping the northern blue belt states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), winning in Arizona would allow Vice-President Harris to win if she loses Wisconsin.  At the Senate level, the unpredictable Kyrsten Sinema read the writing on the wall and decided to call it at one term.  Representative Ruben Gallego is favored to keep the Senate seat in Democratic hands but chief election denier Kari Lake will make it closer than it should be and will fight in court for the next three years if she does not win.  The Democrats are favored to keep the three seats that they currently hold in the House, but have fighting chances in three of the six seats held by Republicans.  The first district is a toss-up district (R+1) in which the Democrats have a well-funded challenger.  But we have seen this story before and Representative David Schweikert always seems to find a way to survive.  The second district is a little more of a longshot as it is a lean Republican district (R+6).   While the Democratic candidate has enough funding to run a strong campaign, unlike the first district, Republican Eli Crane has more money than his opponent.  The second is only likely to fall in a Democratic wave.  The last close district in Arizona in the sixth district.  Representative Juan Ciscomani narrowly won in 2022 and is facing a rematch this year.  The fundraising total for both candidates is approximately even. Continue Reading...

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Arizona and Tennessee Primaries

After several weeks with no voting (other than a special election in New Jersey and some elections overseas), the primary season starts back up again on Tuesday with the Arizona primary followed by Tennessee on Thursday.

In Arizona, the key race is the Republican Primary featuring 100% insane Kari Lake against 90% insane Mark Lamb.  Despite the fact that Kari Lake has more that won out her welcome with swing voters, the Republican “establishment” seems to have unified behind her.  It’s been some time since there have been polls released in the race.  The last polls had Ms. Lake just short of 50% with a third candidate also on the race.  There were still enough undecideds that Sheriff Lamb could eek out the win, but most likely Ms. Lake will be the nominee.  And that is good news for the Democrats as Ms. Lake will spend half her time whining about how the 2022 governor’s race was “stolen” and how McCain Republicans are RINOs who need to get out of the party.  Those two tendencies will hurt both her and Donald Trump (who has the same tendencies except for substituting 2020 for 2022).

Moving to the Congressional elections, the First District (the northeastern suburbs of Phoenix is a swing district.  The incumbent Republican has token opposition, but the Democratic primary has six candidates, five of whom have raised over $1 million for the primary.  Not surprisingly, the latest polling shows nobody over 20% with one-third of the voters still undecided.  Basically, anybody could win the primary. Continue Reading...

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