Monthly Archives: November 2010

2010 Election Live Blogging

12:30 – And… Colorado Senate gets weird. Ken Buck is currently beating Michael Bennet by a hair, but the popular theory at this point is that the Bennet counties (Denver, Arapahoe, Boulder, etc) have yet to report in 50% of their votes or more. As I write, Arapahoe county, which held 128,000+ votes for Obama, is at 10% reporting.

Based on some rough estimates, I’m a little skeptical. Mid-terms almost always result in lower turnout and this one is no exception. I’m looking at between 60 and 85% of the 2008 turnout. It will surprise no one that Republican turnout is slightly higher than Democratic turnout, compared to 2008.

If Arapahoe was only 10% counted, we’d be looking at a county that turned out 400-500% higher in this election than in 2008.

Using a slightly less silly example, if Denver is only 50% counted, we’re looking at a turnout 2% higher than 2008, rather than the 15-40% drops we’re seeing in all other counties.

Clearly this is not going to be settled tonight and I have to wake up in the morning. As such, good night and thank you for reading.

9:42 – I’ve moved mostly to Twitter at this point… follow me here:

.@fivethirtyeight says “G.O.P. Poised to Pick Up 54 to 75 House Seats”

RT @jaketapper: Top Dem emails me: “bloodbath.”

Sestak needs to win the uncounted votes by 20% to win PA-SEN. It’s over. Toomey wins PA.

8:50 – From Twitter: @fivethirtyeight: http://nyti.ms/bFwQdG Our model now projects a 64-65 seat gain for G.O.P.

8:46 – I’m calling South Carolina for Nikki Haley. She’s up 5% with only 19% left. That’s a big deficit to overcome.

8:45 – Brendan Loy ran a prediction contest: Here’s my predictions for Senate: Bold means I was right (so far)

Alaska Senate: Miller (R)
Arkansas Senate: Boozman (R)
California Senate: Boxer (D)
Colorado Senate: Buck (R)
Connecticut Senate: Blumenthal (D)
Delaware Senate: Coons (D)
Florida Senate: Rubio (R)
Illinois Senate: Kirk (R)
Indiana Senate: Coats (R)
Kentucky Senate: Paul (R)
Nevada Senate: Angle (R)
New Hampshire Senate: Ayotte (R)
North Dakota Senate: Hoeven (R)
Pennsylvania Senate: Toomey (R)
Washington Senate: Murray (D)
West Virginia Senate: Manchin (D)
Wisconsin Senate: Johnson (R)

I’m not looking so hot on Colorado, Pennsylvania is a toss-up at the moment, and Illinois is close. But I’m not wrong on anything yet. 🙂

8:30 – Looking at Governors, Florida looks like a Rick Scott (R) win, South Carolina is still running neck and neck, Republicans have Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin… overall Republicans are doing fairly well in the governors races.

7:50 – From Twitter:

My personal race to watch: South Carolina gov: Nicky Haley vs. Vincent Sheheen… neck and neck

Nikki Haley pulling away! 50% – 48%

7:37 – From Twitter: @andylevy: .@SpeakerPelosi Have you decided what your new twitter name will be yet?

7:25 – Looks like things are starting to pan out more or less as expected by pollsters. 50-55 seats heading the Republican’s way and NONE of the long-shots have panned out.

6:55 – The margins at the moment are looking pretty strange. Todd Young just won Indiana 9 by 10+ points when he was projected by 3. This is similar all over the place, with most congressional districts going 3-4% one way or another. So far, it’s mostly toward Republicans, but (and this is a very early prognostication), it seems like the election results are polarized.

6:30 – Let’s take a look at Florida Congressional districts. There were 4 races that were takeover possibilities, districts 2, 8, 24, 22. District 2 looks like it’s heading toward a solid Democratic win, but the others have Republicans out-performing by 3-7%.

6:20 – OK… now we’re starting to get a better picture. Rubio (Senate) and Scott (Gov) are outperforming the polls in Florida, although Rubio is doing better than Scott. Don’t know what exactly that means, but Rubio is up 5% higher than he polled.

6:10 – Just starting to punch numbers into my spreadsheets. So far, Republicans are underperforming the Senate polls by 1-2%. In Indiana, they’re matching the expectations on House seats with about 20-30% in.

5:12 – my apologies for being so late… as election results come in, I discovered I don’t get CNN any longer. Long story short, this discovery resulted in an emergency trip to the Comcast service location to get the digital converter box. I’ll be up and running as soon as I can. My apologies for the delay.

“Obama = Keynesian?”

A reminder that someone thinking they are smart does not actually make them smart.

(In fairness, it could be that the people in this video just think that the author of the sign simply misspelled “Kenyan”. It’s not like John Maynard Keynes was Abraham Lincoln or something. I’d put “knowing who John Maynard Keynes was” down on my list of things people should know underneath “How many branches are in the US government?”, “What’s the name of your Senator and Congressman?” and “How do you turn a word problem into an algebraic formula?”)