Author Archives: Jim Ellis

Begich Wins in Alaska

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Nov. 25, 2024

House

Nick Begich III

The final votes, including the Ranked Choice Voting rounds, were released late Wednesday night in Alaska, and Republican Nick Begich III has defeated two-term at-large Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Bethel). In the current Congress, the Alaska seat is the most Republican House constituency to have elected a Democratic representative.

Before moving to the RCV rounds, Begich finished the initial count with 157,331 votes for 48.7 percent as opposed to Rep. Peltola’s 149,763 votes that translated into 46.3 percent support. The third and fourth place finishers, Alaska Independence Party nominee John Howe and Democrat Eric Hafner, attracted 12,751 votes (4.0 percent) and 3,323 (1.0 percent), respectively.

In the Ranked Choice first round, Hafner was eliminated and the ballots that ranked him in the first position were isolated. The second choice voters from those ballots were then distributed to the remaining three candidates. Since Hafner was running on the Democratic line, it was highly likely that the vast majority of the second-place choices would go to Peltola. This distribution successfully kept Begich under the 50 percent threshold, though he continued to hold a reduced lead.

In the second Ranked Choice round, with Howe eliminated, the second choice selections from his voters went hard for Begich by a 64-33 percent margin. This pushed challenger Begich to 51.3 percent as compared to the incumbent’s 48.7 percent. Thus, Begich clinched the election, and fulfilled his victory declaration from over the weekend. The result will become final at the state’s official certification deadline, which is Nov. 30.

The much needed Republican win moves the party to 219 seats in the House, assuming that Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) survives the requested recount, and she is favored to do so. Democrats now have 213 clinched seats also assuming that Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) prevails in her recount, and she, too, should prevail.

The final two uncalled seats lie in California, and we are still likely weeks away from seeing a final solution. Both contests, those of Reps. John Duarte (R-Modesto) and Michelle Steel (R-Orange County) are now separated by just hundreds of votes. Duarte is hanging onto a 227-vote lead over former state Assemblyman Adam Gray (D) with an estimated five percent outstanding, while Rep. Steel has dropped behind her opponent, attorney Derek Tran, by 314 votes, also with an estimated five percent outstanding.

The closeness of these results suggests that whatever the final tally, we can expect both contests will head to recounts. If the Democrats win both of these races, which now may be considered the more likely outcome, the House division will then move to 219R – 215D.

One seat, that of resigned Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), is vacant. With a FiveThirtyEight data organization rating of R+38, there is no doubt that Republicans will hold onto the seat. The length of the vacancy, however, is unclear, which could cause short-term numerical problems for the GOP leadership.

In another Alaska race, despite trailing during the entire counting period, the final outstanding votes defeated the ballot initiative to repeal the state’s Top Four Ranked Choice Voting system. The final count gave the RCV proponents a 664-vote victory from 320,574 ballots cast.

Conversely, Ranked Choice Voting was defeated where it appeared in other state ballot propositions — Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada.

Sen. Casey Concedes; Independent Osborn May Return in Nebraska; Gaetz, Waltz Replacement Contenders Making Moves

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Nov. 22, 2024

Senate

Pennsylvania Republican David McCormick

Pennsylvania: Sen. Casey Concedes, McCormick In — The Senate races are now complete.

After the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court disallowed the admission of ballots that did not meet legal standards and earlier in the week Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) publicly backed the court’s decision, three-term Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) called a halt to the recount that had already begun. Late last week, he conceded the Senate race to Republican businessman David McCormick.

With the high court rulings and getting little support from his party leaders, continuing the recount became futile because it was unlikely that election officials and/or ballot counting machines around the state would have made approximately 17,000 individual counting mistakes. At the beginning of the recount process, the McCormick lead stood at 16,404 votes.

While Republicans are celebrating a victory that now officially takes them to 53 seats in the Senate, their margin could easily have been much higher. While recent political trends — and particularly so in the last two national elections — have found the Senate races following that of the presidential contest in virtually every state, the 2024 vote proved slightly different.

In this election cycle, the Republicans officially gained four seats, converting the West Virginia open seat and defeating Democratic incumbents Jon Tester in Montana, Sherrod Brown from Ohio, and Casey. Yet, their take could have been much greater.

President-Elect Trump won four other battleground states, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin that also could have elected a Republican senator. The party’s candidates, however, were a cumulative 5.3 percentage points short in those four states.

There will be a great deal of research done once numbers become final and published as to why these states did not follow the same pattern as the others. A total of 33 states hosted the 34 Senate elections (Nebraska had two Senate seats on the ballot because of a special election) and only the aforementioned quartet failed to follow the partisan pattern.

Thus, in the 31 states that President-Elect Donald Trump carried, 18 hosted Senate races and the Republican candidate won 14. Vice President Harris carried 19 states, and 15 held Senate races. The Democratic Senate candidate won in all 15 of those campaigns.

The 2024 pattern was not discovered on election night. Rather, pollsters had projected the situation for months. If anything, the Republican candidates closed the races better than expected.

Throughout virtually the entire election cycle, the Republican Senate candidates were running behind Trump in the battleground states. Where Trump would have a small lead in a particular domain, the GOP Senate candidate was typically polling eight to 10 points behind his standing.

The pattern was not confined to states that more often or not in recent elections vote Democratic such as Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Such was the case even in stronger Republican states and places where Trump had a major lead like Montana and Ohio. The GOP Senate candidate still won but fell considerably behind Trump’s position.

Part of the Republicans’ problem in many Senate situations was Democratic incumbency. While Tester, Brown, and now Casey went down to defeat, incumbency was certainly a positive dynamic for Sens. Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. Perhaps the biggest factor here was money. Both Rosen and Baldwin heavily outspent their Republican opponents that, especially in the Nevada race, allowed the incumbent to develop an early and mid-campaign lead that became very difficult to overcome even with a strong close.

The Arizona situation was different. In an open seat with Trump running six points ahead, pulling the Senate candidate across the finish line would have been expected. Here, the Republicans had a candidate with a severe negative image. While obtaining 49.6 percent in the 2022 governor’s race, former news anchor Kari Lake turned what should have been a catapulting finish into a net negative with her extended claims (even to this day) of voter fraud.

While she may have been taken seriously at the outset, carrying on through a losing a series of court decisions created a negative impression of her, thus badly hurting her in the subsequent election.

In Michigan, we saw a different situation. There, both parties fielded strong candidates in the person of Rep. Elissa Slotkin (R-Lansing) and former Congressman Mike Rogers. The end result was a virtual tie, and while Trump barely won Michigan, Rogers barely lost. Again, with Slotkin having a big financial advantage in the campaign, funding could have been the difference.

In the coming weeks, we will get a better picture of what happened in these potentially defining races that voted opposite for Senate as compared with their presidential selection. Were these races decided individually or are they potentially part of an emerging ticket-splitting trend? If so, 2024 may be laying the groundwork to return to a period where splitting one’s partisan vote choices is not such a foreign occurrence.

House

FL-1: Changing Situation — Now that ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) has withdrawn from consideration for Attorney General, there is some chance he could return to take the congressional seat in the next term because he was duly elected in November. Though he stated that he “intends” not to take the oath of office in the new Congress, his resignation only applies to the current Congress. Therefore, he could still return to the House.

Though speculation will be running rampant about what may happen in this congressional seat, several candidates are making moves to enter what they believe will be a special election. The three main candidates are state CFO Jimmy Petronis (R) and state Reps. Michelle Salzman (R-Pensacola) and Joel Rudman (R-Navarre). The battle to succeed Gaetz, if one comes to fruition, will be decided in the Republican primary. The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates FL-1 as R+38, which is the safest Republican seat in the Sunshine State.

FL-6: Rep. Waltz District Director to File for Special Election — Rep. Mike Waltz (R-St. Augustine Beach) has been announced as President-Elect Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor. Since his position does not require Senate confirmation, Waltz can assume his duties as soon as Trump is sworn into office. At that point, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) can call a special election to replace Waltz who will resign his seat before assuming his new position.

Late last week, Rep. Waltz’s District Director, retired Army Brigadier Gen. Ernie Audino, announced that he will compete in the special election. We can expect a crowded GOP primary field for the safe Republican seat which the FiveThirtyEight data organization rates as R+28.

California Uncalled Races:
Into the Hundreds not Thousands

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024

Vote Margins

U.S. Capitol Building

The vote margins in the two uncalled California House races have now dropped from the thousands into the hundreds, and though the counting is not over under the state’s laborious tabulation process, the chances of these races going final anytime soon are remote. In what are sure to be two razor-thin finishes, moving to a recount round is a virtual certainty.

In the state’s 13th District, with a reported 95 percent of the vote counted, Rep. John Duarte’s (R-Modesto) lead over former state Assemblyman Adam Gray (D) has dropped to just 227 votes. In Orange County’s 45th CD, incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel (R) has fallen behind her challenger, attorney Derek Tran (D), by 312 votes, also with a reported 95 percent of the vote counted.

If the tabulation percentages are correct, then an estimated 10,000 votes remain in CA-13 and approximately 17,000 in CA-45. If the trends break the way the districts have in the current tabulation, Rep. Duarte may win by just over 200 votes and Rep. Steel may lose by approximately 300 votes. There is no guarantee either of these contests will evolve as these calculations suggest, but the end result in both will be razor thin.

What is at stake is greater than the two House seats. Assuming Alaska Republican Nick Begich III survives the Ranked Choice Voting round in the state’s at-large seat, a result that will likely be known today, the House party division will drop to 219R – 215D –1V should the Democrats eventually take both uncalled California congressional seats. This count includes the vacant FL-1 seat of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Niceville/Pensacola).

President-Elect Donald Trump has already announced that he will nominate three House members, Gaetz plus Reps. Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), to Administration positions. Waltz does not need Senate confirmation as National Security Advisor, so it is assumed he will resign from his House seat on or around the date Trump is sworn into office, Jan. 20, 2025. Stefanik will resign after she is confirmed to her position as US Ambassador to the United Nations.

All of these actions will eventually take the House Republican majority margin down to 217-215 with three vacancies. Special elections will then be called to fill the vacant seats. It is clear that Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will schedule the two Sunshine State elections as quickly as possible, but such may not be the case in New York.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has some legal leeway as to when she must schedule the special election for a vacant congressional seat. It’s conceivable she may be able to wait several months and place the special congressional election on the state elections ballot next autumn. In the past, she has moved quickly to schedule the two special congressional elections since she became governor, but those were for seats that Democrats were favored to win.

The political picture is different considering this particular vacancy (the FiveThirtyEight data organization rates NY-21 as R+17) since it will have an effect upon the House majority status and benefit the Republicans. Therefore, Gov. Hochul may respond differently.

The projected party division total suggests that two other races headed for recounts will hold for the involved incumbents, Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).

As the House race counting finally winds down, it is clear that if the Republicans can hold the majority, it will come down to just a few votes nationally.

Pennsylvania Recount Controversy Intensifies; House Recount Status in Iowa, Ohio; Rep. Sherrill Announces for Governor in New Jersey

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024

Senate

David McCormick (R)

Pennsylvania: Recount Controversy Intensifies — The Pennsylvania Senate race continues to generate controversy. Democratic officials in Bucks, Center, Delaware, and Philadelphia counties are openly defying a state Supreme Court order to not count ballots that fail to have proper documentation. Republicans have already filed 12 lawsuits in localities to stop the practice of adding what the state Supreme Court has already reaffirmed are illegal ballots. The recount is getting underway and different news outlets are reporting different vote spreads. The range for Republican David McCormick over Democrat Sen. Bob Casey Jr. stretches from an approximate 29,000-plus to 17,000-plus votes.

In the end, the Senate itself will be the final arbiter over seating new senators. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), citing the aforementioned allowance of the already defined illegal ballots, is calling upon the senators to reject seating Casey should the recount push him to the forefront. Expect the controversy to drag on at least until the Thanksgiving holiday.

House

IA-1: Another Pending Recount — Eastern Iowa election officials are dealing with congressional candidate Christina Bohannan’s (D) request for a recount of the Iowa 1st District results that find Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-LeClaire) projected as an 801-vote winner. It is unlikely that a recount will drastically change such a margin, but the congresswoman is no stranger to close elections resulting in recounts. She first won the seat in 2020 with a six-vote margin. The Iowa election certification deadline is Dec. 2, so we will likely see final numbers at that time.

OH-9: Recount Possible — Election officials in the eight counties that comprise Ohio’s 9th Congressional District anchored in the city of Toledo continue to determine which provisional and remaining absentee ballots will be added to the aggregate count. The county officials are supposed to present final numbers by today, Wednesday, Nov. 20. If the official candidate totals are within a half-percent, Ohio’s secretary of state will conduct a recount.

The unofficial totals find Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) leading state Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Township) by 1,193 votes from a total of 366,062 ballots cast. The current margin is just 0.3 percent, which would be within the range of a mandated recount. Rep. Kaptur has already declared victory.

Governor

New Jersey: Rep. Sherrill Announces 2025 Candidacy — As she promised she would do after the 2024 general election, Garden State Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) officially announced her gubernatorial candidacy in the New Jersey open 2025 campaign.

Already in the Democratic primary are Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wycoff), Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop, Montclair Mayor Stephen Spiller, and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney. Since the New Jersey elections are held in the odd-numbered years, neither House member will have to risk his or her seat to run for governor.

For the Republicans, 2021 nominee Jack Ciattarelli, who held Gov. Phil Murphy (D) to a close 51-48 percent victory is running again as is state Sen. John Bramnick (R-Plainfield), ex-state Sen. Ed Durr, and radio talk show host Bill Spadea.

Polling Accuracy

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024

Polling

President-Elect Donald Trump / Photo by Gage Skidmore

There has been a great deal of controversial discussion about the 2024 political polling. Many continue to raise questions about the major polling firms’ cumulative accuracy rating, but is the criticism fair?

The perception that the polling industry missed President-Elect Donald Trump’s “landslide” win is not particularly accurate. Though Trump swept the battleground states, the margins were close, and virtually all of the 2024 presidential pollsters forecast close races in the critical states, which is the end result.

A typical polling margin of error is three percentage points. Using this as the accuracy scale, the Real Clear Politics polling average suggests that across the battleground board, the average survey fell within such a range.

In national polling, the ending Real Clear Politics average found Kamala Harris cumulatively leading by the smallest of margins, at 0.1 percent. These numbers include 24 polls from 14 different polling organizations.

While they did miss the projection of which candidate was leading, the cumulative margin was well within the margin of error. Since Trump is winning the national popular vote by 1.8 percentage points, the polling community average of 0.1 point separating the two candidate was a miss of 1.9 percentage points, but well within the margin of error.

In the battleground states, the least accurate polling came in Arizona. There, the Real Clear Politics average suggested a 2.8 percent lead for Trump, but he carried the state by a 5.5 percent margin. This was a 2.7 point miss.

The other states where the polling mark was two points off or more came in North Carolina and Nevada. The NC polling average suggested a Trump win margin of 1.2 percentage points. In actuality, the president-elect carried the state by 3.2 percent. In Nevada, the miss was a bit worse.

Pollsters pegged Trump with a lead of 0.6 percent, but he carried the Silver State with a 3.1 percent margin, thus the cumulative miss was 2.5 points.

The most accurate of the state presidential polling came in Georgia. The average projection suggested a Trump lead of 1.3 percent, but he won the state with a 2.2-point margin. Thus, the average poll figure missed the actual result by 0.9 points, again well within the polling margin of error.

In the seven battleground states, the polling community correctly projected five of the seven Trump wins. The two misses were Michigan and Wisconsin, but both fell only a half-point or less off the pace.

The one consistent error point in all of the battleground states, and nationally, was underestimating the Republican vote strength. This has been a consistent pattern during the Trump era, and it happened again in 2024 but to a lesser degree.

The numbers in the 11 competitive Senate races were not as accurate as the presidential projections.

The least accurately polled state was Florida where Sen. Rick Scott (R) recorded almost a 13-point victory, yet the polling average for his race against former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) suggested a much closer outcome. The two were separated by an average of 4.6 points in Sen. Scott’s favor.

A similar pattern, but to a lesser degree, occurred in Texas. For most of the race, the polling average showed a close race between Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), but the end result proved different. While polling found Cruz extending his small lead within the race’s final stage to an average of 4.4 points, the end result yielded the two-term senator an 8.6 percent win, meaning a polling miss of 4.2 points, well outside the polling margin of error and far beyond the early race pattern.

The most accurately polled Senate race was Arizona, where the cumulative average found Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix) leading former news anchor Kari Lake (R) by an average of 2.6 points in the later stages of the race, after he posted larger early advantages. Gallego would win the statewide race by 2.4 percentage points meaning a polling miss of only 0.2 percent.

As in the presidential race, the consistent polling flaw was under-counting the Republican support. In 10 of the 11 monitored races, the Republican candidate exceeded the suggested polling support figure. The only contest where the Republican candidate failed to top the polling average came in Montana where challenger Tim Sheehy (R) defeated Sen. Jon Tester (D) by 7.1 percentage points. The polling average in the race’s latter stage was 7.6 percent.

The polling community correctly projected the Senate winner in 10 of the 11 monitored races. The only contender to defy the polling projections was Pennsylvania Republican David McCormick (R) who many media outlets have projected as a winner opposite Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D). The race is in a recount where McCormick maintains a lead of better than 25,000 votes.

For the most part, the repeated polling criticism is exaggerated. Overall, the pollsters had a relatively good year, and did correctly see the Trump polling trend in that he won the battleground states and the national popular vote by largely predicted close margins. The consistent underestimating of Republican support, however, does indicate future methodology correction is warranted.

Kamala for Governor?

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Nov. 18, 2024

Governor

Vice President Kamala Harris / Photo by Gage Skidmore

Rumors abound in California that key Kamala Harris supporters will attempt to convince her to run for governor in 2026 when the seat next comes open. Incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a Harris political ally, is ineligible to seek a third term.

The idea is reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s move in 1962 after he lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy. Like Harris, Nixon had been elected as a US senator from California and then vice president under Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Ten years earlier, Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives from a southern California congressional seat.

Nixon’s gubernatorial bid failed. He would lose to then-Gov. Pat Brown, father of future governor and presidential candidate Jerry Brown, by a 52-47 percent majority. Though Nixon carried California against Kennedy, he did so with a bare 50.1 – 49.5 percent margin, meaning a spread of 35,623 votes from a total voting universe of 6.48 million ballots. Therefore, the idea of Nixon running for governor after losing the presidential race was iffy at best.

In those days, however, California was a competitive political state, and a Republican candidate could win a statewide election. Ronald Reagan would prove such four years later as he unseated Gov. Brown with a landslide 58-42 percent election that translated into an almost one million vote spread win for the actor turned politician who was of course a future president. In that election, Reagan won 55 of the state’s 58 counties.

The situation for Harris would be different. In the 2024 election, she carried California over President-Elect Trump with a 58.7 – 38.2 percent vote split, far superior to Nixon’s tight victory margin.

In her lone Senate race, 2016, she captured almost 62 percent of the vote against then-Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Orange County) in a double-Democratic general election. In her two successful races for the job of California Attorney General, Harris recorded victory percentages of 57.5 and 46.0 percent. The latter contest, in 2010, proved only a half-point win for Harris, but that was her first statewide run and California was more politically competitive during that period than today.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (D) and state Senate President Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) are already announced gubernatorial candidates. Former State Controller Betty Yee (D) and ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) are also formally announced candidates. In the state’s top-two primary system, it is possible that two Democrats could again advance into the general election.

Therefore, Harris placing first in a multi-candidate jungle primary election would likely be the projected outcome, thus putting her in a strong position for the general election.

As Senator-Elect Adam Schiff (D) surmised in his statewide race, it would be to her benefit to draw a Republican opponent in the general election rather than another accomplished Democrat.

Though Republicans are far from being competitive enough to win a California statewide general election, their cumulative percentages in 2024 were an improvement over recent election cycles. Therefore, there is a greater possibility that the California GOP has enough strength to qualify a well-known general election finalist in 2026 as former baseball great Steve Garvey (R) was able to do in the ’24 open US Senate campaign.

While it remains unclear as to whether Kamala Harris will attempt a political comeback after her decisive national loss, returning to California to compete in an open 2026 governor’s race would be a logical place to make such a move should she so decide.

Mandated Recount
In Pennsylvania Senate Race

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Nov. 15, 2024

Senate

Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick (R)

Though several media outlets have called the Pennsylvania Senate race for Republican David McCormick (R) over three-term Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D), the Secretary of the Commonwealth made an announcement that will continue political overtime until possibly the end of November.

Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Al Schmidt declared that the Senate results featuring Sen. Casey and McCormick will move to a mandated recount because the difference between the two contenders is less than a half of a percentage point. Under Pennsylvania election law, recounts are mandated when the vote margin is less than a half point.

The ruling is somewhat curious in that all 67 counties have apparently not finished the tabulation process, so it is presumed that if the final unofficial count grows to a margin greater than half of a percent, the recount will be cancelled.

Schmidt has informed each county election official that their final vote tallies must be completed before the recount begins on Nov. 20. The political overtime period must conclude by Nov. 26 with the final report sent to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office on Nov. 27 — the day before Thanksgiving.

The reported results and percentages are: McCormick: 3,380,310 (48.93 percent); Casey 3,350,972 (48.50 percent). The McCormick margin is 29,338 votes.

Predictably, both sides are attacking the other. The Casey operation issued a statement from the senator’s campaign manager saying, “David McCormick and his allies are trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters with litigation designed to throw out large tranches of votes that they’ve admitted in legal filings could impact the outcome of the election. Senator Casey wants all Pennsylvanians’ voices to be heard as local county officials continue to count votes. This democratic process must be allowed to play out to determine the result of this election.”

The McCormick campaign is in court opposing Casey attempting to convince a judge to allow ballots from non-registered voters, those without individual signatures, mail-in ballots without dates, and those cast in a county where the voter does not live.

We can expect more rhetoric coming from both sides throughout the final counting period and during the recount phase. Though the percentage between the two candidates is low, the raw number of votes that constitutes McCormick’s lead is substantial. Switching as many as 30,000 votes through a recount seldom, if ever, happens.

The last time we saw a Senate race embroiled in a prolonged recount came from Minnesota back in 2008. In that election, which lingered until the following July to finally decide, the two principals, then-Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and entertainer Al Franken (D), were separated not by thousands of votes statewide, but rather just hundreds.

In fact, Coleman was originally certified the race winner with a vote margin of just 215 votes from almost 2.9 million votes cast. Though the state declared Coleman the official winner, the Franken forces continued to fight and were able to find a favorable court to overturn the election and allow “found” votes that were previously undiscovered. The change allowed Franken, months later, to win the seat with a 312-vote edge.

The Senate itself is the ultimate arbiter of disputed elections involving its members or prospective members and not the judiciary. In 2009, the Democrats enjoyed a large Senate majority that allowed Franken to continue to fight and eventually win his seat. Now that Republicans will have the majority in the 119th Congress, and at least a 52-47 margin without Pennsylvania being decided, McCormick should enjoy the similar chamber support which Franken had 16 years ago.

McCormick is still the favorite to eventually claim the Pennsylvania seat, but it appears this Senate race will drag on for several more weeks.