There’s been a bit of chatter on the nets about the Great Western Firewall, in which ground game and infrastructure in CA, OR and WA (and I suppose, NV and CO) prevented the Big Red Wave from washing the Democratic Party into the Pacific. Tuesday was a bad night for Dems nationally, no doubt, but not so much ’round these parts, at least near the top of the ticket.
Down ticket though, that was another story. On election night, Washington State House Speaker Frank Chopp was losing a ton of seats, particularly in the former Republican strongholds for which he had compromised so much, while the state Senate, currently a Democratic near-super-majority, looked to be teetering on the edge of Republican control. Meanwhile, Democratic incumbent and all around nice guy US Rep. Rick Larsen looked to have surely lost an upset in WA-02 to teabagging mouth-breather John Koster. Ouch. Gloomy.
Then the second round of ballot tallies came in yesterday afternoon, and suddenly… not so much.
As the Washington Poll’s comparison of 11/2 tallies to those reported on 11/3 suggests, late voters appear to have broken hard for Patty Murray, almost throughout the state, with the Democratic Senator’s margins improving in 19 of the 22 counties that reported new results. For example, here in King County, Murray’s percentage jumped from 62.03% of Tuesday’s results, to 66.88% of the 50K-plus ballots reported yesterday, a substantial 4.58 point shift. Snohomish rose 1.9 points, Pierce rose 2.1, while Island, Kittitas, Klickitat, San Juan and Whatcom counties all moved in Murray’s favor by between 4.85 and 9.55 points.
Furthermore, this late-ballot Murray trend appears to be translating into a broader if less steep Democratic trend in legislative races throughout the Puget Sound region. Democrats Dawn Morrell, Hans Dunshee, Steve Hobbs, and Rodney Tom were all trailing on election night, but have managed to scratch out small leads on the basis of yesterday’s returns. A number of other Democrats in very close races have extended their margins, while Roger Goodman, Luis Moscoso and Kelli Linville have clawed back within striking distance.
And in WA-02, Rep. Larsen’s fortunes improved in all six counties his district crosses, pushing him ahead of Koster by 507 votes.
Yeah, I know, two days of returns do not provide enough data points to definitively plot a trend, but the nature of vote-by-mail means that ballots are tallied chronologically. For example, in King County, Tuesday night’s returns represented three weeks of balloting, consisting almost entirely of those that had arrived as of Monday morning, while Wednesday’s returns mostly reflected those that arrived thereafter. And with Thursday’s and Friday’s returns pretty much coming from the same universe of ballots as Wednesday’s, there’s no reason to expect them to be much different.
The obvious conclusion is that Democrats tended to vote late, and as Eli has already reported, in record midterm numbers. At least in King County.
For Sen. Murray, record turnout and the late ballot trend means certain victory, probably by a comfortable 3 to 4 point margin, maybe even more; it’s kinda amazing that no media organization other than HA has officially called it. For Rep. Larsen, I’m cautiously optimistic, although I’m waiting to see some more numbers out of Snohomish County before breathing a sigh of relief. And as for the Wiggins-Sanders race, well, that’s still a hefty margin to overcome, and Wiggins isn’t exactly scoring Patty Murray-like margins in King County, but there’s hope.
All in all, not nearly as bad an election as it looked on election night. Indeed, if this is the best Washington Republicans can do in a wave election year, they shouldn’t be doing too much gloating.
yeah.
you girls totally rule……
Of course, many of those Democrats seemed to vote against their best interest by neutering the tax authority of the state.
Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!
Have any God-fearin’ rightwingers posted comments about how yesterday’s balmy November weather was “judgement” against King County/Senator Murray’s lead? “Yea, verily I say to you, the LORD will send glare into commuters’ eyes, and there will be lamentations across the Puget Sound, for tens of thousands will have tossed their sunglasses already.”
Democrats fared pretty well in Colorado too. We’re looking like a blue island in a sea of red.
Colorado for sure, Goldy. No “I suppose” about it. We have an awesome Dem GOTV machine here, and it was the difference between Bennet and a teabagger darling winning that seat.
@5, yeah, “sea of red”. John King was selling that line with his iPad graphic on election night as well. He’d flip it back and forth between before and after, ooh, look at all that red. No discussion of the fact that that sea of red is a quarter-inch deep, that those vast areas of red are in places where NOBODY LIVES. Ooh, North Dakota flipped, that’s….nothing. The blue areas were, and are, the populated ones, geographically small but containing most of the people. Plus, blue is on the edges, and against a dark background tends to disappear, leaving a solid red area with ragged, illegitimate borders.
The real Americans are still Democrats. The Republicans control the Confederacy. I mean, seriously: Kentucky? The Fuck Your Relatives State?
@5, @6,
The “I suppose” had more to do with geography. Clearly, there’s a coastal Democratic firewall. NV and CO don’t quite fit in so cleanly geographically.
Fnarf @7,
Yup, in the same way that WA R’s complain about King County stealing elections because, you know, this is where all the people are.
Why does it take WA two to three days after election to get close to a true final count while the rest of the country (via news networks and their early callings) seem to call it on election night or very early the next morning?
I think I know the answer to that.
@Fnarf 7, if John King actually pointed out that no one lives in 90% of the USA’s red areas, you’d have everyone from Palin to Erickson to Drudge to Breitbart to Beck to half the other useless meat out there going totally batshit crazy over it. It’s a political truth that no one is allowed to utter.
‘Sea’ is not really the proper word. “Pool’ or better still ‘sliming’ of Red better befits the situation.
For a good laugh — US states by population density:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S…
@10,
And is your answer mail-in voting?
I’m happy to wait a few days for a final tally if that means greater turnout.
@ Goldy,
You clearly missed the memo, but fortunately the AP has its Orange Boehner-sucking lips primed and ready to swallow for the next two years.
It doesn’t matter if any Democrats “won” on Tuesday, by royal proclamation of Big Media we’re still a center-fascist nation.
@Fnarf,
It’s still a sea of red where the senate is concerned.
Someplace I saw a map of the USA with states sized by population instead of acreage; very interesting!
Could take that a level farther and have counties sized (and politically colored) by population, but I’m afraid the local R’s would have an even bigger fit.
Hans Dunshee was never losing