How Stuff Works: An Alaska Vacancy in the US Senate

This seems silly, but I'll start another post by saying, in last week's post about the Georgia Senate runoff. Anyway, in that post, I discussed the other two uncalled Senate races, those in Alaska and Minnesota. Specifically I brought up the idea of Ted Stevens winning reelection but being forced out by the Senate and that opening the door to Sarah Palin appointing herself to fill the vacancy. As I said there, Alaska actually has two, somewhat conflicting laws on how to deal with such vacancies. But first, let's start with a time line of how the Last Frontier got to this point:

Prior to 2002
The governor had the ability to appoint someone to such a vacancy and the appointee didn't have to stand for election until the next election period.
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2002
Frank Murkowski is elected governor, resigns his Senate seat and appoints his daughter to fill the Senate vacancy. Lisa Murkowski doesn't have to face the voters until 2004.
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2004
The Alaska legislature acts to close the loophole, granting the governor the option of appointing a replacement on an interim basis until a special election can be held within 60-90 days.
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Wanting to remove the governor from the equation altogether, a petition-triggered initiative (Prop 4) was, upon challenge, ruled sufficiently different from the original law by the Alaska Supreme Court and subsequently passed.
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2008
Governor Sarah Palin is named vice presidential running mate by John McCain. Senator Ted Stevens is convicted of seven felony counts and the whole discussion begins as to what the correct senatorial succession procedure is.

Essentially what's at stake here is that if Stevens wins and is forced from his position in the Senate, Sarah Palin will have a decision to make: wait the 60-90 days until the special election is held, or test that initiative by appointing someone in the interim. It isn't a Florida 2000-type constitutional crisis, but it is an interesting constitutional situation, nonetheless. And when you throw in the possibility of the former vice presidential nominee appointing herself as a stepping stone to 2012, it gets even better.

For a more detailed explanation of the situation, see the following link.


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More on the Georgia Senate Runoff

Late last week, we examined the Georgia counties where both Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin did well in Tuesday's Senate race election. That investigation provided an idea as to where each of the candidates may be focusing between now and the December 2 runoff and where either may be vulnerable. But let's look at some of the other numbers from last Tuesday's vote and see if there are any other clues to whether Martin actually has a chance or if Chambliss is something of a foregone conclusion.

2008 Presidential Vote: Georgia
McCain (R) 2,046,419	Obama (D) 1,840,397	Barr (Lib) 28,771	Totals 3,915,587
52.3%	47.0%	0.7%	100.0%
*Source: Georgia Secretary of State

One thing that I was interested in seeing was the amount of ballot roll-off* from the presidential race to the Senate race. In other words, who voted for president and then just skipped voting for the Senate race and/or all the other down-ballot races? The idea here is that if there were a significant number of Obama voters that didn't vote for Martin, then he 1) is already starting with a smaller base or 2) has some other potential voters to mobilize for the runoff election.

2008 Senate Vote: Georgia
Chambliss (R) 1,864,909	Martin (D) 1,754,108	Buckley (Lib) 127,785	Totals 3,746,802
49.8%	46.8%	3.4%	100.0%
*Source: Georgia Secretary of State

What we see is that overall there were approximately 169,000 fewer votes cast in the Senate race than in the presidential race. But how we get to that 169,000 figure is an interesting sidenote. There were about 182,000 fewer Chambliss voters than McCain voters and 86,000 fewer Martin voters than Obama supporters. In the best case scenario for Martin, if he was able to mobilize all those Obama voters behind him, the former state Senator representative would gain almost 100,000 votes on Chambliss. That would bring the margin between the two candidates down to less than 25,000 votes. That's certainly closer, but not close enough to make Chambliss really sweat it out.

There are three wildcards here, though. First, we know that turnout is likely to be far lower on December 2 than it was on November 4. The above is a better (not best) case scenario for Jim Martin. But we know that all those voters aren't going to come back to the polls for the runoff. That means that attempting to handicap that turnout will help us to better understand how competitive the runoff will actually be. The other two wildcards will help us there.

What about those Libertarians? Native son and Libertarian presidential candidate, Bob Barr, wasn't able to sway all that many voters over into his corner. Barr was seen as a major potential factor in bringing Georgia into play for Obama, but after polling well over the summer, Barr's support wavered in the polls down the stretch. In fact, the Libertarian's senate candidate, Allen Buckley, polled much better on November 4, totalling about 100,000 more votes than Barr did in the presidential race. That can be chalked up to strategic voting. Buckley, slim though his chances were, had a better chance of winning that Senate seat than Barr did of winning the presidency.

For comparison's sake, I looked at North Carolina as well. Here's a state that had a competitive Senate race as well and has a pretty good base of Libertarian support. The outcome was very similar in the Tar Heel state. McCain and Obama crowded Bob Barr out in the presidential race, but Libertarian, Chris Cole did comparatively better in the Dole-Hagan Senate race. The roll-off in North Carolina was about a third of what it was in Georgia, but the Libertarians did around 100,000 votes better on the Senate level in both states' Senate races.

Well, what does all that mean? For starters, there are likely a sizable number of people who voted for McCain and Buckley who Chambliss could target in some way. I would imagine some reprise of the McCain campaign's socialism, big government, big spending liberal arguments could persuade some of those voters to participate in the runoff and vote for Chambliss.

The other wildcard will affect the turnout Jim Martin is likely to expect. And we talked about this one at the close of the previous post on this race. Very simply, how involved will President-elect Barack Obama be. Are 58-59 seats in the Senate better than 57, or does it even matter since 60 seats are basically off the table for the Democrats. If the 44th president feels like getting involved, Georgia is a place where there's the most potential for impact. Counting and recounting in Alaska and Minnesota, respectively, aren't arenas where Obama can make all that much difference. In a campaign, a newly elected president could make a difference.

And as we saw, there were a fair number of Obama voters who dropped off after that vote and didn't cast a vote in the Senate race. If the primary/general election campaign infrastructure that Obama had in place can be recharged to some degree, Jim Martin figures to be the beneficiary in the December 2 runoff.

And what about those McCain voters? Chambliss could activate some of those, right? Sure, I just think it is less likely than Obama voters who rolled off turning out for the runoff given the enthusiasm gap that was present before the election and the actual cumulative results from November 4. In any event, we aren't talking about a ton of voters here, but in a close race, those voters at the margins could prove consequential.

In the end, we can add a few more parts to the equation. We already knew about the likely turnout drop between the general election and the runoff, but now we can factor in -- at least in our thinking if not statistically in some way -- the possible influence those Libertarian and Obama voters from the original vote.


*One other cause for this ballot roll-off might have been the negative tone of the Senate campaign over the final weeks. There is some research to suggest that this has happened before. It could also be argued that the presidential race was also negative, but it isn't a stretch to say that it was outpaced in negativity by the Chambliss-Martin Senate race. Also, though Georgia got some last minute attention from the presidential candidates, neither campaign was focused too heavily on the Peach state despite the shrinking polling gap during the final week. That wasn't the case in the Senate race.


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Omaha to Obama

Unless, Missouri somehow flips to Obama, this will be the final tally of the 2008 electoral college.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

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A Slideshow Chronology of the Electoral College on Election Night

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What About Nebraska's 2nd District?

A Slideshow Chronology of the Electoral College on Election Night

This isn't complete yet because of the 2nd district in Nebraska (...and Missouri, though it is shaded), but I wanted to go ahead and put it up. It is nice to the see the states gradually fill in. I'll update this and re-post it when everything else falls in line.

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Frontloading and The Rules in 2008: The Maps

I took part in a forum on the [then] upcoming election earlier in the semester and put together some maps on the frontloading that took place prior to primary and caucus season kicking off on January 3. [My, how those ten months flew by!] There is also a map of the differing rules between the parties governing how delegates are allocated. I should have put these up at the time, but I was more concerned with another map at the time.

This first map lays out which states moved and which states stayed put. It needs another layer to it indicating the states that were already early, but that will be a map for a different time. The real message to take away is that there was a ton of movement this cycle compared to some other recent cycles. The striped states are states where just one party opted to move its contest. All were caucus states (at least for the contests moved). The opposite party in each case chose to stick with the state funded primaries, but had later contests as a result.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Now let's look at contest type. First, the Democrats. The darker blue states are primary states while the lighter states are the caucuses. Obviously the number of caucuses is dwindling, but it is interesting to see where they are location-wise. Maine is the only state east of the Mississippi that continues to hold a caucus over a primary. Every other caucus state is in the heartland, from the upper midwest into the southwest. Florida and Michigan take on the stripes for obvious reasons. Both held primaries that were initially not counted in terms of delegate allocation. Texas is different because of its primary-caucus set up on the Democratic side.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

And the GOP? Well, the same trends that apply to the Democrats apply here also. Nebraska and New Mexico had Republican primaries and Democratic caucuses while West Virginia held a Republican convention and a Democratic caucus. Washington, like Texas on for the Democrats, has a hybrid primary-caucus system. But instead of playing out over the course of one day, as in Texas, the system stretched out over ten days. The caucus, which determined 51% of the delegates, was held on February 9 while the state's primary followed on February 19 and settled the remaining 49% of the delegates.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Finally, let's dig a little bit deeper into the delegate allocation rules. It is one thing to discuss the type of contest, and while the Democrats mandate a proportional distribution of delegates based on the vote in each state, the GOP leaves it up to the state parties to decide how they will allocate delegates regardless of whether the state has a primary or caucus as its mode of delegate selection. The dark red states below are the ones the McCain campaign targeted -- the winner-take-all states. His wins in most of those winner-take-all states on Super Tuesday (California, New York, New Jersey and Missouri) all but assured the Arizona senator of the GOP nomination. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney seemingly took the Obama caucus strategy route, but without any of the benefits. All those caucus states from the map above are states -- due to that system -- which allocate delegates proportionally. That made it even more difficult for Romney or anyone else to catch McCain in the delegate count. Trading winner-take-all states for proportional ones on the Republican side is not a recipe for success.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

But GOP delegate allocation isn't a black and white issue. There were a handful of states that used a combination of proportional and winner-take-all systems to dictate how the delegates were divvied up between the candidates. The most common combination was for delegates to be awarded on both the state and county/congressional district level. Within a county or congressional district delegates were allocated on a winner-take-all basis while the statewide delegates would be determined based on whether the leading candidate exceeded a certain percentage threshold -- usually 50%. If that bar was cleared the candidate got all the statewide delegates and if not, they were allocated proportionally.

Let me close by addressing 2012 frontloading briefly. Unless President Obama completely tanks, the Democratic nomination will be uncontested four years from now. With just one contested nomination -- on the Republican side -- the amount of frontloading should diminish. We would expect this regardless of the number of nominations at stake simply because over half the country is already "early". If nothing is done to reform the system in the interim, though, there could be rogue states like Florida and Michigan but we would expect tat they would be predominantly Republican states since that party's nomination is the one at stake.

As I get more into dissertation writing mode over the next few months, there will likely be follow ups here (with maps of course.).


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What About Nebraska's 2nd District?

As Rob pointed out in the comments section, the electoral vote for Nebraska's 2nd district is still undecided. You can see in the live blog from Tuesday evening [/Wednesday morning] that I made some mention of whether the whole slate of electoral votes in the Cornhusker state would go for McCain or be split in any way. However, I didn't account for that. Basically, I didn't have time to edit that into the map (...and probably should have made that change yesterday, but didn't) on Tuesday night.

The latest is that there were in excess of 10,000 early votes yet to be counted with McCain holding around a 600 vote lead. That hasn't changed since yesterday, and there doesn't appear to be any deadline or time at which we can expect to know the result (as with those Rockingham County votes in North Carolina the other day).

[Click Map to Enlarge]

With that in mind, we'll pull that electoral vote off the board and we'll color it in when the results are official. It appears as if Obama will take the district, though. If we focus on just those early votes -- and not the additional 5000+ provisional ballots -- if Obama gets the same 61% of the vote that he received throughout the rest of the early voting in the state/district (That isn't clear, but I suspect that refers to the district instead of statewide.), then the president-elect stand to gain about 2400 votes. Enough to pass John McCain, in other words.


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More on North Carolina: UPDATE

The Georgia Senate Runoff

There hasn't been a whole lot of talk around here during this cycle devoted to races other than the presidential race. [I don't think there are too many people that are complaining about this.] However, with the Senate race here in the Peach state heading for a December 2 runoff between incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin, I thought it appropriate to shift the focus to the one remaining high profile race anyone's campaigning for.

[It certainly isn't the only undetermined race at this point. There will be a recount in Minnesota's senate race and the Ted Stevens' situation in Alaska makes that one worth watching if only for more speculation about who would potentially fill his shoes if he were to win and be forced out of office. Sarah Palin, I'm looking in your direction. The former VP choice on the GOP side won't have direct appointment powers on a replacement because the two conflicting laws Alaska has on the books call for a special election within 90 days. However, what is not known is if the governor has the power to appoint someone on an interim basis for that period of time. We'll have to hold off on that speculation for now, but part one -- Stevens winning -- looks likely.]

But back to Georgia...

So what do we know about this race? I could tell you, but I better show you with a map first.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Sure, that doesn't tell you anything more than you already knew. Chambliss spent the evening of November 4 watching his percentage in the vote returns creep closer and closer to the 50% plus one vote mark that the candidates had to avoid in order to prevent a runoff. And the incumbent Republican missed it by .2%. That aside, though, Georgia likely won't become the center of the political universe for the next month since the Democrats won't get to 60 seats in the Senate, and unless the Minnesota recount overturns the apparent result -- and I can't think if a case where a recount led to a anyone other than the original projected winner winning -- then the best the Democrats can hope for is 59. And Ted Stevens will have something to say about that.

Like Al Franken in that recount in Minnesota, Jim Martin will have a difficult time getting over the hump in Georgia. But let's talk a little about where the former state senator will have to do well between now and December 2. The first thing we can do is look at where the race was close but favored Chambliss on Tuesday. But let's filter that through where Lt. Governor Mark Taylor did well in 2002. Why Mark Taylor and not Max Cleland? To start, Taylor won in 2002 when Cleland did not. But Taylor was also the last Democrat to win a statewide office this high. Where the former lt. governor did well six years ago -- in a Republican-leaning election -- would add quite a few more counties to the map, but when you factor in how well Martin did on Tuesday in some of those south Georgia counties, you only end up with a handful of additional areas to potentially target. If you look at the map below, those are the counties in white. And all of them share a border with a county that went for Martin (except Turner County which borders another potential target county, Ben Hill County).

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Well, let's not leave that 2002 Cleland-Chambliss senate race out of the equation altogether. We can add one other layer to this by asking where Chambliss won on Tuesday that he did not six years ago. Again, we can add a few more counties to the list (the ones in gray above), but none of them, other than Seminole County in the far southwest corner of the state were within 13 points on Tuesday night. In other words, they just aren't viable targets for Martin.

The flip side of the coin on this is that there are also areas where Martin outperformed Cleland and could be vulnerable in the runoff. Oddly enough, there are six counties in this category (those in light blue) to counterbalance the six counties where Chambliss exceeded his own numbers from 2002. That is somewhat problematic for Martin and throws it back to those white counties. The problem there is that while there were seven close counties that favored Chambliss a couple of days ago, there were 18 close counties where Martin edged out the incumbent. And as we saw in the presidential race, if any momentum develops toward the end of the race, the potential that all the close areas break for the momentum-possessing candidate increases. By that measure, Martin clearly had some level of momentum on Tuesday; if only Obama's coattails.

But Martin won't have those coattails on December 2, but he will have to face the challenges described above as well as to overcome what is likely to be a rather significant drop in the turnout rate. The last time that there was a Senate runoff in Georgia under this 50% plus one vote law was the Wyche Fowler-Paul Coverdale race in 1992. Fowler, an incumbent Democrat, won the first round, but lost to Coverdale in the runoff when turnout decreased by 44.31%. Not only will Martin have to gain ground on an incumbent in some of the counties above (and likely more), but he'll have to get out the vote in a more efficient way than Saxby Chambliss. Paul Coverdale did come from behind, but for Martin, the state isn't trending toward the Democrats in 2008 the way it was moving toward the Republicans in 1992.

President-elect Obama could still be the wildcard here. But will the incentive be there to intervene without a 60th, filibuster-proof seat on the line?


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Here's the story from the News and Observer. I'll have a map up in a while. The state won't become official until the provisional ballots are counted next month.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Recent Posts: More on North Carolina: UPDATE What's the Matter with North Carolina? Voting in Athens, GA: A Small Pictorial

More on North Carolina: UPDATE

The News and Observer out of Raleigh is reporting that there are 18,000 ballots to be counted in McCain-leaning Rockingham County (in white below). McCain would have to get about 83% of those votes to tie or surpass Barack Obama and that would run above the proportion of votes has gotten in the county thus far. CNN has Rockingham County at 57%-42% in favor of McCain. If McCain gets 57% of those remaining 18,000 votes, he would only gain about 2000 votes on Obama and that won't close the gap nearly enough. Word out of Rockingham County is that they will have those counted by 5pm this evening. 30 minutes from now.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

So, it wasn't as dire as waiting a couple of days for provisional ballots to be sifted through.

...yet.

But we are getting closer to calling North Carolina.

UPDATE: There have been 26,000 new votes added to the tally at NBC and they have broken about half and half but slightly favor Obama (by 900 votes). And that obviously isn't cutting into that lead Obama has. NOTE: I have no idea if any of these 26,000 encompass any of the 18,000 Rockingham votes alluded to above.


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What's the Matter with North Carolina?

The Charlotte Observer is reporting today that the hold up in North Carolina is because of the counting of provisional ballots.

"With all precincts counted, Obama leads McCain by about 11,000 votes out of more than 4.2 million cast. But state Elections Director Gary Bartlett said Wednesday morning that a small number of provisional ballots must be counted in the coming days."

A couple of days?

[Click Map to Enlarge]

This is what happens when a typically reliable partisan state suddenly becomes competitive. He-e-e-e-y-y-y, what about Virginia or Indiana? Virginia wasn't that close yesterday and Indiana had a close contest dry run during the Democratic primaries. North Carolina? The Tar Heel state wasn't contested on the Republican side and Barack Obama won the state going away. The North Carolina Board of Election's first run under competitive circumstances was last night.


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Open Thread: The Morning After