Some Election Results
I am not quite sure how to begin other than say I am angry at why it has to come to this , and still not enough, before people react.
- Loudoun County, Virginia: One election event ended positively for a woman who had given Trump’s motorcade (and supposedly Trump) a message of defiance, a one finger salute, as it passed her while she was riding her bike. Former government contractor Julie Briskman won a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Ms. Briskman defeated eight-year Republican incumbent, Suzanne Volpe and this is her first time in elected office.
- Virginia House: Gaining 15 seats in the House in 2017; in 2019, Democrats added another five seats and perhaps a few more as other races are still to be decided. Democrats in Virginia have not lost momentum in the third year of a Trump presidency. The ultimate size of the new Democratic majorities is still to be decided as a few close races were undecided. Republicans held a 51 to 48 edge going into 2019.
- Virginia Senate: Ms. Ghazala Hashmi will be the first Muslim woman in the Senate, a state which was the former seat of the confederacy. Democrats have picked up at least two seats in the Senate shifting the balance from 20 to 19 favoring Republicans going into the 2019 election. Wondering if people would speak up against the assault on civil liberties, Ms. Ghazala Hashmi anxiety was relieved with her upset victory in a suburban Richmond district.
- Kentucky Governorship: Andy Beshear appears to have beaten incumbent Matt Bevin by ~5000 votes. Andy Beshear’s message in his victory “It’s a message that says our elections don’t have to be about right versus left, they are still about right versus wrong.” Other races in Kentucky went to Republicans with the Democrats losing the State AG office for the first time in 70 years with the election of an African American, Daniel Cameron.
Update: While a recanvas (less than 1% margin) will follow, the Republican dominated state legislature is poised to establish who is the winner of this election. Kentucky Republicans are going to try and steal election in favor of Bevin.
Stivers said he thought Bevin’s speech declining to concede to Beshear was “appropriate.” He said believes most of the votes that went to Libertarian John Hicks, who received about 2% of the total vote, would have gone to Bevin and made him the clear winner.
A candidate can file a formal election contest with the state legislature, but it must be filed within 30 days of the last action by the state board of elections. The state board is scheduled to certify the results of the race for governor on Nov. 25 this year.
Under this contest, the candidate challenging the results must specify the grounds for the action, such as a violation of campaign finance rules or specific problems when it comes to how ballots were cast.
Such an election contest is covered under Section 90 of the state constitution, which addresses a “contest of election for Governor or Lieutenant Governor.”
Section 90 states: “Contested elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall be determined by both Houses of the General Assembly, according to such regulations as may be established by law.”
Sam Marcosson, a constitutional law professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, told The Courier Journal that this language of the state Constitution suggests there must be procedure established by law for a review of a contested election to take place by the House and Senate.
Mr. Marcosson contends the legislature can not just make a procedure up.
“If the House and Senate were just to proceed on vague allegations without proof, that raises serious questions about disenfranchisement of the voters who voted for Attorney General Beshear. It’s an extraordinary proposition to suggest that the General Assembly would take vague allegations of unspecified irregularities and call into question a gubernatorial election.”
”
- Arizona Tucson: Democrat, Regina Romero appears to be victorious in the Tucson mayoral race and becomes the first woman and Latina to lead Tucson.
- Mississippi: Republicans won the open Governor’s seat with former Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves beating former Democrat AG Jim Reeves . In the Senate, Republicans have expanded their control to a super majority which they already had in the House. No surprise here.
- New Jersey: Republicans appear to be to picking up two seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate due to a surge in the southern part of the state where Mr. Trump won easily in 2016.
If you have other election results from Tuesday, feel free to add them. Otherwise, we still have a long way to go to beat Trump and Republicans.
“we still have a long way to go to beat Trump and Republicans.”
Yep. We have about a year. And a bunch of primaries, and a convention and a national campaign. Meanwhile, Trump is mired at a 42% approval and a 55% disapproval and when tested, didn’t move the dial for any candidate he campaigned for. The outcome is far from certain, but this is the Democrat’s race to lose. Right now, I’m optimistic, but I wouldn’t predict the weather or the election outcome 12 months from now.
Hey Joel:
I agree. I am also tired of being pushed and want to put the Repubs on the run.
A contest here in Houston I think should raise some eyebrows.
Houston during the 2016 election did go to Hilary Clinton in Harris County, but not as wide of a margin, as Trump still had 41.6% of the vote in a largely leftist city. I think the 41.6% mostly surrounded taxes, as the Republicans I have talked to over the years are largely divided. About a third are ride or die Trumpkins who think he is the new Messiah. The remaining two-thirds are either long time Republicans who voted party lines, even though “yeah he does and says some things that I don’t think a president of this country should be doing or saying.”
Given all of that, the Mayoral race in Houston was not along party lines, even if party is really not allowed in mayoral races here.
Sylvester Turner a known libruhl and two time mayor is holding on to about 47% of the vote, which given the independent Bill King attracting a double digit get at the polls yesterday would otherwise give us that mid 50% vote get for the Dems similar to 2016.
What is interesting is that the Trump supporter and fan, Tony Buzbee only got 28% of the vote, far below the mostly party line of the 2016 election in the low 40s. This erosion went to independents and also another Democrat city council member.
This is by no means a win for the Dems as a run-off in December has to happen because no one candidate got more than 50% of the vote, but this sure does seem to reveal that there is a major turn in Trumpkin voters in local politics here in the great Red prairie.
MS:
Trump is beatable if we do the right things, counter the lies which are going to occur, not be deflected by his dustups, stick to the issues such as his tax break disappearing for the Middle Class after he leaves office, call him out, and do not let him run the election.
We also need to remember the electoral college and not get distracted by national polls.
Sorry Jack:
I did not get back to you sooner.
The EC will vote in it’s convoluted manner as caused by Congress in 1929. Congress should repeal its Act thereby allowing the House to represent population even if it is greater than the 30 to 40,000 as stated in Article 2 of the Constitution. I made the case for this in my “Reign of Witches Will Soon Pass” post a while back. The EC will work correctly as intended by the Founders if it is returned to its normal state. It is an issue caused by politics.
Polls deceive us and no one pollster should be given the credulity they received based upon the statistics developed. We were complacent d the stats and also lied too by a candidate. It is time to take things back.
“The new Data for Progress poll … Trump’s favorability among the 215 Obama-Trump swing district voters who were surveyed is 71 percent—35 points ahead of Biden’s. And of all respondents, 45 percent view Trump very favorably, compared with only 4 percent who say the same for Biden.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/obama-trump-voters-like-trump-not-biden.html
They may not be coming back. Return to Obama days they implicitly rejected with Trump? Come up with something new — like regular cret/recert/decert elections.
The so called Obama to Trump voters are simply liars. They never voted for Obama, or any Democrat, in their entire lives. Margin of error on that statement is 5+- voters.
EM:
Read my addition on Kentucky.
Run,
It is not a recount in KY, it is a recanvass. KY has no mandatory recount laws.
” Kentucky’s Republican governor Matt Bevin lost reelection, but isn’t conceding just yet
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin is demanding a recanvass of results. Here’s what comes next.
On Wednesday, Bevin’s campaign announced that its first step would be to pursue a recanvassing of the results, a process that involves making sure machines in every county have accurately calculated vote totals and transferred them to the state. A recanvassing of votes is notably different from a recount, in which every vote cast is counted again. Kentucky does not have an automatic recount law on the books.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/6/20952144/kentucky-republican-governor-matt-bevin-recanvass-concession
Thanks
Run75441
There will be a recount in the Kentucky election for Governor. No Kentucky statewide candidate is going to except a loss by 5300 votes and not ask for a recount. If Andy Beshear gets the majority of the votes in the recount then he will be Governor.
I don’t believe that the Republicans in the General Assembly want to further alienate Kentucky voters 1 year before the next election. Especially NOT this year.
At the end of the 2018 legislative session, the majority Republicans stripped out the contents of a sewer bill, then they inserted text for state pension reforms and presented the bill for a committee vote within less than a day. The Republicans even claimed that the readings on the original sewer bill counted toward the Kentucky Constitution’s requirement for three readings over three days. It was done so quickly that Democratic members were not able to adequately review the new law before they were forced to vote on it. The time given for discussion of the bill was also extremely limited. Clips from the video of that committee meeting have been shown on television.
Attorney General Andy Beshear filed a lawsuit and won the case in the Kentucky Supreme Court in December 2018. The Attorney General made a lot of friends with that law suit. That law went away but the memories of it did not.
Kentucky law does not allow public employees to strike but they can be sick enough to take the day off. In an extremely unusual move, large numbers of Kentucky teachers traveled to the state capital to protest during March 2018. This was repeated in February 2019 to protest a bill which would reduce the power of Kentucky teachers to control the nominations of future teacher pension board members. That bill was seen as retribution for the teacher protests.
I believe that it is safe to assume that Kentucky teachers, their extended families, and other allies from across the state voted for Andy Beshear AND against a Republican.
The underfunding of Kentucky’s state pensions had occurred before Matt Bevin was elected in 2015. Pension contributions had been increasing but not fast enough. Governor Matt Bevin has to be given credit for attempting to find reasonable compromises to deal with Kentucky’s state pension underfunding. (A thankless job if there ever was one.) I believe that explains why this gubernatorial election was as close as it was, otherwise it would have been a rout.
If the Republicans in the General Assembly are wise, they will avoid any further negative publicity before the general election in 2020.
“If the Republicans in the General Assembly are wise . . . ”
That clause is doing a lot of work in that sentence.