With the calling of the Oregon seat for Jeff Merkley, the Democratic Party looks set for 55 seats in the United States Senate. Along with the two independent seats including Joe Lieberman, that puts the Democratic caucus at 57 seats. All of the seats that were considered to be cinches, Democrats won while the marginal pickups like Minnesota stayed with the incumbent but could potentially switch pending recounts or re-votes. 60 seats to get to that filibuster proof majority was considered to be a long shot in any event but it can be quite attainable in 2010.
Senate seats that are up for election in 2010 are an interesting set of seats. Currently divided between 19 Republicans and 14 Democratic seats, there are two reasons why we have may have numerous pickup opportunities that year.
First of all, 2004, the year which these seats were up for election, was a presidential election year which means a higher turnout for elections but also it was a year where the nation was still feeling anxious about national security and therefore gravitated towards the Republicans who picked up a net of 4 seats. 2010 is a mid-term year which means lower turnout at the polls for many states and unless the situation changes by that year, national security issues may not be that important on the minds of voters.
A much more significant development for that year is the potential for mass retirements by many of the senators. here is a list of Senators who will be 73 years or more by that year:
- Daniel Inouye of Hawaii (D) – 86
- Barbara Mikulski of Maryland (D) – 73
- Richard Shelby of Alabama (R) – 76
- John McCain of Arizona (R) – 74
- Chuck Grassley of Iowa (R) – 77
- Jim Bunning of Kentucky (R) – 79
- Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (R) – 80
- Bob Bennett of Utah (R) – 80
- George Voinovich of Ohio (R) – 74
That is a high portion of that Senate class, about 25%. Of course, many of them may continue on in the Senate and may try to approach Byrd or Thurmond in their ages as members of the Senate. Additionally, several are in states that despite this year’s blue wave are just not going to turn blue like Utah.
There is one declared retiree so far: Sam Brownback of Kansas (R). Chris Dodd is receiving some speculation that he may retire at the end of his term. Much of his future is tied to seeing how the financial crisis is resolved as he has Senate chairman oversight over the financial services industry.
Florida (Mel Martinez), North Carolina (Richard Burr) and New Hampshire (Judd Gregg) are states that could flip their Senators as these are blue states or at least purple states.
Many of the Democratic senators up for election that year like Barbara Boxer of California and Evan Bayh of Indiana look pretty solid.
So with a wave of potential retirements and that Republicans are defending more seats than Democrats are for that year, there is a strong possibility that 3-4 more seats can be picked up by Democrats that year to attain that filibuster -proof majority of 60. Now in reality getting 60 seats to prevent filibusters is something that could be accomplished this year with moderate Republicans like Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe so in conjunction with the Democratic caucus so to reach that number on strictly Democrats is symbolic. Even then there are Democratic senators who may not always vote the party line on bills so as always, there always must be deals to get the filibuster-proof majority. But as symbol of where the power lays in the US Senate, getting 60 seats is as good as it gets.
So it is the day after the election of Barack Obama. As you may expect, it is all that anyone is talking about today. It is a seminal event in so many ways not which the least being a change from the eight years of the Bush administration and the philosophies that have guided this nation.
It was a long night for me last night though not because of the results themselves. When Pennsylvania was called shortly its polls were closed and the trends were favorable to Obama in such states like Indiana and Florida, I knew then it was virtually a done deal. The call at 11:00pm when the west coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California closed their polls was a mere formality but one that had to be followed as it was those states that caused him to reach the threshold of 270 electoral votes. Still, it was nice to seeing such stalwart Republican states like Virginia come over to the Democratic side of the vote tally.
As the vote totals kept coming in, I hit all of my commentary sites on the Internet for additional results, and analysis. I brought my Mac out to the kitchen so i could use the computer while watching the networks. As for the networks, I stuck closely to my chosen ensemble of MSNBC, NBC and CNN. I had been using them for the course of this entire election season and I was not going to change now.
This morning I followed up on some of the outstanding races to be called when I finally turned in for th night. North Carolina is a state that still is yet to be called for Obama even with his 12,000 vote lead as there are many votes, absentee and provisional ballots, to be allocated but the total number remains less than Obama’s lead.
As for the rest of the races, Democrats have expanded on their leads in the Senate and Congress from the 2006 elections. Not as sweeping as expected but still quite decisive. Enough to give Democrats a mandate of sorts to enact some significant changes in how things are now done in this country.
Here in North Carolina, Kay Hagen decisively defeated Elizabeth Dole. Dole’s near invisibility in this state since she was elected along with her age and pro-Bush policies put in her in a bad spot but the clincher was the ad she ran accusing Hagan of being an atheist when Hagan was a prominent member in her church. For the governor’s race, Bev Perdue, Democrat, won over Pat McCory. At the state level, this is a solid conservative Democratic state and it does not seem that is going to change anytime soon.
So what now?
It is go to be a let down for me now as so much of my attention for the past year has been wrapped up in the presidential campaigns. Now that is over, I have to return to my mundane life and deal with the problems of making it through the days.
But I feel pretty good right now. Times are a changing and Barack Obama will see the country through a most difficult time. Choices are not going to be easy and we all will be called upon to make sacrifices. But I have hope that things will work out for the best. Just need some time to set things right.
Reviewing the various new posts from various blogs and news sites, it seems that many of the problems dealing with elections in the United States still exist. In this election year, though, it seems to be amplified by the record turnout appears nearly everywhere.
Shortage of paper ballots, broken machines, missing registrations, relocated polling places all seem to be popping up in much of the news so far today along with reports of long lines in many places especially in urban areas with heavy percentages of African Americans.
I just do not get it. Other western countries have managed to conduct national elections with far fewer problems and lot less controversy. Problems like these will always lead to speculation that an election will be tainted or even stolen. If it happens every election cycle, it will deflate people’s trust in the system and lead to less participation in the civic process.
The problem is that every state sets its own standards for elections whether for local, state and federal offices. Different registration requirements, different ways of entering a ballot and so on. The HAVA act addressed some of the issues but it appears to be unevenly applied across the country.
I think the first step of making elections run more smoothly in the United States is to for the federal government to be main registrant of voters in the country with responsibility delegated to the states. I do not know why private organisations are left with the responsibility to register voters. Let enumerators go out and register people much like a census with followups in the mail system. For those not found by this way or are now in different election precincts, have same day registration at the polling station. This should remove all accusations of voter registration fraud and remove the process of arbitrary voter roll purges.
Secondly, have all voting machines across the country be one standard. I favor a touchscreen system which creates a optical scan ballot which can display for the voter who he voted for. This will avoid situations like here in North Carolina where people who voted straight party ticket but did not realise that the presidential pick was a separate selection. Additionally, this removes and misapplication of a vote from who you picked and what is actually registered. This also makes recounts easier.
No more pure touchscreen votes which does not allow for recounts or any hacking of tallying systems. People will know who they voted for. No more lever systems or strange ballots.
Of course, paper ballots must be available along with provisional ballots to ensure that votes are collected. Which leads to another point: more machines are needed for voters. It appears that the long lines are due to the fact that a limited number of machines are available and not properly allocated to precincts on an equal basis. It may be a pain for cities and counties to store machines that are used at best every two years but at least for democracy’s sake, it is what is required. A ratio of one machine per 150 voters should be adequate with a reserve of machines of 1 per 1000 voters to handle breakdowns and unexpected voter turnout.
Finally, and this is probably more difficult to apply in such a large country like the United States, a standard time of poll closures by time region. We have polls closing from 6:00pm to 12:00am. One of the main concerns of the television networks in calling the presidential winner too early is the potential to depress voting in the western states where the polls have not closed. Perhaps it would be better if the nation was divided into two or three regions for elections with a set of polls closing at 9:00pm EST and another set at 12:00am for instance with a dividing line being along the Mississippi river. No state can have separate closing times for different parts of the state. Select one zone or the other. This will also help too in getting more people to vote at later hours when people can vote after work.
It sounds so simple and not expensive to implement especially if the federal government is paying for it but here we are in 2008 with the same problems as we have had for three elections now. A bit of common-sense is in order and perhaps Congress can address this early on in the new session of 2009.
Light drizzle here in the Triad today as Election Day gears up. I passed by a church serving as a polling place near my house this morning. Cars lined up everywear on the curb and all. Line stretched out the door but people were waiting patiently in line using umbrellas to keep the rain away.
Lot of people are engaged in this election and everyone is anticipating the results, the earliest ones we will see sometime after 7pm EST. The commentariat consensus is that if Barack Obama pulls out a victory in Virginia and is very close in Indiana, then the night should be very good for him. The clincher will be the Florida and North Carolina results. A win by Obama in either state will mean that John McCain has no path to victory given that Obama is expected to carry all of the states that John Kerry won in 2004 including Pennsylanvia with New Mexico and Iowa already assumed to be in his column.
Still, no winner will be officially declared until the networks call enough states for either candidate to pass the 270 electoral vote threshold. We will know the winner beforehand no doubt as 4-6 states will act as leading indicators for the nation as a whole.
I expect a long night for me as I flip back and forth on my television catching the results and commentary. I will move the computer out into the dining room too to catch the on-line commentary and track the results on a state by state level not just for the presidential, but also Senate and congressional seats along with the Governor’s race here in North Carolina.
Reviewing the various news shows this weekend, most of them were in some combination of predicting the results on November 4th and a retrospective of the presidential campaign over the past year or two.
Nearly uniformly, most commentators are predicting an Obama win on election day. Question is whether to what degree will his election be decisive. Most of the predictions fall around the 320 electoral votes range. The caveat in that prediction is that many of the electoral votes will come from states that he will eked out a narrow win like in North Carolina and Florida.
It is hard to say what the final day of electioneering will cause the results to change in any meaningful way. Same too as for any significant event that will change the course of the election narrative. There will not be enough time for the electorate to process the information and rethink their election choice. As for that block of undecided voters out there, about 6% of the electorate, the profile of these voters is that they are mostly 2004 George Bush voters. So for these voters, if Obama manages to keep it in a roughly even split, say 60% McCain 40% Obama, Obama should come out well in the end.
I think when it is all said and done, come Wednesday morning, everyone will be just plain exhausted and not just on television. I think the whole population is also exhausted to a degree with the election but not in the sense that they had enough with the election. Rather, it is that people have been so invested in this election as no other in recent history. There is a sense for some that it does not end because so much of their lives for the past 10 months have been wrapped up in the election whether directly through volunteering or contributing or just passively through following the news and opinion makers.
I think much of the involvement of the electorate has been amplified through the maturity of communication tools like the Internet and cellphones. The Internet, through partisan blogs and websites, has been used to drive messages, provide news and context and provide communities on-line for like-minded people. As a communication tool, the Internet has finally reached a point that it can compete directly with mainstream media outlets whatever they may be. Where in elections past we just get a very filtered version of the news, now we can get as many polls we can handle and also whatever news comes out of the campaign, we will know about it in hours. In a sense we are in the world of election information overload.
As for me, I would not know what to do with my life after November 4th. My time these days is now constantly searching the web for new information from the campaigns and read as many pundits and commentators as I can possibly read. All of that will come to an end soon after the election. No doubt there will be several days of post-mortem analysis of the election on who did what right and what they did wrong to sustain my interest. But I feel it will all essentially come to a conclusion of sorts by the weekend. Then I will be in some of political withdrawal for a few weeks.
After that, life will take its normal course. I think the family will appreciate getting their father/husband back. It is a glorious autumn here in North Carolina so I will take a few days off after Tuesday and enjoy it.
Over the next few months, I will keep tabs on the transition process and see how the government will position itself to act on the policies it had put forth during the course of the election. Bu as for me, I will disengage myself from politics for awhile and focus on more in getting in shape for the terrible recession that I expect for the first six months of the year. Life goes on but I do have hope.
Everything is now to the final days. Signs are good that Barack Obama will win this thing but you can never tell what may happen in the future even in the next few days.
If anything else, I might sleep a bit better after all of this is over.
How soon will the networks and other media call the Presidential election? If certain states are considered to be key to either of the two candidate’s chance of victory for the day, it is conceivable that we may know the result as early as 7:30pm EST.
Why is this so?
Using the Greenpapers.com site and its collection of polling time closures as a guide, we find that many of the states that are now considered to be battleground states will be closing early. This include the following:
Closing at 7:00pm EST:
- Indiana (CST part of the state closes at this time while the EST time closes at 6pm)
- Kentucky (CST part of the state closes at this time while the EST time closes at 6pm)
- Florida
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- Vermont
- Virginia
Closing at 7:30pm
- Ohio
- West Virginia
Now poll closures do not mean that the results will be known right away. Also, the nominal poll closing time in some areas may be extended because of line-ups at polling states. Finally, networks are loathe to call any states prematurely until a certain percentage of votes come in from monitored districts considered to be bellwether districts for the state. When those results confirm whatever exit polls they have on hand, then they will call the state for the candidate.
Having said that, four of those states (Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Florida) were red Republican states in the past two elections and if we know that at least one of them have flipped to Barack Obama, then it is pretty good chance that the night will be his.
Indeed, the earlier that one of those states is called with something like a significant margin of polls, the better Obama’s chances. This is because certain states are considered to be in the bag for either candidate. States like New York or Wyoming will be called for the candidates as soon as the polls close in those states.
Watch for states like Georgia which are expected to go for McCain. If the margin becomes very close and a winner is not declared early on, that will mean that Obama’s support will be considered to be very broad.
In any case, by the time the Pacific states close their polls at 11:00pm, we should have a good time how the voting goes for the election.