Tag Archives: Alaska

The 2012 Presidential Delegates

Soon the 2012 presidential campaign will be starting in earnest, and we will again experience the laborious and complicated process of nominating candidates for the general election campaign. With a sitting incumbent unlikely to face a strong intra-party challenge, the Democrats will have little action on their side of the political ledger. Thus, Pres. Barack Obama’s nomination process will be little more than a formality.

Though the Republican candidates seem to be a little slow getting out of the gate right now, the major action still will be in their party. With no clear front-running candidate, the delegate count becomes even more important because the eventual winner is forced to build a large early lead. Again, having candidates who will likely only be strong in a particular geographic region, as was the case in 2008, it is anyone’s guess as to who will break out of the pack and claim the Republican nomination.

Though we are now less than a year from the first caucus vote, many decisions are still undetermined. Most states have only a tentative schedule in place, while others still must make a decision on their delegate selection format.

The 50 states and six voting territories have several ways of determining their own individual nominating system. The most popular is the winner-take-all (WTA) option, where the candidate receiving the most votes gets all of the state’s delegates. Arizona and Missouri are traditionally in this category. Other states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Utah are likely to be WTA’s in 2012.

Some states, like California and Florida, choose a modified winner-take-all system. A candidate receives a certain number of delegates for winning the state, and then is awarded every delegate in each congressional district won.

The last major category is the proportional system. This is where each candidate is awarded delegates based upon the percentage of the popular vote that he or she receives in the primary election. States can hold their nominating process either through a direct vote of the people either in an open or closed primary, or via a caucus system.

Right now, it appears that 11 states will use the winner-take-all system and another nine the modified WTA. An additional nine will use the proportional primary option. Fifteen states will caucus. Another dozen entities will use some variation of the above, except for the two “loophole” states. Illinois and Pennsylvania conduct a primary, but instead of selecting the presidential candidates, voters here choose the delegates themselves. Normally the delegate candidate is listed in a way that clearly denotes who the individual supports for president, but the vote is cast for the individual delegate, nonetheless.

In 2012, the Republicans will have a total field of 2,421 delegates. Exactly 1,879 individuals, called “pledged delegates,” will go to the Republican National Convention pledged to vote for a particular candidate at least on the first ballot. Another 542 will be free agents and will report to the convention as “unpledged” delegates. A candidate will be nominated for president once he or she obtains 1,211 delegate votes.

The first vote looks to be in Wyoming, at their county caucus program on Jan. 7, 2012. Iowa will be the first major event, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 16. South Carolina, right now, is next up for Jan. 21. New Hampshire is tentatively picking Jan. 24, but the Granite State is sure to move up, as the party rules allow New Hampshire to retain its position as the first primary state. Florida will follow on Jan. 31. Maine and Alaska will have a caucus procedure before Super Tuesday. Currently, 15 states appear to be lining up for a Feb. 7 Super Tuesday election.

At this point in the process, 22 states will have chosen at least a partial slate of delegates, and a grand total of 1,096 delegate votes will be decided or officially categorized as unpledged. Through Tuesday, March 6, 41 states will have chosen delegates, most likely meaning that the Republican nomination will be decided by that date. If not, then we could be headed for the first brokered convention in generations, truly a nightmare scenario for the GOP as it already faces an uphill challenge in unseating an incumbent president, especially if the Democrats can unify their party.

Count on seeing and hearing much more about the Republican delegate count as we march forward to the another marathon presidential election. The fun is about to begin.
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Murkowski Wins in Alaska

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) officially has been declared the winner of the marathon Alaska Senate contest. With only 700+ ballots remaining to count, she is beyond the margin of error even when including all of opponent Joe Miller’s (R) challenged ballots. The Senator’s lead has grown to over 10,000 votes, exceeding the number of outstanding absentee ballots plus the 8,153 votes Miller is challenging. Thus ends the saga of one of the strangest political campaigns in recent memory. Murkowski lost the primary to Miller principally because she lacked a strong ground-force turnout mechanism but quickly rebounded to form a general election political apparatus to produce a win via write-in — an operation that requires intense organizational ability. This victory certainly ranks among the greatest comebacks in American political history.

Now, all 37 Senate races are official. The new Senate will stand at 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. The GOP won 24 campaigns in 2010 versus the Democrats’ 13, four short of the minimum requirement to claim the majority. Next we move to 2012, where Democrats must defend 23 seats versus just 10 for the Republicans. Lisa Murkowski is only the second person to win a Senate seat without officially being on the ballot. South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond was the other to accomplish the feat, way back in 1954.

Bean Concedes in Illinois; Progress on Other Races

Add one more new Republican seat to the completed House totals. Educator Joe Walsh, enjoying strong support from the Tea Party movement, has successfully unseated Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL-8) as the remaining absentee and provisional ballots were finally counted yesterday. Walsh leads by only 282 votes of almost 200,000 cast, yet Rep. Bean decided to forego a recount and conceded the race, telephoning Walsh to offer her congratulations.

The IL-8 race may be the biggest surprise outcome of Election 2010 because Bean appeared on no one’s major target list, even though the 8th district is heavily Republican. She first won the seat in 2004, defeating 35-year Rep. Phil Crane (R). Ms. Bean consistently repelled mediocre opponents in 2006 and 2008 until Walsh came from almost complete obscurity this year to score the upset victory.

Overall, the House now stands at 240 Republicans and 193 Democrats with two New York races still undetermined. Two others, TX-27 (Blake Farenthold defeating Rep. Solomon Ortiz; 799 vote margin) and NC-2 (Renee Ellmers unseating Rep. Bob Etheridge; 1,489 vote spread) are subject to an official recount, but the respective outcomes are not expected to change.

Adding Walsh means Republicans gained a total of four seats in Illinois and actually took control of the congressional delegation by an 11-8 count. Redistricting, however, is exclusively in Democratic hands next year, so expect the delegation complexion to drastically change when the new lines are drawn. Walsh will certainly be a prime Democratic target. The state is likely to lose one seat in the 2010 apportionment.

More will soon be known about the New York races since absentee ballot counting finally began yesterday. In NY-1, where GOP challenger Randy Altschuler leads incumbent Rep. Tim Bishop (D) by 383 votes, more than 11,000 Suffolk County absentee ballots were opened. We hopefully will get a clue today as to those results. In the Syracuse area, the count is again finally moving. Votes from the smaller, more rural counties have been tabulated and Republican challenger Ann Marie Buerkle’s lead over freshman Rep. Dan Maffei (D) has grown to 729 votes. More than 6,000 votes remain from Onondoga County, an area that tends to favor Democrats. In Election Night counting, Maffei scored 54% of the vote here. Among the ballots remaining, however, the Congressman will have to exceed that total in order to surpass Buerkle. To reclaim the lead, Maffei will have to break 56% among the outstanding votes. Both of these elections are still too close to call.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest round of counting on Long Island and in the upstate region, no winner will be declared until all the military and overseas ballots have been received. Under New York law, the acceptance deadline is Nov. 24th, still a week away. It is likely, though, that the candidates leading the race at the end of the current respective count will hold on through the end, as the ballots still to come will be few in number.

Turning to Alaska where the trends continue to favor a write-in victory for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), counting laboriously moves forward. For the first time, however, Murkowski is officially leading.

It was long believed the trends — she was receiving 98% of the write-in votes — would allow her to overcome challenger Joe Miller (R), but now she has actually done so. At the end of counting yesterday, Murkowski had 92,164 votes to Miller’s 90,448. Miller, however, is challenging 7,601 ballots that have already been counted for the Senator but, so far, he is succeeding in actually removing only a handful of votes from the official tabulation. He is challenging the entire process in court, however. It now appears to be a virtual certainty that Murkowski will end the election with more votes than Miller, and the long-shot lawsuit will likely be his last hope of turning around the outcome. Eventually, Sen. Murkowski will be certified as the winner of this race.

Counting Continues in Alaska; Three House Races Remain

Alaska: Election authorities are finished counting about 89% of all ballots, including the write-in and absentee votes, in their unfinished U.S. Senate race. If current trends continue, it appears that Sen. Lisa Murkowski will be re-elected. Republican Joe Miller defeated Murkowski in the August 24th Republican primary, but a strong grassroots write-in campaign coupled with Miller’s political implosion apparently will combine to make the Senator only the second person in history to win a seat by write-in. The only other such instance in a Senate campaign was Strom Thurmond’s victorious effort in South Carolina back in 1954.

Murkowski is capturing 98% of the write-in tallies. More than 160 people are qualified to receive write-in votes, and it was obvious that the Senator would record the overwhelming majority of them, but it was unclear until the counting began whether she would get virtually all of them. That appears to be the case.

Numbers-wise, Miller is sitting with 82,180, but Murkowski has now surged ahead of him with 92,979. Miller has challenged about 10% of the Murkowski write-in votes, but has successfully disqualified only 1.52% of the disputed votes. Democrat Scott McAdams is way back with 54,147 and is eliminated from having any mathematical chance of winning.

Two More House Races Decided: Absentee ballot counting laboriously continues in California, but we have two more campaigns finally decided. Democratic incumbents Jerry McNerney (D-CA-11) and Jim Costa (D-CA-20) have both declared victory as the post-election counting is now putting them comfortably ahead of their very competitive Republican challengers.

There are approximately 11,700 ballots left to count in the 11th district and GOP challenger David Harmer would have to win 57% of these to overtake the incumbent, a number that is almost assuredly out of reach; 700 of these ballots are from Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, two heavily Democratic regions that will overwhelmingly favor McNerney. Given that, Harmer is forced to win more than 60% of the San Joaquin and Contra Costa County votes, which simply won’t happen.

In California’s 20th district in the Central Valley, the tabulated Fresno County absentee ballots have wiped out challenger Andy Vidak’s small lead and put Rep. Costa in front by more than 1,200 votes. The remaining ballots are predominantly from Fresno and Kings Counties, two areas that heavily favor the Democratic incumbent. It is very likely that the Costa margin will increase as the final tallies become known in the next few days.

Still TBD: The resolution of the two California races means there are only three House campaigns left to be called.

Two New York races, NY-1 and NY-25, both feature Republican challengers who are leading by small margins. Military and absentee ballots will be counted next week, as the deadline for submitting such votes was extended past the election. Republican challenger Randy Altschuler leads by 383 votes in NY-1; former Syracuse City Councilwoman Ann Marie Buerkle has an official 659-vote lead over Democratic freshman Rep. Dan Maffei.
In the IL-8 contest between Rep. Melissa Bean and GOP educator Joe Walsh, the challenger continues to cling to a 553-vote margin. This one will likely end in Walsh’s favor, with a full recount procedure to follow.

Adding the two California Democratic victories, the House count now stands at 240 Republicans and 192 Democrats. GOP wins in the final three races would push their total to as high as 243.

Of Note: Recounts are underway in KY-6 and NC-2, but it is unlikely that the final results will change the outcome. Unless a major error is found in the previous count, Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY-6) will retain his seat and challenger Renee Ellmers (R-NC-2) will defeat Rep. Bob Etheridge (D).

Today is the deadline for Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX-27) to decide if he will pay for a recount in his race against attorney Blake Farenthold. The incumbent trails by just about 800 votes with everything counted.

Republicans Win Hidden Election, Too

Now that the numbers in all gubernatorial races and most of the legislative contests are known, it appears that the Republicans are in their best-ever shape for congressional redistricting.

Looking at the configuration of multi-district states, the GOP will draw the 2011 maps – meaning they have total control of the process – in 17 states, representing 195 US House seats. Democrats now maintain only six such states, meaning they will draw just 44 districts. Fourteen states, containing 101 CDs, have divided government, suggesting that each party commands at least one leg of the redistricting stool. The three “legs” are the governorship, a state Senate, or state House. Six states, now led by California (53 districts) – Hawaii, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, and New Jersey are the others – are controlled by various redistricting commissions, members of which will draw a total of 88 districts. Finally, seven states: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, are at-large and each elects only one member of the House. Thus, redistricting is not a factor in these places.

Some people refer to the zero-numbered election years as “hidden elections” because in many cases the people winning gubernatorial and legislative offices will draw maps that elect congressmen for the next decade. Hence, winning last week’s hidden election may allow the GOP to sustain the House majority for not just this current term, but for the next 10 years.

The Senate is Finally Final … Almost

Washington Sen. Patty Murray (D) was declared the winner of the 2010 Senate contest with still more than 17% of the vote remaining to be counted. The 46,000+ vote margin made it impossible for challenger Dino Rossi (R) to close the gap. Rossi released a statement conceding the election. Campaign Manager Pat Shortridge indicated that the turnout in the Democratic stronghold of King County (Seattle) was greater than 70%, a huge number for a mid-term election and an obstacle that Rossi could not overcome.

The Murray victory ends all of the Senate races from a partisan perspective. It is still unclear if Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) will retain her seat via the write-in process, but it is a foregone conclusion that the eventual winner will either be she or the Republican nominee Joe Miller. You will remember that Miller defeated Murkowski in the GOP primary. Though it will be two weeks or more before this election is finally determined, it does appear that Murkowski is well positioned to eventually declare victory.

The final count will show 53 Democrats in the new Senate versus 47 Republicans; a net gain of six seats for the GOP. Republicans won 24 of the 37 Senate elections, but needed 28 to claim the majority. They converted six Democratic states, but only defeated two incumbents – Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Democrats won zero Republican states, as the GOP was successful in holding all of the seats they previously controlled.

On the gubernatorial side, several more races were called yesterday. Former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) was declared the winner in Oregon, defeating ex-NBA basketball player Chris Dudley (R). Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) eked out a very close win over state Sen. Bill Brady (R) in a race that polling suggested was headed for a different conclusion. In Vermont, Democrats successfully converted the open Republican seat back to their column as state Senate President Peter Shumlin won a razor-thin victory over GOP Lt. Governor Brian Dubie.

Two states are still outstanding: Connecticut and Minnesota. Confusion reins in Connecticut as election officials and media outlets attempt to determine the actual vote count. Democrat Dan Malloy claims to be ahead in the race as most of the uncounted ballots come from the city of Bridgeport, which is a Democratic fortress area. Former Sen. Mark Dayton’s (D-MN) 8,000+ vote margin will likely stand, but the Minnesota election appears headed for a recount.

Should the Democrats win the final two races, the count will end with 29 Republican governors, 20 Democrats and 1 Independent (former Sen. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island); a gain of five seats for the Republicans. Like in the Senate, only two incumbents were defeated, Govs. Ted Strickland (D-OH) and Chet Culver (D-IA). Republicans won a total of 23 gubernatorial elections this past Tuesday night as compared to the Democrats’ 13, assuming the last two campaigns finally break their way.

Looking at some House stats from Tuesday, 51 incumbents were defeated (49 Democrats; 2 Republicans), not counting any of the remaining outstanding campaigns; 35 of the ousted incumbents are either in their freshman or sophomore term, and 16 are veteran members. The House Blue Dog Coalition was decimated on Tuesday, as 28 of its 52 members will not return to the 112th Congress. Twenty-two BD’s were defeated on Election Day and six more either retired or ran for a different office.

The Upside Down Landslide

The 2010 election cycle proved unique in many ways – it’s the first time that the House of Representatives switched party control without the Senate also doing so, for example – but probably it’s most surprising characteristic is the reverse nature of the results.

Normally in landslide years, the statewide elections set the tone for incumbent defeats. Not so in 2010. Only two US Senators, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, were unseated Tuesday night. Likewise, only two Governors, Ohio’s Ted Strickland and Iowa’s Chet Culver, were politically fired. In the US House races, however, at least 49 (47 Democrats; 2 Republicans) incumbents lost their re-election battles, and the number could go as high as 59 depending upon the outcome of the 10 House elections that are still undecided. At the state legislative level, the number of incumbent defeats rose into the hundreds. Republicans gained more there than at any electoral level, and increased their total number of legislative seats by at least 680 nationally. They will control a minimum of 54 legislative chambers, a modern-day political record.

The voting public’s willingness to change political course in 2010 is unusual because the anti-incumbent fervor actually increased as people moved down the ballot (into races where the candidates’ names are less familiar) instead of waning. Thus, the sense that this is an “upside down landslide” victory for the Republicans.

As mentioned above, 10 US House races remain unresolved. In all cases, large numbers of absentee and/or provisional ballots remain to be counted that could certainly change the results. Whether such alteration means a different candidate will eventually win the election as opposed to the one who is now leading remains an open question in each of these elections. The 10 are (in alphabetical order):

AZ-7: Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) vs. Ruth McClung (R)
Grijalva leads 62,459 to 58,376 – all precincts are counted
AZ-8: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) vs. Jesse Kelly (R)
Giffords leads 120,175 to 117,826 – in both AZ races all precincts are counted but thousands of absentee ballots remain
CA-11: Rep. Jerry McNerney (D) vs. David Harmer (R)
McNerney leads 82,124 to 82,003 with thousands of ballots remaining to be counted
CA-20: Rep. Jim Costa (D) vs. Andy Vidak (R)
Vidak leads 32,521 to 30,708 – the low vote total suggests huge numbers of votes remain uncounted
IL-8: Rep. Melissa Bean (D) vs. Joe Walsh (R)
Walsh leads 97,403 to 96,850 – again large numbers of absentees remain
KY-6: Rep. Ben Chandler (D) vs. Andy Barr (R)
Chandler leads 119,845 to 119,245 – the high vote total suggests the absentee ballots remaining are relatively few, but are enough to change the outcome
NY-25: Rep. Dan Maffei (D) vs. Ann Marie Buerkle (R)
Maffei leads 95,286 to 93,090 with 96% of the precincts counted
TX-27: Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D) vs. Blake Farenthold (R)
Farenthold leads 50,954 to 50,155 – all precincts are reporting; low voter turnout; absentee ballots remain
VA-11: Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) vs. Keith Fimian (R)
Connolly leads 111,615 to 110,695 – absentee ballots remain
WA-2: Rep. Rick Larsen (D) vs. John Koster (R)
Larsen has just pulled into the lead 97,931 to 97,224 – but only 71% of the vote has been counted; Washington’s unique all-mail system that allows ballots postmarked on Election Day means this one will take a long time to resolve

Only two Senate races remain outstanding. In Alaska, it will take some time to determine if Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won re-election via write-in after losing the Republican primary. It is clear, however, that Republicans will retain the seat. In Washington, Sen. Patty Murray maintains a lead of 27,464 votes, but a quarter of the statewide vote remains to be counted.

On the gubernatorial front, five races remain outstanding. Democrats have small leads in Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, and Vermont. Republican Tom Foley has a slight lead in Connecticut. Several percentage points worth of votes remain to be counted in all five states.