May15

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Results Are in from Maryland, West Virginia and Nebraska

Three more states' voters (or four more states' voters, if you count the runoffs in North Carolina) have cast their ballots. Here are the most notable results:

• President: It remains the case that the race for president is over, and both major-party nominees are known. It also remains the case that generally, more voters are defecting from Donald Trump than from Joe Biden. Here are the numbers from yesterday:
  
  

  State	1st Place	2nd Place	Difference
  Maryland, Republicans	Trump, 80%	Nikki Haley, 20%	Trump +60%
  Maryland, Democrats	Biden, 86.3%	Uncommitted, 10.4%	Biden +76.2%
  West Virginia, Republicans	Trump, 88.4%	Haley, 9.4%	Trump +79%
  West Virginia, Democrats	Biden, 70.5%	Jason Palmer, 11.5%	Biden +59%
  Nebraska, Republicans	Trump, 80.2%	Haley, 17.9%	Trump +62.3%
  Nebraska, Democrats	Biden, 90%	Dean Phillips, 10%	Biden +80%

  
  So, in ruby-red West Virginia, Trump outperformed Biden by 20 points. But in Maryland, it was Biden by 16.2 points and in Nebraska, it was Biden by 17.7. None of these three states is in doubt (except NE-02's one EV), but this general trend has also been seen across states that ARE in doubt. In swingy states, it doesn't take too many of those Haley voters crossing the aisle, or staying home, or voting third-party to make a big difference.
  
  
• Governor, West Virginia: AG Patrick Morrisey (R) is far-right, and is pretty much a fanatic when it comes to banning abortion and promoting the use of sweet, sweet coal. He's also an election denier who took an active role in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential result. Former state delegate Moore Capito (R) is a bit more moderate, and is the grandson of one prominent West Virginia politician (former governor Arch Moore, R) and the son of another (current senator Shelley Moore Capito, R). It was close, but it would seem that West Virginia Republicans either like fanatics, or dislike dynasties, because they gave the win to Morrisey, 33.3% to 27.6%. That makes Morrisey your next West Virginia governor.
  
  
• Lieutenant Governor, North Carolina: The Republican primary had to go to a runoff, and the winner is political operative Hal Weatherman, who crushed Forsyth County DA Jim O'Neill, 74.4% to 25.6%. Weatherman is further right than O'Neill, but he's not whackadoodle, unlike Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson (R). We suspect that some Republicans will vote for Weatherman, and then will feel that gives them permission not to vote for Robinson. In other words, it could be the third election in a row that returns a Democratic governor (Josh Stein) and a Republican lieutenant governor (Weatherman).
  
  
• U.S. Senator, Maryland: There were a couple of surprises here. First, Larry Hogan (R) won the Republican nomination, as expected. However, the second-place finisher was a local character named Robin Ficker, who is known for running for SOME office nearly every cycle (including six failed bids since 2000), for having been disbarred, and for attending Washington Wizards basketball games and loudly heckling the visiting team. The vote tally in the GOP primary, with 83% reporting, was 61.9% for Hogan to 30.1% for Ficker. That's actually pretty bad for someone who has the name recognition of Hogan, especially up against someone who is basically a gag candidate. And Maryland is a closed-primary state, so there was no ratf**king.
  
  Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Executive of Prince George's County Angela Alsobrooks trounced Rep. David Trone. With 66% reporting, Alsobrooks is up nearly 12 points, 53.9% to 42%. And while that could change some, the exit polls anticipated a lopsided result like that, such that the AP called the race less than an hour after polls closed.
  
  As a reminder, here is the rundown we had yesterday of the four polls of the race conducted since April 1:
  
  

  Pollster	Date Range	Alsobrooks	Trone	Net
  Concord Public Opinion Partners	May 2-9	39%	34%	Alsobrooks +5%
  Emerson College	May 6-8	47%	44%	Alsobrooks +3%
  Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group	April 8-10	40%	43%	Trone +3%
  OpinionWorks	April 7-10	38%	50%	Trone +12%

  
  Obviously, none of them came close to predicting a 12-point blowout. In fact, that +5 was the best poll Alsobrooks had this cycle; none of the fifteen polls conducted (dating back to November of last year) had her winning by double digits.
  
  It is at least possible that Trone's support cratered over the span of a few days, especially since he was accused of saying things that were borderline racist and/or sexist. However, it's also yet another case of 2024 polls not lining up especially well with 2024 results. That is one reason why some amount of skepticism is justified. More on this below.
  
  
• U.S. Senator, West Virginia: Your next U.S. Senator from West Virginia will be Gov. Jim Justice (R), who overcame allegations of corruption and incompetent business practices to easily claim his party's nomination, 61.8% to 26.6% over the looney tooney Rep. Alex Mooney (R). He will lay to waste Mayor Glenn Elliott (D) of Wheeling. The only way this gets interesting is if Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) jumps in as an independent. But we really don't see that happening.
  
  
• U.S. Senator, Nebraska: Sen. Deb Fischer (R) won her primary over Arron Kowalski, 79.8% to 20.2%. She won't have a Democratic opponent, just independent Dan Osborn, whose only hope is to start pretending that former Nebraska Cornhuskers football coach Tom Osborne, winner of three national championships, is his father.
  
  
• MD-03: At D+10, this is a safe Democratic seat, so when Rep. John Sarbanes (D) announced he was retiring, a staggering 22 aspiring Democrats jumped in. The winner, with 35.4% of the vote, is state Sen. Sarah Elfreth (D), who is young (35), charismatic, and center-left. She could become a rising star in the party.
  
  
• MD-06: Across the three states that held primaries yesterday, there are a grand total of two competitive House districts (PVI between R+5 and D+5). One of those is the D+2 MD-06, which was vacated by David Trone so he could blow through $50 million in the process of losing the Democratic U.S. Senate primary to Angela Alsobrooks. The candidates who will attempt to replace him are attorney April McClain-Delaney (D), who is pretty centrist and came out on top of a 12-candidate field, and former state delegate Neil Parrott (R), who is pretty righty but not totally crazypants, and who has failed in two previous runs for this seat.
  
  
• NE-02: With a PVI of EVEN, this is the other House district that was on the ballot yesterday and is actually competitive. Rep. Don Bacon (R) won renomination, though his 61.9% to 38.1% victory over unknown far-right populist Dan Frei was a little anemic. The Democratic candidate will be state Sen. Tony Vargas, who was unopposed. Vargas is young (39), Latino, centrist and photogenic, and would be a promising candidate in many districts. But Bacon is an incumbent, and has already won NE-02 four times, so it's an uphill battle for Vargas.

Them's the biggies, as we see it. Next week, it's Kentucky and Oregon, two states that have many, many things in common, like... um... uh... they're both split across two time zones? They're both famous for their grass? Their governors have never been in (Z)'s kitchen? (Z)