Category Archives: Election Analysis

Wisconsin: A Precursor?

Wisconsin Congressional Districts

By Jim Ellis

April 16, 2020 — The April 7th Badger State primary election results were announced this Monday, and former vice president Joe Biden easily defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 63-32 percent, but that’s not the real story behind the final statewide totals.

The bigger race was an ostensibly nonpartisan state Supreme Court judicial election between appointed incumbent Daniel Kelly and Dane County Circuit Court judge Jill Karofsky. Though the Republican and Democratic labels did not appear on the ballot, both parties were heavily invested. And, with much money being spent and both sides “all-in”, many believed it to be a precursor to this year’s presidential campaign in a state that could well become the deciding factor nationally.

Wisconsin Republicans needed the seat to maintain their 5-2 majority on the court, and Democrats wanted to narrow the margin to 4-3 in order to position themselves to take the majority in the next election; hence, this contest’s importance.

Controversy surrounded whether to even hold the election. Democratic insiders and activists were lobbying Gov. Tony Evers (D) to petition the legislature to delay the vote because of the Coronavirus situation. Evers delayed taking action, but finally went to the legislature a week before the vote. The Republican legislative leaders turned Evers down, and subsequent court decisions backed the decision to hold the election on schedule, virtually the only state that was moving forward with an in-person voting mode.

The announced results gave Judge Karofsky a big 55-45 percent upset win, and whether or not this is a precursor to the presidential result remains to be seen. Some believe the fact that the Republican leadership was insisting on moving forward with the election – with people believing they wanted the election as scheduled because they felt the quicker vote favored them – resulted in a voter backlash; hence, Karofsky’s large margin in what was projected to be a much closer electoral contest.

Democrats fought hard to postpone the election and increase the mail-in facet – and most believe they wanted such because they perceived it favored them – but clearly won the election even under the voting structure that the Republicans desired.

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House Opens – Toss-Up/Leans

By Jim Ellis

April 15, 2020 — The open-seat count has increased to 43, with 31 coming from the minority Republican column. The number of competitive opens, however, at this point in the cycle is likely just nine, as 34 of the incumbent-less seats fall into either the Safe/Likely Democratic (12) column or Safe/Likely Republican (22) category. Today, we look at the competitive open seats.

Toss-Up

• CA-25: The vacant Palmdale/Simi Valley seat heads to a special election on May 12 in north Los Angeles County. State Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D-Newhall) and Republican retired Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia (R) advanced from the special primary into the stand-alone mail-in special general. Regardless of the outcome on May 12, these two candidates will advance into the November general election to determine who will represent the politically marginal district in the next Congress.
The special election has moved from “Lean Democratic” into the “Toss-up” category as a result of recent polling that projects Garcia owning a small lead and because of the partisan turnout numbers in the regular primary. The latter statistic actually found more Republicans voting than Democrats.

• GA-7: In 2018, this Atlanta suburban seat featured the closest raw vote margin in the nation, as incumbent Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Lawrenceville) defeated state legislative staff member Carolyn Bourdeaux by just 419 votes. This year, with Rep. Woodall retiring, Bourdeaux returns but must top five other Democratic candidates including a state senator, state representative, and former Fulton County commission chairman. Therefore, the May 19 Democratic primary, now moved to June 9, will be competitive and the possibility of advancing to an Aug. 11 runoff election certainly exists.
Republicans may be more likely to move into a runoff than the Democrats, however. Seven candidates are in the field, only one of who is an elected official. More on this race as it develops, but we will probably see tight elections in both primaries and almost assuredly in the general election.

Lean Democratic

• IA-2: In a 2020 open-seat election in this southeastern Iowa congressional district, the Republican challenge is at least as difficult as opposing seven-term incumbent David Loebsack (D-Iowa City), who is now retiring. Democrats have already coalesced around ex-state senator Rita Hart (D-Wheatland), a soybean farmer and former educator from Clinton County.
In 2018, Hart was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor on the ticket that businessman Fred Hubbell lost in a close race to Gov. Kim Reynolds (R). It is an unusual situation when an incumbent party must defend an open seat and winds up with an unopposed candidate in the primary, but that is what has occurred here.
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Senate Ratings – Toss-Up/Leans

By Jim Ellis

April 14, 2020 — Following our Overview of the Senate races yesterday, today we look at the 10 most competitive campaigns. At this point, just one toss-up appears on our board, the North Carolina race featuring Sen. Thom Tillis (R) and ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D). Six seats fall into the “lean Republican” column, while three trend Democratic.

Toss-Up

• Thom Tillis (NC) – Over the years, the North Carolina electorate has defeated more incumbent Senators than any state. Therefore, all incumbents seeking re- election are almost always placed in a toss-up situation. The 2020 race is no exception. First-term Sen. Thom Tillis (R) and former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D), who easily won the Democratic primary on March 3rd, advance to what will become one of the premier general election campaigns in the country.

Lean Republican

• Doug Jones (AL) – Sen. Doug Jones (D) won his seat three years ago in what can be described as an “accidental victory” when Republican Roy Moore, a former state Supreme Court Chief Judge who was the party’s 2017 special election nominee, self-destructed. Now, Sen. Jones stands for a full term and he will either face retired Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville or former US Attorney General and Alabama senator, Jeff Sessions.
The Republican runoff will be decided July 14, after the original secondary election schedule was moved from March 31. With President Trump leading the Alabama ballot in what will be one of his strongest states, it’s hard to see a scenario where Sen. Jones wins re-election now that Judge Moore has been eliminated from further competition.

• Kelly Loeffler (GA) – Appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler appears to be in deep political trouble. With her sale of more than $18 million in stocks and making COVID-19-related investments just after receiving virus-related Senate briefings, the new incumbent has seen adverse publicity tank her personal favorability rating, regardless of whether her story of not being directly connected to the transactions is true or not. Today, it appears difficult to foresee a path back to competitiveness for the novice politician.
That’s not to say the Republicans will lose the seat, however. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) leads every jungle primary poll by substantial numbers and looks to be in the best position to win the seat. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already endorsed Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock over Atlanta businessman Matt Lieberman, son of former Connecticut senator and 2000 vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, and ex-US Attorney Ed Tarver. The jungle primary runs concurrently with the Nov. 3 general election. If no one captures a majority of the vote in the primary, the top two finishers advance to a Jan. 5, 2021 runoff election.

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Rating the Senate – Overview

By Jim Ellis

April 13, 2020 — Taking advantage of the lull in active campaign time because the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in effect around the country yields a relatively stable political picture, we have developed early ratings for this year’s 35 US Senate races. Of course, this comes with the understanding that great unknowns associated with the virus after-effects on the US and world economies will certainly alter the political climate.

As we know, 33 in-cycle Senate races are on the board for November along with two special elections, one in Arizona and the other in Georgia. In this cycle, Republicans must defend 23 of the states hosting Senate races as compared to just 12 for the Democrats. This is almost a complete reversal of the 2018 political map when Democrats were forced to defend 26 of 35 electoral contests.

To review, appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) must run in November to attempt to secure the remaining two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term. In the Peach State, appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) will be on the ballot in hopes of winning her first election, which would yield her two more years of service in replacing resigned Sen. Johnny Isakson (R).

Looking at the entire Senate picture after reviewing all 35 races, it appears that 18 of the 35 campaigns can be considered safe for the incumbent party (10R; 8D). The GOP has five “Likely Republican” races and six more that lean their way today. The Democrats have two “Likely Dem” contests and three more that currently tilt in their direction. We consider only one race a toss-up at this point in the election cycle.

Already in this cycle, we project three conversion situations landing in the “Lean” category for the challenger party, two R to Ds, and one D to R. And, we will take a closer and more expansive look at these “Toss-up” and “Lean”-rated situations in an update tomorrow.

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Sanders Out;
Focus Now on Trump-Biden

By Jim Ellis

Sen. Bernie Sanders

April 9, 2020 — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) suspended his presidential campaign yesterday, therefore making former vice president Joe Biden the Democratic Party’s unofficial nominee. Biden, still 766-bound delegate votes away from clinching a first-ballot victory is now unencumbered in his bid to become the party standard bearer. It is likely that he will secure the 1,991 bound first-ballot delegate votes once the June 2 primary — now featuring 10 states — is held.

Sen. Sanders conceded that he could not overcome Biden’s strong lead but stopped short of endorsing him, though it is clear that he eventually will, and called for the Democratic Party to pull together in order to defeat President Trump.

How will a Trump-Biden general election campaign unfold? Very likely, the race will come down to what happens in about 10 states. In 2016, President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton with an Electoral College margin of 306-232, giving him a 36-vote cushion against Biden. This is a relatively substantial margin, but when remembering that three critical states containing 46 electoral votes came down to an aggregate vote spread of just over 77,000 votes, such a gap could quickly dissipate.

To win again, President Trump must keep intact five states that he carried as part of his 2016 coalition, three of which are giving signs of moving closer to the political center since the last election, and two that are always in the swing category. Arizona, Texas, and Georgia are must-wins for the Trump campaign, but these states are no longer locks for the Republican nominee. Though they should still remain part of the 2020 Trump coalition, they cannot be taken for granted.

Florida and North Carolina are always swing states, and any Republican presidential nominee must carry them in order to win the national election. The Democrats, because they win most of the other big states, can claim a national victory without Florida and North Carolina but a Republican cannot.

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Wisconsin Unable to Report
Yesterday’s Election Results

By Jim Ellis

Wisconsin Congressional Districts

April 8, 2020 — Voting throughout the Badger State occurred yesterday as ordered, but the tabulation results can’t be released until April 13 under a previous court ruling. Therefore, even though the election is complete, we won’t know if former vice president Joe Biden or Sen. Bernie Sanders carried the day until next Monday.

Dating back in this COVID-19-spurred election scheduling controversy, Democrats quickly began urging Gov. Tony Evers (D) to initiate action with the legislature to postpone the presidential and statewide primary as a part of the virus precautions.

Gov. Evers failed to act swiftly and did not go to the legislature until late last week when the majority Republican leadership turned down his request to postpone the April 7 vote. Democratic Party leaders then went to court in an attempt to extend the absentee ballot deadline and were successful until the Republicans asked the US Supreme Court to step in and negate the timeline ruling.

The lower court directive that included the prohibition on reporting vote totals was consistent with the ruling to extend the absentee ballot return deadline, otherwise vote totals would be made public before a large number of individuals had cast their ballots.

In the meantime, Gov. Evers declared a state of emergency and attempted to unilaterally move the election to June 9. Republicans argued that a governor has no such power even under an emergency order and petitioned to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court to strike down the Evers move.

On Monday, both the US and Wisconsin Supreme Courts ruled that the election would continue under its present schedule with original deadlines. Interestingly, however, the SCOTUS did not reverse the entire lower court ruling, and the section about directing county clerks not to report the election returns until April 13 remained intact. Thus, a quirk in the high court decision is now causing an unnecessary delay in seeing the outcome of the presidential primary and the state Supreme Court judicial election, that latter of which is actually the centerpiece of this election and at the heart of the scheduling controversy.

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Wisconsin Primary Moving Forward

By Jim Ellis

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers

April 8, 2020 — Whether or not the Wisconsin primary would be held as scheduled took rulings from two Supreme Courts to decide, but we will see voting today throughout the Wolverine State.

The Democratic presidential primary is interesting since the Wisconsin electorate will be the first to vote post-March 17, and so far, becomes the only group to cast ballots during the COVID-19 lockdown situation. How this affects today’s vote in terms of turnout and candidate loyalty will be interesting to analyze.

Whether or not this election would even happen today has been a point of discussion for the past two weeks. Many Democratic strategists were lobbying Gov. Tony Evers, a fellow Democrat, for several days to move the election, but he was slow to act. Late last week, Gov. Evers decided to ask the legislature to pass a bill changing the election date, but the Republican majority leadership in the two chambers refused. Gov. Evers then made a last-ditch effort to declare a state of emergency and attempted to move the election.

The latter action drew the Republican leadership’s ire, and they immediately petitioned the state Supreme Court arguing that the governor has no power to arbitrarily move an election. They also went to the US Supreme Court attempting to get a lower-court ruling to extend the absentee ballot return deadline past the original election schedule countermanded.

At the heart of the election date becoming a political football was not the presidential race, but rather an important state Supreme Court election. Though the race is ostensibly nonpartisan, it is clear that Democrats believe chances for the candidate they are backing improve in a later election, while Republicans think the appointed incumbent they support fares better in a quicker, and presumably lower turnout contest.

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GA Poll: Senate/Trump

By Jim Ellis

Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) in serious political trouble

April 7, 2020 — The Battleground Connect consulting firm that predominately polls for Republican clients in the South again surveyed the impending Georgia special Senate election as they did on March 24, but this time added questions about the presidential race.

The survey data (March 31-April 1; 1,03 likely Georgia general election voters, live interviews) confirm the previous results that found appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) languishing in deep political trouble presumably because of her highly publicized stock transactions reportedly executed after receiving Senate COVID-19 briefings. Much of this poll’s analytical coverage, however, highlights that President Trump leads former vice president Joe Biden only by two percentage points in one of his must-win states.

The Senate numbers show some changes from Battleground’s last poll conducted on March 24. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) continues to hold first place and increases his support by two points to 36 percent in the jungle primary. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D), who the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already endorsed, moves into second place (16 percent) but remains a full 20 points behind the leader.

Sen. Loeffler pulls just 13 percent preference while Atlanta businessman Matt Lieberman, son of former Connecticut senator and 2000 vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman who was in second position in the last poll, drops to 11 percent. Former US Attorney Ed Tarver (D) then falls to just three percent preference.

In the presidential race, President Trump leads Biden 48-46 percent. Trump’s favorability index is the same as the ballot test, 48:46 percent favorable to unfavorable. Biden’s favorability was not tested, but Rep. Collins posted a 35:29 percent positive ratio while Gov. Brian Kemp (R) recorded a relatively strong 50:32 percent. Sen. Loeffler, on the other hand, notched a very poor 20:55 percent, thus providing further statistical evidence of the appointed incumbent’s recent severe downward trend.

The president’s numbers are not particularly surprising even though some analysts are pointing out that his small margin is a warning sign toward potentially losing the state in the fall. Looking back to 2016, however, suggests that a two-point lead seven months before the general election in a southern state where Republicans typically under-poll tracks with where Trump found himself at a commensurate time four years ago.

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Will Michigan & Wisconsin Voters Determine 2020 Presidential Election?

By Jim Ellis

April 6, 2020 — Polls were just released in both Michigan and Wisconsin, obviously two critically important states that will weigh heavily in determining the final outcome of the next presidential election. While it’s too early to take any general election poll as a true projection of what may happen in November, particularly in light of the current unique situation, the survey did reveal some interesting points.

Progress Michigan’s Lake Effect newsletter: “The governors’ approval ratings pertaining to the [coronavirus] crisis are better than those of the president.”

Public Policy Polling tested the Michigan electorate for the Progress Michigan progressive left organization (March 31-April 1; 1,01 registered Michigan voters) and Marquette Law School just completed their quarterly survey of Wisconsin voters (March 24-29; 81 registered Wisconsin voters). Both made public their results.

We won’t pay too much attention to the ballot tests because it is so far away from the actual vote and the political situation is obviously going to change during the coming months, but the two pollsters found President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden within the margin of error in each state. In both cases, it was Biden who enjoyed a three-point lead.

Within this prism, it is important to recall the 2016 race in which polling badly underestimated Trump’s strength against Hillary Clinton in these two places. According to the 270 To Win organization, which tracked polling throughout that election year, the final averages going into the final weekend found Trump trailing by six points in Michigan and seven in Wisconsin. He won each state by approximately one percentage point, thus proving a large error factor in virtually all of the late polling.

A post-election analysis in which the Pew Research Center and CNN participated, among other firms and media outlets, concluded that a major reason for the flawed projections were the much larger number of Democrats willing to respond to the polling questions than Republicans. Even understanding this was the case at the time, the pollsters’ weighting formulas and algorithms still badly missed the mark throughout the crucial Great Lakes region.

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New Jersey Files

By Jim Ellis

New Jersey congressional districts

April 3, 2020 — In the election two years ago, Democrats nearly swept all 12 of the Garden State’s congressional districts leaving only veteran Rep. Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) standing, a man originally elected in 1980. With this cumulative result, New Jersey became one of the lynchpins of the House Democratic sweep that yielded a net gain of 40 seats nationally.

The Democratic “blue wave” included defeating two sitting Republican incumbents, then-Reps. Tom MacArthur and Leonard Lance, and converting two more open seats, those from which Reps. Frank LoBiondo and Rodney Frelinghuysen retired. Now, the GOP strives to make a comeback.

New Jersey congressional candidates completed their filings earlier this week, thus giving us an introduction as to who will become party nominees in the June 2 primary. The state is again shaping up as one of the most important within the US House election prism.

Since the election, former Democratic state senator Jeff Van Drew, who was elected to replace retiring Rep. LoBiondo in the Atlantic City/Cape May CD, decided to switch parties largely because of the way the Democratic leadership ostracized him for opposing President Trump’s impeachment.

Additionally, the state Republican leadership has maneuvered well, convincing two credible candidates willing to oppose strong Republicans to turn their attention toward Democratic incumbents in nearby districts. This puts more seats in play and unifies the minority party behind all of the viable candidates they are putting forth.

Looking ahead, Reps. Donald Norcross (D-Camden City), Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch/Perth Amboy), Albio Sires (D-West New York), Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing Township/Trenton) are secure for re-election.

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