Democrats have fifty-six seats, Republicans forty. With all or almost all (99% in Alaska) the votes counted, if current totals hold after recounts and whatnot, the Republicans get three more (Georgia, Minnesota, and believe it or not, Ted Stevens's seat in Alaska). Oregon only has about 3/4 reporting, with the Republican ahead slightly, and Portland results in.
More generally, the picture is of a solid Democratic win, but not the tsunami some had expected. Obama won the popular vote by a solid, but not crushing, margin of slightly less than six percent (52.4-46.5). Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole by a significantly greater margin and even greater relative percentage (49.25-40.71), and George Bush by a slightly lower margin, but higher relative percentage (43.01-37.45). Bush, meanwhile, beat Dukakis by a larger margin, 53.4 to 45.6. The Democrats picked up about twenty House seats, on the low end of the expected range. And, as noted above, they seem likely to pick up five or six Senate seats,which would make the Senate races either 18-16 in favor of the Democrats, or tied at 17-17, again on the low end of the expected range.
UPDATE: BTW, of course I'm aware that presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College, not the popular vote. But comparing electoral college results gives the same picture, and I think looking at the popular vote gives one a better idea of how much national sentiment has shifted to the Democrats.
Related Posts (on one page):
- More on the Lack of a Democratic Tsunami:
- Senate Races:
That is pretty easy to believe. Look at Palin's approval numbers and she appoints his replacement. In a way Steven's stinks over this but fleecing the taxpayers to pay for goodies for your constituents is a much more costly problem.Not that Stevens is innocent in this regard -- Alaskan's have a love hate relationship with federal money. I wish they would just drill more oil and natural gas and get off the federal teet, and maybe if Palin can actually make that happen it will raise her stock nationally. If Stevens loses appeal and resigns and she appoints herself to the senate, my estimation would sink. (Conflict note: I'm sending my 50 bucks to Jindal for 2012 anyway)
Brian
What, that Alaskans would prefer not to see a Democratic super-majority, and did what they could?
Will Bush pardon Stevens, as a parting 'FTW'?
I haven't forgotten, but my question was about the election of 1996, Clinton v. Dole. Of course, your point applies, since Mr. Perot ran in 1996 as well, although, as I'm sure you know, he got fewer votes than in 1996.
I was simply curious to know if the exact breakdown conforms to Mr. Bernstein's analysis, all the while being too lazy to look up the answer. (But apparently I'm not too lazy to keep posting comments on a blog when I should be working.....shame.)
If Stevens does get tossed and Big E is correct that the governor (Palin) doesn't get to appoint someone to fill it, but instead there would be a special election (how far off?), then is it likely that another Republican would be elected to it (possibly Palin?), or would a Democrat be more likely?
(I haven't looked this morning to see whether any news about the other crook Alaska has been sending to Washington year after year, that is Congressman Young. Will we be afflicted with him until he is indicted and convicted for selling his office?)
They're not counting Lieberman and Sanders.
You also might want to check when the last time a non-incumbent won by as large a margine in the popular vote as Obama did last night.
If I'm not smoking something, the big story on the popular vote is not the margin.
2004
Bush 62,040,610
Kerry 59,028,444
2008
Obama62,443,218
McCain 55,386,310
Now I can't say how many votes are not reported yet, but I tend to doubt it could be more than the 3 million that separate the total vote from 2004.
Where is the turnout factor, the historic election and all the hype - that is still going on on TV this morning. It looks to me like a few folks changed sides and some conservatives sat on their hands.
I concede, I haven't incorporated 3rd party votes in my analysis, but I don't see how this isn't a big story.
Is that because of the length of the length of time to the next general. Alaska law or federal. I thought the time to the next election only applied to the House.
Would the repleacement mechanism change if stevens hangs on for a certain amount of time?
Brian
in which case I amend my post to agree with the ambivalent view of stevens as possibly treated unfairly, he's the one who made the whole thing so much in the news and timely and did manage to get out his sense of objection to conduct of prosecutors.
I'm not jumping on or off that bandwagong, but maybe Alsakan's were additionally convinced they didn't like ththe alternative -- if it had been Knowles again would he have been elected.
And for folks who get oil checks they no doubt understand they would be smaller with a filibuster proof senate (obviously that characterization changes on the issues, but it is useful semantic.)
Looks like 49.8% for Obama,and almost exactly 49% for McCain on the popular vote. Depending on where these votes were cast, that could be the difference in the electoral college and the election!
Whatever else you can take away from this, provided the fraud was that high, Obama is about to preside on a completely polarized electorate, and ACORN is everything we feared it was.
Don't expect DOJ to do anything like investigate this.
Welcome to 3rd world elections, my fellow Americans.
Late returns push Chambliss slightly under 50% opening the possibility of a runoff.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitiution and The Secretary of State website reoprts:
At 9:20 EST, with 96% of precincts reporting:
Chambliss(R) 49.8%
Martin(D) 46.8%
Buckley(L) 3.4%
CNN is reporting 99% of the vote in and Chambliss with 50%, although less total votes than the SoS.
Libertarian/Conservative types are especially upset with Chambliss about the bailout along with other "Big Government Conservative" issues. Martin polled about the same as Obama.
I voted for the runoff ...
You have to go back to Ike in '52 to find a greater margin with no meaningful 3rd party. And yet I wonder if McCain could have won had he picked Economics Expert Mitt Romney as his VP instead of Palin.
That's President-elect Hussein Obama, but keep grasping. The narrative is strong, but it doesn't mean the narrative is right.
Prof. Bernstein, if Bush had a mandate in 2004 with half the numbers that Obama has, does that mean Obama has twice the mandate?
More than 5% of the votes cast were fraudulent?!? Where do these numbers come from?
I was always under the impression that the Contract Republicans *under*played their hand by caving during the government shutdown. Or is that revisionist Republican history?
As for Georgia, I am trying to imagine a scenario where a Chambliss does not win a runoff. I suspect Republicans will be more eager to vote in that election than Democrats.
The Coleman-Franken race is headed for a recount, but recounts very seldom change the outcome.
As for Oregon, I have no idea where the uncounted votes.
In any event, I think the GOP lost that one on style, not substance. They acted as if the U.S. had suddenly shifted radically to the right; what they should have done is what the Democrats always did in the House: moderate rhetoric, while silently slipping ideologically controversial things into legislation. Instead, the opposite: they spoke loudly, and carried a small stick.
So they're willing to vote for a criminal? That makes sense. People putting party before country is stupid.
But what do you expect from those damned Republicans? Look how many of them voted for McCain. And he spent five and a half years in prison!
Mr. Bernstein: I suspect you're correct in stating that Mr. Obama's mandate is not for sweeping reform. However, he was in the campaign quite open about what he intends to do if elected (even if he had little plausible explanation about how to pay for it). I think your comment about the Republican majority in the 1990s is spot on, and if the Obama-ites take a cue from their mistakes, they'll be successful.
I thought Carter got 50.1% of the popular vote? He also had 61 D Senators and 292 D representatives. Let's hope it works out better this time.....
The "Contract" Republicans also had the misfortune of forcing Clinton to fight from behind. He was always at his best as the underdog.
But on policy matters, the Contract GOP was sucessful enough. IIRC, Clinton signed 80% of the Contract in one form or another, including welfare reform and the capital gains tax cut.
The concept of a "mandate" is moot when your party controls virtually every facet of the government.
The phrase got tossed around in 2004 as a preemptive attack against strong and determined factions against Bush.
Unless I'm missing something, where is the opposition to Obama policies going to come from? The guy is a media darling, a savior in the eyes of his party (who now have big majorities in the House and Senate, etc. If he can't enact some portion of his agenda it's because it is too misguided, too controversial or he is simply sailing his own ship around in circles.
One issue where there will be huge pushback--particularly with enough Senators to filibuster, is organized labor's demand for "card check" union elections.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose it. The Chamber of Commerce will fight it vigorously. And the Republicans have little downside in uniting against it.
So Ted Stevens is kinda like the white man's Marion "Bitch set me up" Barry.
Not until he gets out of prison and is re-elected.
I think you're right about President Carter's numbers. Read someplace else that Senator Obama was the first Democrat with a majority since 1976.
But I hope it works out the same. Remember that President Carter, as a two-term Georgia governor, had eight years of executive experience. And four years later. . .
Minor correction. Jimmy Carter was a one-term Governor of Georgia.
I don't think it's quite that clear.
The Democrats from 2000-2006 and the Republicans from 06 to the present have made it abundantly clear that you need 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything substantial.
I full expect, and would encourage in a great many circumstances, the Republicans to use the legislative process to their own ends. That's what it's there for, and why I was strongly against Republicans talking about to change the rules over judicial nominations a few years back.
The question is whether any given measure can not only pull a couple of the moderate republicans onto the democratic side, but whether the Democrats can keep their own party in Check. I come from a very blue dog state, and support for democrats is not equal to support for the more liberal wings of the party.
In all honestly, I fee rather liberated by this. I'm inclined to be somewhat contrarian by nature, and a lot of Bush's policies have driven me towards the center because I couldn't convince myself to support them.
Because Obama is president I feel much more free to move back to the right, because, while I'm cautiously optimistic about Obama's likely governing style, most of his policies are going to be to my left, so I have no problem arguing against them.
Said this above. It is the first thing that occured to me as not jibing with the MSM storyline for this election, and surprise, surpise they haven't said anything about it.
Given the counting discrepancies, I allowed that maybe another 3 million votes would trickle in and it would be the same as 2004.
Or is there someone who nows that it is not unusual for the last 10 million ballots to take a little time to filter in?
I'm not sure of the exact specifics of the vote counting, but the Christian Science Monitor put up actual numbers, which do seem to be records.
I generally consider the monitor to be a pretty accurate publication, and while still "mainstream," I don't think they really qualify as part of the usual media group.
They state there's an estimated turnout of 66% or 136 million voters. 2004 had roughly 64% with 125 million voters.
So, It seems based on this one source at least that turnout was higher by 2-3% at least.
The question is why they weren't surpassed by MORE, and then you have several theories to choose from. Is it that the MSM just got this story wrong? Is it that the big sudden turnout was only among Democrats and other first-timers who went for Obama, while a lot of Republicans stayed home? Those are questions we won't be able to immediately answer, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
They make these claims every election. I can't understand why people still take the bait.
"This is a historic election"
"This is the most important election of our lifetimes"
"The Supreme Court is at stake!"
"The youth and minority vote whill be key. This time we expect record turnout!"
It's the same nonsense spouted by the liberal media every election cycle. No surprises here. McCain was saddled with a nightmare economy, record deficits, a 5 year military quagmire in the Middle East and the gigantic failure of Bush. On top of that he's an old, repeat cancer survivor who looks like death warmed over. When you step back and look at the big picture, it was pretty obvious which way the center was going to break.
In other words, don't read too much into this.
Oh well, anyone know of a good guide to immigrating to the Cayman Islands?
Oh, don't doubt that there'll be plenty of opposition to the Infanticide President. After all, dissent is patriotic.
If Obama actually is stupid enough to sign as his first law the Freedom of Choice Act, then he'll guarantee that abortion politics, always feverish, will taint his administration from day 1. I really have to wonder if he IS dumb enough to do it, or if it was just another lie to the murderers at planned parenthood.
Nice to see nothing's changed here...
Markos Moulitsas was interviewed on the Today Show and he was proclaiming Obama a product of the Internet. You know he will be leading the screams for a "progressive agenda" now that Democrats control both Congress and the White House.
I suspect some time in the next 6-12 months the nut-roots will be screaming in outrage because, in their world view, Obama has "sold out."
Hilarious ain't it? Before Sarah Palin (IMO) Alaska was a lot like Tammany Hall (or modern day Chicago?) only with caribou...
No thread is complete without DangerMouse running around in circles with his fingers in his ears yelling "la la la la infanticide, infanticide."
Nice to see nothing's changed here...
Are you implying that Obama did not support infanticide?
Uh, since Obama's margin of victory was composed primarily of winning substantially higher margins in the youth and minority vote compared to Kerry, how is that "nonsense"?
This is all clearly very good news for John McCain and the Republicans.
And it is sad to see that over 100,000 Alaskans are willing to vote for Ted Stevens despite his proven corruption.
Obama won a clear victor with a ratio of 1.13 over McCain. (63.0 / 55.8 = 1.13)
But by any reasonable historical standard, this election was actually fairly close.
The average over the last 25 elections has been 1.30. For the last 12 its 1.22.
In rank-order this election is adjacent Truman-Dewey in '48, and election famous for being close.
Consider all the tailwinds Obama had: little skeptical press coverage; very unpopular incumbent party; huge financial advantage; an electorate that largely did not understand the direct relationship between Dem corruption (Fannie, Freddie) and our current financial crisis. If anything, its incredible Obama didnt do better.
Winner RunnerUp Ratio Contest
2000 0.479 0.484 0.98 Bush - Gore
1960 0.497 0.496 1.00 Kennedy - Nixon
1968 0.434 0.427 1.01 Nixon - Humphrey
1976 0.501 0.48 1.04 Carter - Ford
2004 0.507 0.483 1.04 Bush - Kerry
1916 0.492 0.461 1.06 Wilson - Hughes
1948 0.496 0.451 1.09 Truman - Dewey
2008 0.52 0.46 1.13 Obama - McCain
1992 0.43 0.377 1.14 Clinton - Bush
1944 0.534 0.459 1.16 Roosevelt - Dewey
1988 0.534 0.456 1.17 Bush - Dukakis
1996 0.4924 0.4071 1.20 Clinton - Dole
1940 0.547 0.448 1.22 Roosevelt - Willkie
1980 0.507 0.41 1.23 Reagan - Carter
1952 0.552 0.443 1.24 Eisenhower - Stevenson
1956 0.574 0.42 1.36 Eisenhower - Stevenson
1928 0.582 0.408 1.42 Hoover - Smith
1932 0.574 0.397 1.44 Roosevelt - Hoover
1984 0.588 0.406 1.44 Reagan - Mondale
1912 0.418 0.274 1.52 Wilson - Roosevelt
1964 0.611 0.385 1.58 Johnson - Goldwater
1972 0.607 0.375 1.61 Nixon - McGovern
1936 0.608 0.365 1.66 Roosevelt - Landon
1920 0.603 0.341 1.76 Harding - Cox
1924 0.54 0.288 1.87 Coolidge - Davis
It's easy to look "transformational" when you get to choose your settings. Standing in front of well-designed backdrops, styrofoam Greek columns, etc. But the Oval Office is not quite so majestic. It's already designed. There are no fake Greek columns. Mr. Obama may find that it was a lot more fun (and easy) on the campaign trail when you have an unpopular president as an easy target and you can choose (or construct) the most majestic settings as your backdrop and you have the luxury of ginning up huge crowd counts with free rock concerts. There is no accountability on the campaign trail.
But the actual job of the presidency is a lot more mundane. He will actually be accountable now. He will own the economy that will be in recession. He will actually own the foreign policy now. You can’t just blame it on the policies of someone else while standing in front of a faux backdrop on an over-sized stage while perfectly illuminated by the well-designed lighting. There will be no more beautifully lit, over-sized stages. There will be no more fake Greek columns. There will be no more teleprompters that display flowery speeches without much substance. There will be cramped White House press rooms. When crises arise, as they always do to some degree or another, you have to own the solutions that are proposed. Whether or not they work, they are yours. There will always be a core of sycophants in the media who will protect him and do their best to try to bring back the glow of the messianic days of the campaign and smooth out the rough edges of reality, but the density of this core will decrease over time.
There is no voting "present" in this job.
I'm looking at the AP's numbers, and as of 1:15 PM ET, they're reporting about 121 million votes cast for President with 96% of precincts reporting. Even if that 96% is really just 95.5% rounded up, you'd need a lot of large precincts to get to 130 million votes. To get up the the 136 million the CSM claims, you'd need a lot of people who voted in other races, but not for President.
(The one other possibility is absentee/mail ballots, although I don't know how/when they'll all be counted, and how they fit in to the percent of precincts reporting. After all, I presume a fair portion of the precincts not reporting are in the predominantly vote-by-mail states of Oregon and Washington.)
Alaskans, by and large, are all about drilling more oil. It's outside activists (again, by and large) who prevent further drilling. I say this as an Alaskan who is glad we arent' drilling ANWR, but considers it a mixed blessing given the control from outside.
Yes, for reasons clearly delineated in every other post (in short, viability is the key issue here -- 99% of abortions are before 24 weeks and hence performed on fetuses that are not viable).
I'd be a lot more inclined to accept that rationale were it not for the fact that Alaskans also voted, in slightly greater numbers in fact, to reelect Don Young--essentially Ted Stevens minus the formality of trial and conviction--to the House. Because of that fact, I'm pretty strongly inclined to the "indifference to corruption" explanation.
If you are unfamiliar with why I would characterize Don Young as I did, you should go to TPMmuckraker and do a search on "Don Young."
The current Oregon numbers have Smith up by approximately 6,000 votes. Assuming that 30% of precincts equal 30% of votes (it might or might not), then there are still approximately 360,000 votes to count. Merkley would have to win 52% of the uncounted vote to pass Smith. Depending on where the uncounted votes are, that could happen.
As for those who think a recount will change the Minnesota results, I would note that recounts almost never change the outcome, so don't hold your breath (I would be saying the exact same thing if Franken was ahead of Coleman by the same margin).
Finally, I still think it will be the Republicans who have the most incentive to get out and vote in the December runoff--and that Saxby will prevail there.
My take, the best the Democrats will do is 57-43, the worst (depending on Oregon) is 56-44.
Don't know enough about Don Young to make a judgment. In the absence of said knowledge I will accept your characterization of him. But I think comparing a vote for House Rep. to Senator is apples to oranges (mildly -- maybe apples to crab apples). At any rate look at Murtha (as just one rather egregious example) and various other "rotten borough" House members. "He brings home the bacon" is a common rationale for why House Seats tend to be so (sadly) safe. It may actually reinforce my earlier point and speak to a sort of Alaskan realpolitik that favors Republicans over Democrats regardless. Like the foreign policy 'realists' used to say about some of our ugly foreign head of state "friends" -- 'he may be an SOB but he is our SOB'. Not my cup of tea, but I think I understand it.
So, I still want to theorize (though perhaps not as strongly) that Alaskans would rather keep a shot at preserving the seat for an R than simply give it away to a D (and add to the already overweening majority). The only way to do that was to re-elect Stevens. In the short run (60-90 days) it's an ugly result, but in the longer view more closely aligns with the actual (Republican leaning) polity of the state...
According to the election map at MSNBC (can't get the one at CNN to work for me today), the areas with the largest proportions of uncounted precincts in OR are Lane County (Eugene area), with 45% of precincts reporting, and Multnomah County (Portland) with 46% of precincts reporting. Merkley currently leads by 67-29 in Multnomah and by 56-37 in Lane. Assuming that those numbers are accurate and up to the minute, Merkley has a decent chance of catching Smith.
Regarding MN, you're right that recounts seldom change the outcome, but we up here in Washington State know that "seldom" doesn't mean "never."
Maybe. Or you could say that the only time in this election McCain was ahead was briefly after his convention, when he was enjoying a "convention bounce" and a brief honeymoon period for Palin.
Plus, Paulson didn't make McCain say, "the fundamentals of the economy are strong," and THEN faux-cancel the first debate because the crisis was so dire but then not actually cancel it even though the bailout wasn't done, and then make several proposals that, well, didn't sound all that convincing about what should be done.
Are you implying that Obama did not support infanticide?
Yes, for reasons clearly delineated in every other post (in short, viability is the key issue here -- 99% of abortions are before 24 weeks and hence performed on fetuses that are not viable).
For Pete's sake, Oren. You know we are talking about what Obama would have allowed, not what the frequency of the action allowed would have been.
To support the "right" to allow a child born alive to die is to support . . . what? Not "infanticide"? In which case the practice of "death by exposure" was not infanticide either.
If this is how far one needs to go to justify Obama's position on this issue, then I would lose my moorings trying to cut him slack. What's wrong with "I was wrong about that matter, and I would no longer adopt the same position"?
This was a very unusual election. Democrats simply cannot count on Catholics to support their candidates in the future if they take the most radical positions possible on abortion. Many of us have concluded that abortion will have to be allowed in the US, absent a sea-change in the culture, which none of us sees on the horizon.
But the radically pro-abortion rights policies of national Democrats are going to harm the party, especially when one doesn't have a hugely incompetent GOP administration and a financial melt-dwon.
I am just telling you what you can expect. A large majority of Catholics--not just conservatives-- are very serious about limiting the most inhuman abortion practices, even if they are quite rare. I am afraid that Democrats are once again taking Catholic votes for granted. This is the way they lost to Reagan.
If Sen. Stevens is reelected but his conviction stands and he's booted from the Senate, could the Governor of Alaska name any person to replace him and serve out his term? Like, maybe, herself?
However, Bill Clinton came into office with just as much going for him, and for a while it looked like Hillary care was a foregone conclusion. Until that is Phil Gramm stood up and said it would pass over his political dead body, the drug companies spent a few million trashing it, and all the sudden it collapsed under its own weight.
If "change" means having a democrat in the whitehouse and tinkering with the tax code, then he'll be successful. If change means, taxing gas back up to $4, carbon taxes on coal and natural gas, and huge increases in social spending then his program will collapse of its own weight.
Alaska law requires a special election to fill vacancies in Senate seats. My understanding is that this law forbids the Governor from naming an interim appointment, though I suspect that portion of the law is unconstitutional.
As for Palin naming herself, that would be idiotic. She might well decide to RUN in a special election, but history shows that governors who appoint themselves usually not only lose the next election, but lose badly.
Additionally, Palin's predecessor as Governor, Frank Murkowski, evidently felt that being Governor of Alaska (a state where the only two state elected officials are Governor and Lieutenant) was more powerful than being a United States Senator (a job Murkowski undoubtedly would STILL hold had he not given it up to become Governor).
Agreed that McCain did not react very well to the economic news and the stock market's dives. Bad economic news is always going to bite the incumbent party and will favor the challenger. But fundamentally, if Paulson had done his thing a couple of months earlier after realizing the failure of the Bear Stearns bailout, McCain would have had more time to react.
I have always acted under the premise that I credit the other fellow to act honorably, lawfully, and respectfully until he demonstrates that he will not. Its what we do that counts, including what we say.
On the 20th of January, Mr. Obama will become the 44th President of the greatest nation ever to have existed in human history. He will be my President, just as Jimmy Carter was my President.
Words are important. The words President Obama will speak as he takes the oath of office are very important. As he serves to carry out that oath, he will have my full and unreserved support.
John Murtha, Chuck Schumer and Hillary the Carpetbagger? Not so much.