Category Archives: Election Analysis

New Year Senate Preview – Part I

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 4, 2018 — Now that we are officially in election year 2018, it is a good time to set the stage for the coming campaign season. With Democrat Doug Jones converting the Alabama special election last month, and new Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) standing for a concurrent special election this November, a different picture exists for the coming Senate election campaigns.

THE REPUBLICANS

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)

Before Alabama, it was a virtual mathematical certainty that the Republicans would retain Senate control after the 2018 vote because the Democrats had too few viable conversion targets. The Jones’ special election victory to permanently replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate in order to accept his Trump Administration position, now gives the Democrats a path to attaining the majority but they still must overcome the GOP’s strong defensive wall.

Only forced to defend eight of the now 34 in-cycle seats, the Republicans are most at risk in Nevada and Arizona.

In the Silver State, first-term Sen. Dean Heller (R) currently defends his statewide position against two known opponents, only one of which is a Democrat.

Perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian, who has lost campaigns for five different offices (state Senate, Secretary of State, US Senate, Congressional District 4, and Congressional District 3), is nevertheless 4-1 in Republican primaries. Therefore, Sen. Heller’s first task is to secure the GOP nomination in June. Already we have seen erratic polling, with the Tarkanian camp and some national pollsters posting him ahead of Heller, but the senator and other independent research firms countering with the opposite result.

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Southern Polls

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 22, 2017 — If the Democrats are going to make a concerted run at the Senate majority, they must protect all 10, and possibly 11, of their vulnerable states, and then convert both the Arizona and Nevada Republican seats. Or, they must score at least one major upset in what should be a safe Republican domain if they don’t succeed in achieving all of the aforementioned.

Alabama Senator-Elect Doug Jones’ (D) victory earlier this month makes attaining a Democratic majority mathematically possible even though the party must now defend 26 of 34 in-cycle seats next year when adding the new Minnesota special election to the calendar.

Wednesday, two polls were reported in 2018 southern Republican states: Tennessee and Mississippi.

The Democrats’ chances in the Volunteer State, though still in the long-shot sphere, have improved since former Gov. Phil Bredesen agreed to run for the Senate.

WPA Intelligence, polling for the Super PAC, Defend the President, a group supporting Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Brentwood) in her battle for the open Senate seat (Dec. 13,14,17; 500 likely Tennessee general election voters) found the congresswoman leading former Gov. Bredesen by a healthy 43-34 percent margin. If ex-Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Crockett County) were the Republican nominee, however, the race flips. Here, Bredesen would hold a 42-30 percent advantage.

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A One-Vote Victory in Virginia;
The Texas Challenge

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 21, 2017 — It now appears that an incredible finish has occurred in the Virginia state elections even though voting ended six weeks ago. The House of Delegates’ majority has come down to literally one single vote from one of the 100 districts according to a just-completed recount.

In Newport News Delegate District 94, an incredible one-vote victory for Democrat Shelly Simonds was declared as the final recount tally Tuesday, but this result still won’t become official until the certification process concludes. Simonds is a Newport News School Board member who has apparently defeated incumbent Republican David Yancey by the slimmest possible margin. On election night, and through most of the process, Yancey led the count by 10 votes.

Since the election on Nov. 7, the canvassing and subsequent recount process had been underway with election officials attempting to agree upon a final determination as to who actually won the 94th District race where an apparent 23,912 individuals cast their ballots.

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Democratic Enthusiasm: Overblown?

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 20, 2017 — In attempting to objectively look at the current electorate now one year before the next election, is Democratic enthusiasm about the party’s prospects of capturing the US House majority accurate or does their optimism exceed what the numbers actually say?

Several points need to be dispelled before examining the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll that gives the Democrats a 10-point advantage in the “enthusiasm gap.”

First, let’s remember in looking at the current cycle’s House special election results that neither party lost a seat they previously held. This is particularly significant when Democrats use the argument in reference to the Kansas, Montana, and Georgia special elections that they over-performed even though failing to win any of the seats.

While they may have over-performed in relation to the Trump presidential percentage in Kansas and Montana, when looking back to the last time those particular seats were open the 2017 Republican special election performance was actually within the consistent realm. Therefore, as the Democratic strategists often say themselves, and correctly so, it is the Trump percentage that is generally the political anomaly and not the historical results.

” … a one-point victory in an election with such a flawed candidate, irrespective of Alabama’s voting history, simply cannot be considered the emerging beacon of a coming wave for the 2018 midterm elections.”

In Georgia, the Democrats and their allies spent a record $35 million on that particular special election campaign and still lost by four percentage points. The one seat where they unmistakably over-performed was the only special election where the party’s political apparatus didn’t target: the three-point Republican victory in the South Carolina electoral contest.

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Another Falls — What are the Odds?

Nevada Rep. Ruben Kihuen
(D–Las Vegas) | Facebook

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 19, 2017 — Freshman Nevada Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Las Vegas), who previously said he would not resign when sexual impropriety allegations were made against him, became the sixth current House member to either leave Congress or retire unexpectedly due to harassment claims. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Alabama special election candidate Roy Moore (R) also succumbed to accusations that fall within this same category either through resignation or defeat at the polls.

Kihuen was accused of aggressive behavior with a former campaign staffer. When a second woman came forward with a similar story, the freshman Representative decided to end his current congressional tenure when this session adjourns. His 4th CD is a marginal political district.

When Nevada was awarded a fourth seat in 2010 reapportionment, it appeared that the new Las Vegas-anchored seat would favor the Democrats because the Hispanic population tops 29.1 percent in addition to an African American component of 15.6 percent. But, the district hasn’t always been reliable.

Despite their partisan opponents carrying the seat in the two presidential elections since its creation (Clinton: 49-45 percent; Obama: 54-44 percent), Republicans prevailed here in several statewide elections, and GOP congressional candidate Cresent Hardy (R-Mesquite) defeated one-term Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Las Vegas) in the GOP landslide year before Kihuen turned the tables on the freshman incumbent in 2016. In the district’s short history, the electorate has yet to re-elect an incumbent House member.

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Alabama Stats;
Minnesota’s New Senator

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 15, 2017 — Predictably, Democrats and media commentators are promoting the premise that Doug Jones’ victory in Tuesday’s Alabama special Senate election is another sign that a Democratic wave is building to transform the minority party into one that wins control of at least one congressional chamber next year. But the actual numbers do not provide evidence for such an analysis.

In actuality, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) may have succinctly and correctly described what happened in the Alabama election, which caused Republicans to lose one of their safest seats in the nation. During an interview with NBC News, Sen. Johnson simply said, “Alabamians didn’t want somebody who dated 14-year-old girls.”

Looking at the actual figures, there is more supporting data for the supposition that Jones’ win is more likely due to Republican defections from former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, rather than a massive increase in Democratic turnout. While the Alabama special did feature a higher turnout than the last midterm election (2014), we also saw this phenomenon occur in two earlier special elections: the Montana at-large and GA-6 congressional contests. Republicans won both of those votes, proving that the GOP base was sufficiently energized in those two places to withstand increased Democratic turnout. But, Alabama doesn’t fit that same model either in the mode of Republican loyalty or an energized Democratic base.

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Jones!

Alabama Senator-elect Doug Jones’ campaign image.

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 14, 2017 — With the final polling covering all possibilities — from Democrat Doug Jones leading by 10 points, to Republican Roy Moore ahead by nine, to a straight tie — Tuesday’s Alabama special Senate election carried a great deal of uncertainty as voters cast their ballots.

Republicans were badly split between those party leaders publicly repulsed by the allegations of sexual impropriety against Moore, to those who felt that holding the seat and preventing the Democrats from having any path to obtaining the Senate majority in 2018 was most important.

The split was enough to allow Democrat Jones, a former Birmingham region US Attorney, to slip past Judge Moore and secure what previously had been a safely Republican seat for the next three years. Jones will replace appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R) who fell to Moore in the Republican run-off in late September.

The unofficial final totals give Jones 49.9 percent of the vote as compared to Moore’s 48.4 percent. Election Day’s final turnout figure showed 1,344,406 individuals having cast ballot, a total that will increase when all absentee and provisional ballots are finally added to the mix. In comparison, the last gubernatorial election (2014) drew 1,180,413. The 2016 presidential campaign saw 2,123,372 votes cast. Therefore, this special election, as did others earlier in the cycle (MT-AL; GA-6), actually produced a higher voter turnout than the state’s last regular midterm election.

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