You know, I’ve got a little pride here, not to mention some basic math skills and a bit of experience tracking local election results, so I wasn’t just pulling a projection out of my ass when I confidently called WA-02 for Rick Larsen yesterday, after two days of late ballots trending in his favor.
See, in an all vote-by-mail system, there really are only two universes of ballots: those tallied on election day, and those tallied thereafter. The first universe of ballots consists of those received over a three week period stretching from a day or two after the ballots are mailed to voters, through the day of or before election day. The second universe of ballots consists almost entirely of those cast during the final two or three days of the campaign. This is a chronological, first-in-first-out process in which ballots are generally tallied in the order in which they arrive.
While it is impossible to discern a trend within the first universe of ballots, as they are all tallied together in a single election night report, one can reliably plot a trend between the two universes, and to a lesser extent between daily reports in the second… that is, if a late-ballot trend exists. And there’s little doubt that late voters strongly trended Democratic this year in Washington state.
That is why, as expected, Rep. Larsen substantially increased his lead to 3,872 votes today over Palin-endorsed challenger John Koster. And that is why there is little reason to expect the margins in subsequent tallies to vary much from that reported today.
There are about 62,000 ballots remaining to count in WA-02, of which Koster would need to win at least 53.2% to close the gap. Yet Koster has received only 49.2% of the total vote thus far, and only 45.2% of today’s tally. It’s simply not gonna happen. In fact, since the remaining ballots are contemporaneous to those reported over the past couple days, it would be surprising if Larsen didn’t continue to expand his margin.
So, the only question remaining is why HA is the only news organization calling this election?
Can’t wait to see who mama grizzly endorses in 2012.
Kudos, Goldy. Why is the MSM so rightwing? Beyond that, Rick Larsen is a genuinely fine human being. He is the kind of person we need in Congress. He listens. He doesn’t judge. He knows he’s made mistakes and has learned from them. He represents his district. He’d be the kind of guy who would reach across party lines if the Rs hadn’t made the chasm so wide.
Koster? Not so much. Just another far right partisan. Really, did Palin endorse him? That could not help in the 2d. That might get one more person from Lynden to the polls, but her arrogance is blowing out her head if she thinks her endorsement makes any difference there.
What is scary that Koster was a complete nut, and he still wins a 49% of the vote. Even though it was down year, even though he is winning in Snohomish County, I am just thinking is half the electorate of the 2nd Congressional District out of their minds?!? This guy took some pretty far right views, like Social Security Privatization, which he tried to put some put some fuzzy dice on the rear view mirror that he was trying to maintain Social Security, even though he is in favor of gutting it. He wants to abolish the IRS, he wants to impeach Obama to stop Illegal Immigration, (really popular in the Skagit valley during picking season) Pretty much would ban any morning after pill. The list goes on.
This is a guy who got 49% of the vote in the Second District? Lewis County hasn’t moved north yet..
Noted the Seattle (Suburban) Times article today about calls to change ballet receipt requirements from post marked, to received on the day of the election. Predictably it’s the Republicans (Sam Reed, Seattle Times editorial page) leading the cheers. They see that inclusive democracy probably cost them the Senate seat, a house seat and the state legislature. Suppress the vote, elect more Republicans.
@4 I Got Nuthin’ on 11/06/2010 at 6:11 am
“We would get a more meaningful result on election night,” he [Reed| said.
Well, shit. Elections and democracy are all about the results on election night.
@3: It was not about the facts and reason for lots of the electorate.
This election was about voting against who appears to be the proximate cause of their economic angst.
Leaving aside the incessant, corporately funded lies, of course. It was impossible to escape.
Vs Leaving aside the incessant, SEIU and AFL-CIO union funded lies, of course. It was impossible to escape.
Yeah! Corrected!
Goldy spews:
and you dimlibs call Fox News, “Faux News”?
Is there any chance in heck that the cutoff date for ballots could be changed? I get why the RepubliCorps want it changed…to suppress the vote. What I don’t know is if they could do that. Can the SOS just unilaterally change the cutoff? Or does it have to be done by the legislature? Can the Counties preempt an attempt by the legislature to change the cutoff?
tienle @9,
It would need to be done legislatively.
tienle @9:
In order of your questions …
Vanishingly small. Absolutely not. Yes. No.
The ballot deadline is specifically defined in RCW 29A.48.050. It would require a new law passed by the Legislature (or, I suppose, by initiative) to alter it.
Reed writes proposed legislation changing it to “received by” prior to every legislative session. The Legislature, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, rejects his proposals during every legislative session. And the county auditors and elections officials are pretty much unanimously opposed to Sam’s obsession.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Goldy and N…thank you! That’s a relief. Glad I asked.
Once the tea baggers find out what the GOP has in store for their retirement security, they will be begging for at least a courtesy reach around. The tea party movement isn’t smart enough to realize they have been used by rich corporations to put rich peoples agenda front and center. The tea baggers have been ridden hard and put up wet. And they are too dim to see what just happened. They are going to have “austerity” rammed down their throat all with a corporate jack-boot squarely on their neck. The massive ignorance of these tea baggers is unprecedented.
@4
I think it’s more a process thing. Also we (State of WA) have been mirroring Oregon with regards to vote by mail and they have the requirement that the ballot be “received” on election day by 8PM, post marks don’t count.
In Oregon they can drop ballots in person until 8pm, or have them mailed early enough to be “received” by election day.
…snicker…
…you need to buy a sense of humor somewhere, fuckwad.
Rujax!
“I” need a sense of humor????
And the best you can do is come up with calling me a “fuckwad?”
Being a rather naive person, I had to look this up …
http://www.techybytes.com/the-fuckwad-theory/
Aha!
Tx for the education Comrade!
One of the more interesting results from this election will be how the predictable result (the President’s party losing seats in a mid-term election) plays against the incredibly poor showing of the Washington State GOP. They could not remove a single incumbent Democrat (and it’s still mathematically possible Reichert could lose), and the untraced millions poured into Rossi’s effort failed. The BIAW scam went down hard at the polls, which should prompt us progressives to demand defunding of the BIAW, by having our legislature close the insurance loopholes the BIAW uses to extract funds from workers’ insurance.
The Republican Party in this state is by far one of the weaker editions nationwide, and money alone cannot solve their problems. It will be interesting (and highly amusing) to see what they try next.
I think voting by mail is the enemy of the GOP. They want low voter turnout and yet Seattle had like 71% return rate. This is unheard of in an off-year election. If it would have been old fashioned going to the polling place to vote, there is no way we have 71%.
Expect the rethugs to start attacking voting by mail. If they have their druthers, we’ll be back to only white male land owners being able to vote. Ah, the good old days. If the GOP could just wipe out the twentieth century, what with all those costly worker rights, things would be so much better…at least for the rich. The rich have done so poorly the last ten years…not!
@19;
Yes, the Republicans would like to go back to the white, male landowner system. Although since I will never vote GOP again (I have a few times in the past), I’m sure they’d like to narrow it down even further so liberals like myself are purged from the rolls as well.
@17…
What a perfectly LOVELY description of you, sir and your ilk.
Thanks for thr link fuckwad.
The Tacoma paper still wont call it for Larsen.
@1 Herself, of course. Run, Sarah, run! I wanna see an Obama – Palin matchup in 2012! Obama by twenty points.
@2 “Why is the MSM so rightwing?”
Because working-class people don’t own media companies.
@7 Puddy, I’m already convinced you’re stupid and ignorant, but if you believe the SEIU and AFL-CIO caused this economic meltdown you’re even stupider and more ignorant than I gave you credit for. My apologies, I stand corrected.
@8 HA consists of mixed news and opinion. What Goldy posts is news because he goes out and gets facts and reports them; what you post in the comment threads is opinion because it isn’t worth the coal it takes to create the electricity that makes it appear on a computer screen.
@27 Rabid Rabbits Rut Ruthlessly
Yes sure .. “What Goldy posts is news because he goes out and gets facts and reports them”
And so Harry Hare tell me howsit he dismisses Hannity for doing the SAME thing?
Was God-stein’s “news” about Reichert’s brain opinion more than Fox’s Facts about global warming???
Oh I forgot, you are a lawyer. Yah!
How come ALL the Jews on the Supreme Court were appointed by libruls? As yourself this .. if Jesus could have afforded OJ’s lawyers, how would that have changed history??
Have you thought about this … Obama is a LAWYER!! Just like Nixon! We need REAL people in office .. Dino, Armey, Chaney, Sarah, Rand, Reagan, … not something there?
Ignorant twits like you make even fuckwads look good.
Speaking of late calls … the NYT “Big Board” just moved a House race INTO the undecided column, raising the total from 8 to 9!
I can’t tell which one it is, but I think it’s a Republican “win” pushed back to leaner.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Larsen still leads by just short of 4000 votes after updates by Whatcom and Snohomish Counties.
Probably NOT RonK!
With 90% of the ballots now counted for WA-02 and each report since Wednesday showing Larsen’s lead increasing the MSM still can’t do the math.
Goldy — can you share your math on Wiggins? I was hoping King County would push him over the top as well.