Here’s a picture which certainly says a thousand words. The current state of the House election…
Drudge Report is right when it says:
TSUNAMI ALERT FOR HOUSE: 60 SEAT WAVE
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 01:32pm
The Senate is almost certainly still out of reach for the Republicans, but the gap is narrowing.
FOX R 41 – 45 D
CBS R 41 – 47 D
ABC R 41 – 47 D
NBC R 41 – 47 D
I’m standing by my prediction of the margin in the Senate being two or three. It’ll go to the Democrats, but it will be so close that it will almost certainly be setting up a Republican takeover in the 2012 election.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 01:18pm
Just before the western states (including Alaska) close their polls, a quick wrap up of the current numbers. The western states carry a large number of the house seats, so they’ll largely determine the size of the Republican majority in the House (although the Dems still think they can miraculously win enough seats to hold the House).
I’m intrigued by the fact that some news agencies seem to be willing to call some races with much less of the vote counted than other news agencies. The different methods certainly make it interesting to watch.
House
FOX R 86 – 46 D
CBS R 155 – 105 D
ABC R 158 – 118 D
NBC R 115 – 68 D
Senate
FOX R 38 – 45 D
CBS R 41 – 47 D
ABC R 39 – 47 D
NBC R 39 – 47 D
So, now with the western states closing, standby for some clarity on the size of the margins. FOX are predicting a 60 seat majority (correction, they’re predicting a 60 seat gain, which would make a majority of 43) to the Republicans while NBC predicts a 37 seat majority.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 01:03pm
*sigh* Barneys Fwank won his seat again. Another two years of needing subtitles every time he speaks, and still not being able to make any sense of his pure nuttery.
In other news, if I’m not mistaken, the western states will close their polls at the top of the hour. This means that, among others, the Arizona, Nevada and California polls will close. Some very interesting races in that lot.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:38pm
Some good news from the Florida Governor’s race (yeah I know it’s the Gubernatorial race, but I usually forget how to spell that about half way through). Republican Rick Scott holding a solid lead of Democrat Alex Sink 51% to 46%.
Overall numbers from FOX show:
House: R 86 – 46 D
Senate: R 38 – 45 D
The Senate to me looks like it’s going to come down to a margin of two or three and we’re not likely to know the final outcome for at least a few days, maybe a few weeks if some of these go to the courts, and considering the apparent pro-Harry Reid voter fraud in Nevada, I can’t see that race not taking most of the week at the least.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:32pm
NBC have awarded the House to the Republicans. Courtesy of Politico (hat tip Rusty Humphries for pointing it out).
NBC News has projected that Republicans will win the House of Representatives.
According to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, the network predicts Republicans will win 236 seats and Democrats will hold 199 seats. The margin of error is 13 seats.
The network made the call after polls in 14 states closed at 9 p.m. EDT.
Update 12:20pm: FOX now predicting much the same outcome.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:15pm
The FOX website numbers seem to started rolling again. They stopped for a while and I was about to drop them, but it looks like they’ve come back to life.
House
FOX R 77 – 31 D
CBS R 147 – 96 D
ABC R 142 – 111 D
NBC R 59 – 28 D
Senate
FOX R 32 – 42 D
CBS R 37 – 47 D
ABC R 37 – 47 D
NBC R 37 – 47 D
Drudge:
REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, OH, OK, KY, KS, MO, ND, NH, SC, SD…
DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD, NY, WV…
TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL, WI…
And more proof that Obamacare is killing the Democrats. This just in from FOX:
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, one of the most vulnerable of the incumbent Democrats, loses her Senate seat to Republican John Boozman, who repeatedly hammered her health care vote.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:07pm
The numbers as reported by the various outlets
House
FOX R 31 – 6 D
CBS R 96 – 60 D
ABC R 85 – 67 D
NBC R 51 – 23 D
Senate
FOX R 32 – 45 D
CBS R 34 – 45 D
ABC R 30 – 43 D
NBC R 34 – 45 D
Drudge is reporting it as follows:
REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, OH, OK, KY, MO, NH, SC…
DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD, WV…
TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL…
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:45am
Nancy Pelosi is not ready to give up her power just yet. This in from ABC America a few minutes ago.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected numerous polls predicting a Republican landslide among House candidates and defiantly predicted tonight that Democrats will retain control of the House of Representatives.
“The early returns and overwhelming number of Democrats who are coming out – we’re on pace to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi told reporters during a photo op in Washington.
But after polls closed in 24 states, early returns appeared to favor Republicans in competitive districts, signalling Democrats could be in for a bruising night.
Perhaps she’ll set up a giant conference room in her own house. Then she can continue to be speaker of the House…because there’s no chance of her staying in as Speaker of the real House.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:32am
Sorry for the gap. I had to fix a few small issues with keeping the Mark Levin stream running at this end. It’s all good now.
FOX now showing results as:
House R-31 — D-6
Senate R-32 — D-42
The entire House is up for election, but only a third of the Senate. Going in to this the Republicans held 23 Senate seats and the Democrats held 40. That means that, at present, of the seats up for grabs the Republicans have won 9 Senate seats to 2 for the Democrats. Note that this isn’t the same as a gain, which is where the seat changes from one party to another.
A whole heap of races closed about 20 minutes ago, so we’ll start to see some really useful figures this hour, and by the end of the hour we should be in a much better position to see if the Republicans can take the Senate. I still doubt it, but we should know enough by the end of the hour to make an informed prediction.
On the Marco Rubio victory, Senator Jim DeMint has issued a statement:
Greenville, SC — Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Conservatives Fund, made the following statement regarding the election of Marco Rubio to the U.S. Senate in Florida.
“I want to thank the voters in Florida for electing a true champion for freedom today. Marco knows that America is exceptional and he’s passionate about the principles of freedom that are the backbone of our nation. I was honored to support Marco’s campaign in the primary when the Washington establishment opposed him and even laughed at his chances. Now the people of Florida get to have the last laugh as they send an outstanding leader to represent them in Washington.”
SCF invested $589,507 in this race and Senator DeMint transferred $250,000 from his re-election campaign to the Florida GOP Victory committee.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:23am
The House numbers are extremely encouraging. FOX currently has the Republicans leading 14 to 1.
Some good news from Florida: Marco Rubio appears to have won a Senate seat. Unfortunately it looks like Delaware is going to Chris Coons and not Christine O’Donnell, which is a shame but not unexpected.
Drudge Report’s analysis of the exit polls (which are usually as reliable as employing a goat as a receptionist) has the Republicans gaining at least 50 seats in the House and at least 7 in the Senate. Enough to take the House, not enough to take the Senate.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:43am
Early results are clearly trending Republican.
Republicans have scored their first victories of the midterm election, with Tea Party-backed Rand Paul in Kentucky and former Sen. Dan Coats in Indiana declared winners in their respective Senate races shortly after polls closed.
[..]
Elsewhere, Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy easily won his reelection race, as did South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who faced off against Democrat Alvin Greene, an unemployed unknown who won his party’s primary without campaigning. The race for governor in South Carolina is too close to call, with Republican Nikki Haley competing against Democrat Vincent Sheheen.
It’s still way too early to work out what the end result will be, but the results seem to be mirroring the polls for the House. I really can’t work out anything for the Senate just yet.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:22am
A handful of polling places have now closed. It’s too early to really say much, so I’ll use this post to set up a few formatics for the day.
First up, at the top of the page we now have a live feed of the overall results courtesy of FOX News. That will update every few minutes. (I write that and it breaks. Great. Hopefully it’ll be back soon)
For my update posts the titles will carry three timezones. Canberra, US Eastern Daylight Time and Western Daylight Time. The majority of readers of this blog are based in Australia, but it helps to keep the current time in the place where the results are coming from in mind.
Now it looks like a couple of the obvious races have useful results rolling in, so I’ll check those out and get back to you in a few minutes.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:10am
Updated 8:23am with details of the races I forgot about
Well here we are again, another election is upon us. It doesn’t seem like two years since the last major US election, but it has been two years and, more importantly, this election looks like it will have a much better outcome than the last one.
By the looks of the polls, the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives in a landslide, while the Senate will be a much closer affair. The Real Clear Politics average of the major polls is predicting that the House will go to the Republicans by a margin of 224 to 167, with another 44 seats in doubt, while the Senate is narrowly favouring the Democrats 48-45, with a further 7 seats in doubt.
It’s pretty clear then that the Republicans will take control of the House, which is probably the more important of the two houses to gain control of, as this will allow them to reign in the spending bills. The Senate is less clear, but as long as Sharron Angle of Nevada can defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, I think the point will have been made. Nevada is one of the closer races, but Sharron Angle is 2.7% ahead of Harry Reid on the polling average, so there is a decent chance of a god outcome here.
My belief is that Republicans will take over the House, and narrowly miss out on control of the Senate. In many ways I think this is preferable to a complete take over as it lowers the expectations of voters. Rather than expecting everything to be fixed by elected representatives in two years, this type of outcome is more of a “trial period” with voters being able to watch both sides of politics battle it out, and then give a side a clearer mandate at the next election.
That said, if the swing is as large as the polls are predicting, then it’s about as clear as it can be that voters are rejecting Obama’s flavour of socialism, especially if neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are returned to their post.
Rasmussen Reports, the most accurate of the polling companies at the 2008 election, published their latest “Generic Congressional Ballot” yesterday, with the result in favour of the Republicans 51%-39%. The Republicans have led this poll since June last year, but this is the first time in that period that they’ve been above 50%. Rasmussen Reports crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that:
If these results hold, it could lead to the election of more Republicans to Congress than at any time since the 1920s.
Figures like that indicate a clear mandate, even in an environment with different parties controlling each house. In fact, if the numbers do occur that way, then the only reason why the Republicans won’t have taken the Senate is that only a third of it is up for election. I still do prefer the idea of the split victory though for the psychological reasons I outlined above.
So, what are the key issues for voters? Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports explains:
Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports including the economy and health care.
[..]
Currently, 58% of Likely Voters favor repeal of the health care law passed earlier this year.
The issues which Republicans were favoured on are issues which can be broadly put in to three categories, things which Democrats want to tax-and-spend on, things which Democrats want to socialise (some can be put in to both of those categories), and things which affect national security.
Republicans favoured on: Social security, health care, economy, national security, taxes, Iraq, Afghanistan, Immigration.
Democrats favoured on: Government ethics (not sure why, given the number of tax cheats Obama tried to appoint) and education.
When you look at the history of the Generic Ballot, the disillusionment in Obama’s “hope and change” nonsense becomes even clearer.
The Generic Ballot results were much different during the last two election cycles when Democrats regularly had large leads heading into the 2006 and 2008 elections. The two parties were very close through the spring of 2009, but in June, around the time Democrats began their campaign for health care reform, Republicans pulled ahead for good.
[..]
While the margin has varied somewhat from week-to-week, Republicans have been consistently ahead on the Generic Ballot since June of last year, and their lead has run as high as 12 points and as low as three points. When Barack Obama first took office as president, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead on the Generic Ballot.
So with that in mind, the important thing in this election isn’t just that Republicans win, but that conservatives win. To that end, there are a few key races to which I’ll be paying some extra attention as the day goes on.
Here’s my list of the races which I’ll be following closely, and the people I support. I may have missed a few.
Senate races
Nevada Senate: I’m proud to say that I endorse Sharron Angle. Sharron is a great conservative candidate, and we need to defeat Harry Reid, one of the chief architects of the Obama agenda.
Florida Senate: Marco Rubio is another vital person. He has a 17 point lead, so it’s fairly safe to say that he’ll be a great addition to the Senate once he is sworn in.
Kentucky Senate: Rand Paul
Alaska Senate: Joe Miller. If we can rid the Senate of Lisa Murkowski, that would be lovely. The fact that this vile woman lost the Republican Primary and was so insistent that the state must have been mistaken that she is running as a write-in candidate says about all that needs to be said.
Delaware: Christine O’Donnell. A lovely lady who, in much the same way as Sarah Palin, has endured every smear imaginable through her campaign. The mainstream media even tried to claim that separation of church and state is in the Constitution in an effort to smear her.
Colorado Senate: Ken Buck.
Utah Senate: Mike Lee.
Updated! South Carolina: Jim DeMint. I knew I forgot something…and it was Jim, oh how could I have forgotten about Jim. The stalwart of the Senate looks to be safe. Rasmussen have him holding a 58%-21% lead. Here’s a man who would make a great President, but for now will continue to be a great Senator.
House races
Minnesota: Michele Bachmann. Quite possibly the most impressive conservative candidate I’ve heard in the lead-up to the election. Michele is a long way ahead in the polls so she should be safe. Michele receives my House endorsement.
Florida: Allen West
I know that there’s another one, but I can’t for the life of me remember which race it is.
Governor races
There are two in particular which are important to me. The most important of all though is:
Arizona: Jan Brewer. Jan is the Governor behind Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant laws. It’s sad that various courts have produced dodgy rulings in a blatant effort to allow illegal immigrants to flood in to the US. The good news is that Jan leads by about ten points in the polls. One wonders if we may see her run for higher office one day. I do hope so. Jan is another candidate whom I am proud to say that I endorse.
Florida: Rick Scott. Another absolutely awesome candidate.
Updated! California: Meg Whitman. OK, make that three. Meg has also endured many smears, including an incomprehensible lawsuit-which-isn’t-a-lawsuit from deranged lawyer Gloria Allred who is probably in the employ of Meg’s opponent Jerry Brown. Meg is behind by four points according to Rasmussen. The one thing which you can be sure of in this race is that, with the Governator now out of the picture, this will be the focus of international media attention, especially if Democrat Jerry Brown wins it.
Updated! Nevada: Brian Sandoval. This one really only interests me as Harry Reid’s son Rory is Brian opponent, and the Reid dynasty does not need to continue. Brian has an extremely comfortable lead here.
I’d love to endorse each and every candidate that I’ve highlighted here, but to ensure that my endorsement really means something, I am saving it for my absolute favourite candidate in each type of race. I do support each an every one of the candidates that I have highlighted though.
As for election coverage, well I’ll be doing my best between other things during the day to keep myself up-to-date and to post updates here, but there are a few places I recommend.
First up Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd will be on (running??) KDOX‘s coverage from 9pm US West Coast time (3pm Canberra time). They’ll be on the air for at least three hours.
FOX News is probably the best place for continuous election coverage. I’ll be checking their website constantly.
Mark Levin will be on the air from 6pm-9pm US East Coast time as results start to roll in (9am-12pm Canberra time). My plan is to listen to him until the end of his show and then switch to Rusty Humphries followed by Casey and Heather on KDOX for the rest of the day.
And I can’t go past Drudge Report for ongoing highlighting of all the important stories and some which will be overlooked by most others until they get a mention here. Drudge will be refreshing in my browser all day.
I know that the majority of the readership of this blog is Australian, but to all of my American readers, if you have not voted yet, you only have a handful of hours left. GO AND VOTE! There are many tight races in which your vote could be the one which gets a great candidate over the line, and many not-so-close races where we still need people to vote as we can’t assume that candidates will win simply because the polls tell us that they will.
It’s going to be an interesting day…and I really do think that by the end of it I’m going to be able to say that Obama and his horrifying socialist agenda is the best thing to happen to the conservative movement in years.
Samuel
November 3rd, 2010 at 06:59am
All results are now final
1st: 8. Americain Win: $10.90 Place: $3.20
2nd: 24. Maluckyday Place: $3.30
3rd: 3. So You Think Place: $2.00
4th: 4. Zipping
Quinella: $52.00
Exacta: $122.80
Duet (8-24): $17.20
Duet (8-3): $6.50
Duet (24-3): $6.60
Running double with winner of previous race Palomares: $73.70
Running double with winner of following race Tagus: $170.20
Trifecta: $306.60
Quaddie/First Four: $7,451.60
All dividends are Supertab/Victorian TAB dividends. Most agencies base their dividends on Supertab, however the dividends of other agencies may differ.
The Finishing Order
1st: 8. Americain
2nd: 24. Maluckyday
3rd: 3. So You Think
4th: 4. Zipping
5th: 12. Harris Tweed
6th: 19. Holberg
7th: 13. Manighar
8th: 20. Precedence
9th: 5. Illustrious Blue
10th: 6. Mr Medici
11th: 23. Once Were Wild
12th: 9. Tokai Trick
13th: 7. Shoot Out
14th: 15. Monaco Consul
15th: 14. Master O’Reilly
16th: 2. Campanologist
17th: 16. Profound Beauty
18th: 1. Shocking
19th: 21. Red Ruler
20th: 10. Buccellati
21st: 22. Linton
Last: 17. Zavite
Did not finish: 11. Descarado
Scratched: 18. Bauer
I hope you did well today. I’m pleased to note that I, for the first time since Jeune won the Cup in 1994, picked a Cup winner.
Samuel
November 2nd, 2010 at 03:09pm
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | ||||