The Off-Year & Special Elections Thread

“Only 37% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats, down from 44% in March of this year. A majority, 54%, have an unfavorable view, matching their highest mark in polls from CNN and SSRS, CNN/ORC and CNN/USA

The rating includes low favorable ratings from some core Democratic groups, including nonwhites (48%) and people under 35 years old (33%).


This means both parties sit at or near rock bottom as voters go to the polls across the country on Tuesday, most prominently in governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as dozens of local and mayoral races nationwide.

...A substantial 33% of liberals and 41% of conservatives have unfavorable views of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. Plus, 4 in 10 independents, 42%, say they have an unfavorable view of both parties vs. only 8% who say they have a favorable view of both.

...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-democrats-taxes/index.html

 

Just heard on CNN, the Washington Senate has now flipped to Democrat.

 

Democrats went into the night having complete control of only 6 states. They just added two more tonight in New Jersey and Washington.

 

DC voters will be willing to help since Harris considers himself mayor of DC.

 

I'm curious to see the final breakdown, but at first glance to me it looks like Gillespie got clobbered in SE VA. Compared to '16 election, he lost votes in virtually every precinct from Virginia Beach to Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News ... Also big clusters of new Dem voters in Roanoke and Henrico County ( Richmond suburbs). Northam even picked up new voters in deep red Western part of state, Virginia's coal country.

 

This is another interesting story in Virginia ... http://www.roanoke.com/news/politic...cle_cd321d09-1059-5224-a88a-cf0e099653f4.html

The TV anchor whose girlfriend was shot on live TV by a spree killer 2 years ago is now going to Richmond after defeating GOP incumbent in House district 12.

 

Thanks for the link. Good news!

 

Yes. We have Dems coming out of the woodwork.

One is a friend of mine. He's a lawyer, nice guy, not a particularly great lawyer (he's spent most of his career being the attorney for a small town), but he caught the Indivisible wave. He organized our Talbot Rising group and is riding the long pent up lefty emotions on the Shore.

But... Dems on the Shore tend to be childish, somewhat arrogant, and utterly dismissive of the fact that this is a conservative area. In other words, they're Bernie supporters. My friend is a Bernie Bro. I just dont think that carries the day, ultimately.

 

Fox News was funny this morning. I almost fell off the elliptical at one point. It turns out that last night's GOP losers lost because they weren't Trumpy enough. If they had embraced the Trumpness, victory would have been theirs.

When I was doing the lifting portion of the workout, I saw Fox running video of Trump winning Ohio and Pennsylvania. Luckily, I wasn't under a load at the time. It's probaly good that it was inaudible.

 

Looks like a ton of illegals in Norfolk/Virginia Beach came out of the woodwork.

 

Hopefully, a solid candidate will challenge Harris. I believe he is beatable as well as Hogan.
Heard of Allison Galbraith? Apparently she is running against Andy as well.

 

Judd Legum‏Verified account @JuddLegum 11h11 hours ago
Breitbart, 10/25: Gillespie has embraced Trump's message, is surging in the polls
Breitbart, 11/5: Gillespie is speaking our language!
Breitbart, 11/7 (AM): Gillespie win will be huge victory for Trump
Breitbart, 11/7 (PM): New phone, who dis?

 

Didn't Trump tweet that in VA 4 republican congressmen were elected? I'm pretty sure that was in 2016 and the Portland Timbers were still MLS champions.

 

My celebratory drinking while watching maps began barely an hour after polls closed. I could see it all then. That's why I disappeared from this thread.

You should see how Virginia Tech's campus is split between two districts (it may have been FOUR when I was down there). A lot of students registered to vote down there only to find the campus is split between two districts and polling places are normally put in as inconvenient (by student standard) places as possible. A lot of Hokies were even more excited about the result in part because of this.

 

Northam didn't even win the most counties (which we all know is what really matters) - so he had to settle for squeaking by through the technicality of winning 230,000 more votes.

In other words, it was pretty much a tie.

 

Oh yeah, I've heard of Allison. I haven't seen or met her, and as far as I know, she hasn't been to the Shore yet.

I won't repost my pm to you about our chances of beating Harris, but suffice it to say for everyone else reading, we're putting up political lightweights to challenge Harris. Mike Pullen is the husband of a dear friend of mine, and I will do everything to get him elected, but he's a novice. Harris, as much as I can't stand him, had been in Annapolis for years before running for Congress.

Here's Mike's website: http://www.pullenfor.us

 

Isn't about half the district population-wise on the western side of the bay?

 

Yeah, 40%.

Throw in Cecil County, which is not really part of the Shore, and we're a minority even within our own district.

The Eastern Shore of Maryland is 8 counties, we comprise almost 30% of the land mass of the state, and yet we are just 5.6% of the state's population.

 

He meant that Republicans have won four special elections for open House seats since he was elected.

 

As it should be. They've only shown themselves to be incompetent lapdogs of the most divisive, bed-wetting President in history.

 

Ok. That makes sense. Who wrote that tweet for him?

 

Who knows.

Don’t these elections generally have pathetic levels of participation?