Ballot Watch

Sanford and Sis

24
1 week ago
by Michael Weiss in

Fac­ing off today: For­mer Gov­er­nor Mark San­ford and Eliz­a­beth Col­bert Busch

Today marks the end of a cam­paign that was started by now-​​former Sen­a­tor Jim DeMint (R-​​SC), who vacated his seat on Jan­u­ary 1 to become pres­i­dent of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. The ensu­ing game of musi­cal chairs put Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tim Scott (R-​​Charleston, SC) in DeMint’s old seat, leav­ing a vacancy in South Carolina’s First Con­gres­sional District.

The pri­mary elec­tions were held on March 19.

On the Demo­c­ra­tic side, Clem­son Uni­ver­sity Restora­tion Insti­tute Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor (there’s a mouth­ful) Eliz­a­beth Col­bert Busch ran against peren­nial can­di­date Ben Frasier. Col­bert Busch hand­ily defeated Frasier in the pri­mary. Six­teen can­di­dates ran for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion, and none had a sim­ple major­ity. The two lead­ing can­di­dates at that point were for­mer Charleston County Coun­cil­man Cur­tis Bostic and for­mer Gov­er­nor Mark San­ford. In the April 2 runoff, San­ford received 57 per­cent of the votes.

Today, Col­bert Busch and San­ford face off in a race that has gar­nered national atten­tion for sev­eral rea­sons.
(more…)

It’s Election Watching Time

1318
6 months ago
by Logarchism.com in , ,

Time’s up! Pen­cils down! Now the bal­lots get turned in and counted. This is the arti­cle in which we can do our play by play watch as the results come trick­ling, and then flood­ing, in.

Here’s a handy list of what to be watch­ing for, and the times to start watch­ing for them.  (more…)

Ballot Watch: The South (Part 2, The Swinging South)

164
7 months ago
by Monotreme in

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 15th (and last) in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der looked at a state level. With this sec­ond part of our two-​​part arti­cle on the South, our series closes.

Of the ten states in this region, the only com­pet­i­tive states for Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates are Florida (29 elec­toral votes, with a state Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index of R+2) and North Car­olina (15 elec­toral votes, with a state PVI of R+4), the sub­jects of today’s arti­cle. Both went for Obama in 2008. Florida and North Car­olina also have one Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor each (Kay Hagen in North Car­olina, Bill Nel­son in Florida). Florida’s gov­er­nor is Repub­li­can Rick Scott, and North Carolina’s retir­ing gov­er­nor is Demo­c­rat Bev Per­due. Her seat is up for elec­tion next month. She declined to run this year in the face of mount­ing crit­i­cism; she has a dis­ap­proval rat­ing of 59 per­cent, the high­est for any gov­er­nor.

Florida’s Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Rick Scott is also unpop­u­lar, with 38 per­cent approv­ing of his job per­for­mance vs 48 per­cent dis­ap­prov­ing. DC has given us a run­down on Scott’s effort to purge voter rolls: Scott said he expected to remove reg­is­tra­tion for 2,600 ille­gal immi­grant vot­ers. In the event, the Gov­er­nor was only 92 per­cent wrong. The real num­ber was 206, or 0.00184 per­cent of the 11.2 mil­lion reg­is­trants. Iron­i­cally, or per­haps pre­dictably, while Florida Repub­li­can lead­ers beat the bushes look­ing for fraud­u­lent voter reg­is­tra­tion, they’re embroiled in their own voter fraud scan­dal. It might back­fire on them in the gen­eral election.

In con­trast with the states of the Deep South, which have exactly one House seat in play (Georgia’s 12th, cur­rently held by the only white South­ern Demo­c­rat), Florida has eight of 27, and North Car­olina five of 13, seats in play. Those are listed under the indi­vid­ual states after the jump, along with any impor­tant bal­lot ini­tia­tives and North Carolina’s guber­na­to­r­ial election.

(more…)

Ballot Watch: Mid-​​Atlantic

36
7 months ago
by dcpetterson in

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 14th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level. With the sec­ond of the two-​​part arti­cle on the South which runs tomor­row, our series will close.

The mid-​​Atlantic states are a mixed bag, includ­ing the Democratic-​​leaning Delaware, Dis­trict of Colum­bia, and Mary­land, the very con­ser­v­a­tive West Vir­ginia, and a state on the par­ti­san knife-​​edge, the swing state of Vir­ginia. Though Delaware is rep­re­sented by long-​​term Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Cas­tle, the longest-​​serving rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the state’s his­tory, it will almost cer­tainly give its three elec­toral votes to Barack Obama. The Dis­trict of Colum­bia has a non-​​voting rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress. None of these races are likely to pro­duce sur­prises. (more…)

Ballot Watch: The South (Part 1, The Solid South)

6
7 months ago
by Monotreme in

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 13th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level. With the sec­ond of the two-​​part arti­cle on the South which runs next Mon­day, our series closes.

This region includes the states of the Con­fed­er­acy, minus Texas and Vir­ginia, which were cov­ered in sep­a­rate geo­graphic Bal­lot Watch divisions.

Of the ten states in this region, the only com­pet­i­tive states for Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates are North Car­olina (15 elec­toral votes) and Florida (29 elec­toral votes). I’ll cover those two states (what I call the “Swing­ing South”) in my last Bal­lot Watch on Mon­day Octo­ber 8.

In the Sen­ate, the South (as depicted here) is rep­re­sented by four Democ­rats (Kay Hagen, North Car­olina; Mary Lan­drieu, Louisiana; Mark Pryor, Arkansas; and Bill Nel­son, who is retir­ing both to and from Florida) and 16 Republicans.

The only white Demo­c­ra­tic mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the South, Geor­gia Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 12 Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Bar­row (D-​​Savannah, GA) is run­ning, but his seat is in dan­ger of flip­ping to the Repub­li­cans. Over­all, 65 Repub­li­can and 25 Demo­c­ra­tic House mem­bers rep­re­sent this region.

How did the Solid South get this way? Sim­ply put, racial pol­i­tics and ger­ry­man­der­ing. (more…)

Ballot Watch: Plains States

47
7 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 12th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level.

This is the mid­dle of the coun­try. Most of this ter­ri­tory is deeply Repub­li­can, though Iowa and Mis­souri are more closely bal­anced. Of these six states, Kansas and Nebraska have noth­ing of par­tic­u­lar inter­est going on in Novem­ber. The other four are described below the fold, with sig­nif­i­cant help from a cou­ple of our reg­u­lar com­menters.
(more…)

Go to Top