It's hard to believe, but over 100,000,000 Americans have the opportunity to vote for various offices and issues today. The Green Papers has already provided the links (returns) for the three biggest elections of today (VA-GUB, NJ-GUB, UT-03-spec): http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Log/17Q4#2653 When it comes to Virginia, I want to remind of some history and for the call times, I will use CNN: In 2008, it looked like McCain was leading in Virginia until about 10:20 PM EDT. In fact, for the first 3 hours, he held at 57%. At 22:58 EDT, 2 minutes before the polls closed on the West Coast, CNN called Virginia for Obama. Obama ended up winning the Old Dominion by +6.30% when all was said and done. In 2012, it looked like Romney was ahead in Virginia until after midnight EDT. CNN first called the state for Obama (D-hold) at 12:36 AM on the day after the election. Obama ended up winning by +3.87%, almost identical to his national average in that year. In 2013, Cuccinelli was leading in the returns until 22:00 EDT. The GUB election was called for McAuliffe at 22:40 on that night. McAuliffe won by +2.6% In 2016, it looked like Trump was leading in Virginia until about 22:15, the state was called around 23:00 on election night for Clinton. BTW, Clinton's margin in VA in 2016 was larger than Obama's margin in 2012. Clinton won by +5.10%. So, why does this always happen? It's all about paperwork. The small western and central counties, many of which still do paper-ballots, get the numbers in early. The huge, compact precincts in the big cities, mostly in NOVA but also Richmond and in Virginia Beach, simply take more time because so many more votes are cast. Both Democrats and Republicans in this state know that this is what happens each time, which is why all eyes are on the collar counties just outside of NOVA and also watching the margins in Richmond and in VA-Beach. So, when the returns start coming in at 19:00 EDT, if Northam is already ahead, then he is headed for a massive landslide. This, however, is not going to happen. The night will start with Gillespie well ahead and that lead will be whittled down once Arlington starts to come in. The question is, as always, how much? So, my gentle advice is to just wait a while and enjoy some nice, hot tea. Could be a very interesting night, indeed. With the polling aggregate within the standard MoE, anything is possible. By comparison, New Jersey is going to be boring. -Stat PS. I will be on the thread, adding totals as they come in. Let's keep it friendly and clean here.
I think Christie set back the Republicans for decades in New Jersey, which is my home state. Once upon a time I had a lot of respect for him. That went away.
He had a great first term. He was a walking disaster during his entire second term. I have a feeling that it will take a Dem disaster is office to swing back to the right. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night in VA. 2 centrist candidates that appeal to the masses but don't offer much to the fringes. The highly unpopular ads by Northam in the last couple weeks could be disastrous to him.
A quick compare between the end polling aggregates for VA and NJ compared to the actual results. Remember, these results are still preliminary, the actual margins can shift with the passage of time until the final canvasses are certified and signed by the respective state SOSes. For instance, in Virginia in 2012, the prelim result was Obama +3.1 but when the final canvasses came out, it was Obama +3.9. In 2012, on election night, it was Clinton +4, the final canvasses showed Clinton +5.1. So, in the case of VA, this result really may change. In NJ, the shifts have tended to be smaller. RCP currently shows Northam +8.6 as the actual result, which is 5.3 points better than the end-polling aggregate. Obvious, as pollsters go, the biggest losers here were both Rasmussen and Roanoke, which showed absolute ties and were therefore off by 8.6 points to the right. In fact, except for Quinnipiac (the big winner here), which predicted Northam +9, and Christopher Newport University, which predicted Northam +6 (off 2.6 points to the Right), all other polls were at least 3.6 points (or considerably more) to the right. This is now historical FACT. In New Jersey, the polling as much more uniform and by far much more consistent. Currently, the end-polling aggregate was 0.9 points to the LEFT of the actual result, but let's see what happens when the final canvasses are in. Actually, Politico is currently showing the margin at +12.9 and their numbers look to be more up-to-date: Either way, in this case, there were no real losers in terms of pollsters. The pollster to show the leanest result, Quinnipiac, with Murphy +12, is still only 1.5 points off to the RIGHT. Meanwhile, both with Murphy +16, Emerson and Suffolk where 2.5 points off to the LEFT. In the grand scheme of things, this is well within the margin of error. And there were four pollsters who were, for all intents and purposes, spot-on, because once the final canvasses are in, I bet that Murphy's margin will rise again somewhat. This happened with Obama in both 2012 and 2008. So, showing Murphy +14, Gravis (R), Monmouth, Stockton and Fox were all pretty much dead-on. Now, in an expected landslide race where there are relatively few undecideds long before the election, the polling predictions tend to be more uniform and that certainly was the case here. How did Murphy do compared to his predecessors? For some reason, 1977 is missing from the list. I will research this. Uselectionatlas shows Murphy at +12.8. So, three sources are showing three different results, but around +13. Of the 4 landslides since 2001, his is the third largest. And in terms of swing, the state shifted 34.9 points to the LEFT over 2013. And we note that less people voted in 2017 than in 2013 and also less in 2013 than in 2009.
