Tag Archives: Rep. Mia Love

Looks Like the House Settles at 235

California Congressional Districts


By Jim Ellis

Nov. 29, 2018 — The 2018 House election cycle is finally drawing to a close, and it looks like the Democrats are gaining their 40th conversion seat. Monday night in California, as the state’s marathon vote counting process meanders on, Democratic challenger T.J. Cox overtook Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford/Bakersfield) and may well be headed toward victory.

Rep. Valadao, who had earlier been projected as the winner, trails his opponent by 438 votes, but the counting is still not complete. New votes were counted in Kern County that greatly favored Cox, allowing him to take the lead for the first time.

The California counting system literally takes weeks because the state allows voters to postmark their mail ballots on Election Day, and the counties only process ballots on certain days. The 21st District is split among four counties, so it is difficult to know exactly how many mail, overseas, and provisional ballots still remain since the numbers are only released by complete county domain.

It is probable that we will not have a final result until next week because Kern won’t release more totals until Monday. The remaining counties: Fresno, Kings, and Tulare, should record their final numbers this week.

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Mia Love Falls in UT-4

Utah Rep. Mia Love (R-Saratoga Springs)

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 21, 2018 — It appears the final undecided House race has now come to at least an unofficial end, and the result is a bit surprising.

Some, including me, were predicting the culminating vote tabulation trend in Utah’s UT-4 District would favor incumbent US Rep. Mia Love (R-Saratoga Springs), based upon her overwhelming performance from the late votes in the 4th District’s two rural counties and the more populous Utah County. But the substantial number of remaining ballots in Salt Lake County proved decisive in that Democratic nominee Ben McAdams over-performed, which flipped the race back in his direction as the count concluded.

On election night, it appeared that Rep. Love had been defeated when she fell almost 9,000 votes behind as Salt Lake County was being tabulated. But she came roaring back when the outlying counties’ votes were counted. As the late votes were finally being recorded, Love rebounded to forge a 1,615 district-wide vote edge. Her advantageous situation was precarious, however, as thousands of same-day registration, absentee, and provisional votes still remained in Salt Lake County.

Yesterday, those latter votes were counted while Love found herself slightly under-performing within the last group of Utah County votes. She garnered only 66 percent in the final Utah County vote pool, below the 74% she was posting in previous totals within this entity.

According to local reports, this meant that Democrat McAdams, the Salt Lake County mayor, could overtake the congresswoman should he score approximately 59 percent from the remaining votes. This, he did, and then some, as McAdams erased MLove’s previous lead and ended the counting day with a 739-vote advantage.

McAdam’s surge was largely due to approximately 9,000 same-day registrants, many of whom were coming to the polls to vote for the medical marijuana ballot proposal that passed the state 53-47 percent but was overwhelmingly approved in Salt Lake County. It is evident that a strong majority of these voters supported McAdams.

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Florida Ends; Others Called

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 20, 2018 — In a final result where the candidates were divided by less than two votes per precinct statewide, Gov. Rick Scott (R) defeated Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in the hotly contested Florida Senate race that proved a Herculean battle both before and after the election.

With the original vote falling within a half-percent margin, a mandatory machine recount commenced. Since it produced a separation of less than one-quarter percent between the two candidates, a mandatory hand recount began of the “under and “over votes”, i.e., those ballots where a voter either didn’t make their selection clear or appears to have marked more than one contender in the same contest.

Yesterday, when the afternoon hand count deadline produced a 10,033 vote margin for Gov. Scott, Sen. Nelson conceded the race and ended the seven lawsuits that had been filed by various parties contesting pools of votes and the post-election counting process.

The senator now completes a political career in which he served in elective office for 42 of the past 46 years as a state representative, US congressman, state insurance commissioner, and US senator. Counting his combined time in the House and Senate, Nelson will have served 30 years as a federal lawmaker when he leaves office in January.

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Rep. Marcia Fudge Emerges

Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH)

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 16, 2018 — While Republicans chose their leadership team yesterday with little in the way of surprise as California Rep. Kevin McCarthy was easily elected to lead the new GOP minority, the bigger news surrounds former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) internal campaign to return to the House’s top post.

Also, yesterday the Huffington Post news website released the list of 17 Democrats, including five freshmen (one still in an uncalled race), who say they will not support Pelosi for Speaker.

The number is significant. If the House final party division margin breaks 233-202, the group, if they all follow through and don’t vote for Pelosi on the first roll call, would be enough to keep her from gaining majority support. Pelosi is still favored to become Speaker, but her road to the office is appearing a bit rockier than perceived immediately after the Democrats officially clinched the new House majority.

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House Campaigns Turning Around

By Jim Ellis

daily-kosOct. 16, 2018 — According to the liberal Daily Kos Elections website, six congressional races that appeared to be headed in one direction look to be reversing themselves.

Four campaigns that Democrats earlier projected as red to blue conversions are now either tilting toward the Republican candidate or coming back into play. An additional campaign that we believed was always miscategorized is now performing as we predicted, while a further Republican incumbent, already projected to be in a close race, has actually dropped behind for the first time in a published poll. Descriptions for each of these contests follow.

Two GOP incumbents who were trailing in several polls — the Siena College/New York Times polls had one lagging 15 points behind and the other by 10, for example — have come back to take the lead or are hovering in virtual tie range.


IOWA

Iowa Rep. Rod Blum (R-Dubuque) has represented the most Democratic seat in Iowa for two terms. He fell significantly behind state Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Dubuque) to the point where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) even canceled a flight of media advertising because they presumably believed the race was sealed.

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Romney Forced to Utah Primary;
Curtis, Too, in the US House

By Jim Ellis

Former presidential nominee and governor, Mitt Romney

Former presidential nominee and governor, Mitt Romney

April 24, 2018 — Over the weekend, delegates to the Utah state Republican Party nominating convention gathered in the Maverik Center, an arena that is home to the minor league Utah Grizzlies hockey club in West Valley City, a Salt Lake City suburb, to potentially choose general election candidates in contests from US Senate to the state legislature.

In the biggest of the races, former presidential nominee Mitt Romney was forced into a June 26 primary and will face state Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-Lindon), a physician, who actually was the delegates’ first choice.

After multiple rounds of voting that eliminated 10 other senatorial candidates, Kennedy placed first with 51 percent delegate support as opposed to Romney’s 49 percent. To win the nomination in convention without going to a primary election, a candidate needs 60 percent of the delegate vote, a number that neither Kennedy nor Romney came close to attaining.

Romney, knowing that he would have trouble at the convention because the average convention delegate is more conservative than he, a former Massachusetts governor and two-time presidential candidate, also opted to qualify for the ballot via petition. His operation easily gathered the necessary number of signatures to gain ballot access, and exceeded it to the point of collecting over 28,000 verified names.

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Follow the Money

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 24, 2017 — The 3rd Quarter Federal Election Commission US House disclosure reports are available, and they provide valuable clues as to which campaigns could become first-tier efforts next year. The Daily Kos Elections Page once again completed their quarterly analysis, which became the major source for this column.

federal-elections-commission-logoThirty-five incumbents and two challengers have already raised more than $1 million for the current election cycle. Another seven (six incumbents; one challenger) have crossed the $900,000 mark in current cycle receipts.

Most of the million-dollar incumbents are in projected competitive primary or general election campaigns.

Arizona two-term incumbent Rep. Martha McSally (R-Tucson) is again raising and spending huge amounts in the early going. She has gathered $2.8 million, a great deal of which comes through expensive direct mail, hence her cash-on-hand total is $1.453 million. Her potential leading Democratic opponent, former 1st District Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Flagstaff) who has re-located to Tucson in order to challenge McSally, is showing only $269,000 on hand in comparison, but that is the largest amount among the five Democrats filing disclosure reports in this district.

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