On Thursday, Referendum 74 absolutely kicked ass. Its cumulative support numbers jumped from 52.0% to 52.6%, a real accomplishment when you’ve only added about 300K ballots to the prior count of almost 2.2 million.
How’d they do it? Well, Approve got almost 57% of the vote on Thursday. Only two of the 20 reporting counties did worse on Thursday than on the first two days — tiny Lincoln (542 ballots counted) and Kitsap, where “only” 52% of the day’s ballots voted in the affirmative.
According to my estimation approach, the proportion voting Approve is likely to rise a bit by the time we’re done counting; I have it as 52.8% to Approve, 47.2% bigots Reject. Ladies and gentlemen, R-74 is a winner!
As for the other three races we’re following, there was little overall change observed. In the Governor’s race, however, that stasis masks what might become a problem. Rob McKenna did better than before in 15 of the 20 counties that submitted reports on Thursday. Some of the changes — +2.4% in Clark, Grays Harbor, Skagit, and Whatcom; +3.2 in Snohomish; +3.4% in King; +3.9% in Kitsap; +4.0% in Lincoln — look pretty impressive until you realize that the vote counts in many of the counties were quite small compared to the statewide total. In the end, McKenna pulled in 49.0% of the day’s vote … a lower proportion than he drew on Wednesday. For the day, Inslee’s lead increased by nearly 6000.
Still, it fits in nicely with the scenario advanced by Randy Pepple, the McKenna campaign head, who suggests that late ballots will swing their way starting on Friday and continuing into next week. We’ll see about that, though I must note that the recent history of Republican prognostication is, shall we say, spotty.
Kim Wyman extended her lead a little bit in the Secretary of State race. She’s now ahead of Kathleen Drew by a 1.4% margin, 50.7% to 49.3%. My prediction model suggests that the race could tighten in coming days, though it still shows Wyman ahead by a 50.4% to 49.6% margin.
The vote on I-1240, the Gates/Walton enrichment charter schools initiative, got much tighter on Thursday. The Yes side led 51.1% to 48.9% heading into Thursday, but a strong day for the No forces (they got 54.4% of the day’s votes) dropped the Yes lead to a thin 50.5% to 49.5%. It’s the closest race on my list. My model pegs the final tally at that same 1-point margin, but that can still be reversed if ballots continue to come in as they did on Thursday.
Finally, it looks like the counties have caught up with their backlog of pre-Tuesday ballots. The estimated count of to-be-processed ballots decreased significantly on Thursday, from 744,382 all the way down to 595,614. As the number of arriving ballots continues to decrease, that figure will fall even farther.
As of 9.00AM Inslee’s up by 54,338.
“though I must note that the recent history of Republican prognostication is, shall we say, spotty.”
That’s because you don’t unskew.
LOL
By today most of the mail-in ballots will have been received and counted. You have to wonder what’s left to count.
Personally, I don’t mind the slow pace of ballot counting in Washington. I like the certainty of being able to cast your ballots on election day (not guessing at how many days the post office will take to deliver it). And an accurate count is more important than meeting some media deadlines.
But if we ever find Washington being the final swing state in the national news, God help us! Thousands of media, campaign operatives, and lawyers will descend to criticize every step of the process, each one complaining about how long the process is taking. Fortunately, I can’t imagine a scenario where Washington would be the swing state in a Presidential election.
Some in the state GOP are Already making excuses, although of course the McKenna campaign still says wait for the late ballots.
http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=2124342
3)
In Australia, they count every voter’s preference, even if they get a sufficient majority that they don’t need the preferences of third-party voters.(By the way, Australia’s version of Instant Runoff Voting, they require every spot on the ballot to be ranked) They just want to make sure, plus, it helps with the national two-party preferred rankings(unless an independent or third-party MP is elected, and it does happen, 5 independents and 1 Green Party MP in the House)
Also, yesterday I looked at the Secretary of State’s website, and on voter turnout, I was shocked that tiny Whakiukum County still had 3 ballots left to count. Made me wonder, what were they thinking down in Cathlamet(county seat), why not tabulate them and be done with it? Should be done at 2PM today for them. Columbia County has just a few more than that.
http://vote.wa.gov/results/current/Turnout.html
@5:
Those three ballots might have signature-verification issues, and they’re waiting to hear from the voters to clarify the situation.
6)
Thanks, that is a good reason. Just thought with it being one of the smallest counties in Western Washington, they would be done pretty quickly.
I could see my self retiring and moving to a little cabin/cottage in Cathlamet. Neat place.
Off Topic – B R E A K I N G
David Petraeus Resigns Due To Extramarital Affair
Comment: As we are only finding out, the Benghazi consulate in Libya was primarily a CIA outpost, and today we find out that the Director of the CIA was getting some on the side during all of this?
@9 Why is it that only democrats resign?
As long as it was with a woman, republicans would give give him a standing ovation.
@10,
Petraeus is not a Democrat. As most senior military officers are, Petraeus was unaffiliated.
@9, @10 In fact, a couple years ago Petraeus was on featured on the cover of American Spectator as the most likely Republican candidate for President this time around.
In any case, there has to be way, way more to this than most of us could possibly dream up.
Yesterday Koster sent an e-mail to his supporters, say he is conceding to Delbene. He’s not exactly gracious about it. He bitterly blames the state and national political parties for not giving him enough money, and claims he was simply outspent.
Gee, do you think maybe he should have nailed down a committment from those sources, and some PACs, before he decided to run? Maybe that’s the kind of planning and foresight we might expect of a Congressman?
Then there’s the fact that he didn’t bother to call DelBene first before telling everyone else he was conceding. He said he would call her Friday. Bad form – DelBene should have been his first call once he made the decision.
And then there was his final jab:
“It seems obvious to me that we have swung wildly in the wrong political direction and that we are now at a point where our society WILL suffer the consequences inherent with bad law and liberal representation”
Yep, these guys learned NOTHING from their defeat.
@9 “Comment: As we are only finding out, the Benghazi consulate in Libya was primarily a CIA outpost, and today we find out that the Director of the CIA was getting some on the side during all of this?”
That’s about the size of it, and given that Petraeus
iswas a conservative icon, now you know why Romney abruptly went silent about Benghazi in the campaign’s final days.@14 Roger,
I think you’re more than likely correct.
@10 I stand corrected. Thanks.
Petraeus is someone we’re better off without.
Petreaus is just the fall guy….a scapegoat….
Breaking News — McKenna Concedes!
“Republican Rob McKenna conceded the gubernatorial race to Democrat Jay Inslee on Friday evening.
“In a conference call with reporters, McKenna’s campaign manager, Randy Pepple, said McKenna called Inslee shortly before 6 p.m. to congratulate him on winning the race.
“Pepple said McKenna made the decision after the latest vote count showed he could not overcome the lead that Inslee has enjoyed since Election Day.”
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....ce10m.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It was about trust. McKenna proved he couldn’t be trusted to represent the entire state. He’s too partisan to be governor.
Get the Popcorn!
“Finger pointing has erupted in the Republican Party over John Koster’s loss to Democrat Suzan DelBene in the 1st Congressional District.
“Koster … took shots at national and state Republican leaders. ‘Neither the National Republican Congressional Committee nor the Washington State Republican Party stepped up to provide us with anything more than token support …,’ Koster wrote.
“State GOP Chairman Kirby Wilbur called Koster’s assessment hogwash. ‘They simply ran a horrible campaign,’ he said. Wilbur put much of the blame on campaign manager, Larry Stickney.”
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....nw10m.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is like watching crabs eat each other!
@16 Oh — so if Petraeus wasn’t in charge of the Benghazi CIA station’s security, who was? (Don’t answer that; you’ll just make a fool of yourself.)
You mean McKenna didn’t have the cajones to face the press himself, but instead shoved his spear-catcher out from behind the curtain to announce concession? How manly! How very Republican!
@22
This is the guy who hid behind a cupcake table to get away from scary reporters, after all.