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)

Trump Legal News: The Trial (Day 17)

For the second time in as many days, Michael Cohen was the star of the show in Donald Trump's criminal fraud trial. Here are the main storylines:

• Not a Right Cross: The prosecution finished their questioning of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and then it was time for lead defense attorney Todd Blanche to cross-examine. This is pretty much the crux of the case, and the time when Blanche should most earn his $1,200/hour (or whatever he is being paid). Here is the very first exchange between Blanche and Cohen:

  Blanche: You went on TikTok and called me a 'crying little s**t,' didn't you?
  
  Cohen: Sounds like something I would say. (Laughter in the court)

  This was followed by a question about Cohen's TikTok criticism of Blanche's co-counsel Susan Necheles, which was also answered in the affirmative by Cohen.
  
  We most certainly did not go to law school, and yet even we know you want to hit the ground running when you start a cross-examination. What on earth was Blanche thinking, since his questions had nothing to do with the trial, and nothing even to do with the defendant, while at the same time allowing Cohen to look like a basically honest and self-effacing guy? Judge Juan Merchan was not happy, and chewed Blanche out, while having both questions stricken from the record. According to more than one expert, Blanche completely blew his chance to get some momentum. And by the time he recovered (multiple hours later), Cohen had been able to provide pretty credible explanations of why he's told lies in the past, and why he came to loathe Trump.
  
  Blanche said he will need another full day for cross-examination; maybe he'll do better on his second attempt.
  
  
• Johnson in the Court: No not that one. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) became the latest Republican muckety-muck to make the pilgrimage to New York to prostrate himself before his Dear Leader. Speaking to reporters, the Speaker naturally parroted the talking points that the trial is a scam, Trump is being persecuted, blah, blah, blah.
  
  
• End-Run: There has been much supposition that the reason that all the politicians are showing up in court is so that they can "comment" afterward to reporters, including "commenting" on how bad the jurors/witnesses are. In other words, they are there to say what Trump cannot, and so to do an end-run around the gag order. Late last night, news broke that New York Magazine's Andrew Rice saw Trump working on statements for these "supporters" to deliver (thanks to reader D.E. in Lancaster, PA, for the tip). If so, then that would make it ironclad that Trump is actively subverting the gag order. We'll see what Merchan does with this, if anything.
  
  
• Who Else?: Last week, the prosecution said they had two more witnesses. Now, they are apparently saying that Cohen will be the last. Meanwhile, the Trump defense team insists their client will not testify. So, this could be headed to verdict pretty soon.

Whoomp! There it is. They'll be off today, as per usual, then back on Thursday, then off Friday so that Trump can attend son Barron's graduation. (Z)

And Don't Forget the Other Crooks

Of course, Donald Trump isn't the only one in legal hot water right now, and there was some news yesterday on the non-Trump-crook front. First, Sen. Bob Menendez' (D-NJ) bribery trial is about to get underway in earnest (in other words, jury selection is complete). And yesterday, the Senator got some unhappy news: The psychiatrist he wanted to call to testify will not be allowed to take the stand.

The point of the psychiatrist was to try to establish that the Senator has a pathological "fear of scarcity" due to his upbringing, and so THAT is why he squirrels away large amounts of cash and gold bullion. This seems like a pretty desperate defense strategy, to us. Further, even if the shrink was able to justify Menendez' hoarding of hundreds of thousands of dollars in lucre, that still does not explain where it came from. Or, more specifically, how he was able to accrue more than half a million dollars in cash and gold on a salary of about $200,000 a year. In any case, Team Bob is going to stick with this apparently, and will call some of his Senate colleagues to testify about his cash-hoarding tendencies instead. Undoubtedly, a Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) or a Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will be just thrilled to end up in the middle of this.

Meanwhile, when we last wrote about Steve Bannon, we wrote that he might mount further appeals of his conviction for contempt of Congress, but that he would just be throwing money away. Not so fast, wrote reader R.E.M. in Brooklyn:

No, I think he's pursuing the same delay strategy as Donald Trump—keep things going to January 20, 2025. If Bannon seeks rehearing with a suggestion for rehearing en banc, I believe he has 45 days from the entry of the decision. Then after that is disposed of, he would have 60 days to petition for cert. to the Supreme Court. That petition would likely be addressed in October or November, though the Court could choose to hold it, or to grant the petition, in which case it would not be heard until 2025. If Donald Trump wins reelection, he pardons Bannon, who thereby spends not a day in jail.

Fair point. Thanks, R.E.M.!

We should have thought of that, but we did not, because we are not lawyers. R.E.M. is. And you know who else is? The folks who are prosecuting Bannon. And they apparently thought of it, too. In a move that would forestall the above strategy, the DoJ filed a motion yesterday asking Judge Carl Nichols to order Bannon to prison immediately, since there is no possibility of Bannon's prevailing in his appeals. It's not clear when the Judge will rule, but it's at least possible that Bannon could be a resident of the crowbar hotel by the time June rolls around. (Z)

Another $1 Billion in Arms for Israel

A week after threatening to withhold arms from Israel, the White House announced yesterday that it has begun the "lengthy process" needed to move forward with $1 billion in weapons sales to that nation.

Here is the most Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is cutting House Republicans and their "you have to send bombs to Israel bill" off at the knees, without actually doing what they want. The $1 billion in goodies would include some materiel that could be used for offense—$700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds—but not the big bombs that are most likely to end up killing civilians. Further, nobody seems to have a clear idea of how lengthy a "lengthy process" is. Weeks? Months? Years? Could be an example of the sort of malicious compliance we hypothesized yesterday.

And now, here is the least Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is flip-flopping around depending on how the political winds blow, withholding arms one week, providing them the next. Certainly, many Democrats are worried that the administration's strategy on Israel is not "cohesive," to use their word.

Our guess, to use a metaphor we deployed last week, is that Biden hit Benjamin Netanyahu with a stick last week, and now the president is dangling a potential carrot. And the ball is now in the PM's court, and his actions will determine whether, and how quickly, he gets that carrot. (Z)

Who's Gonna Win This Thing?, Part I: The Siena Poll

We had a few e-mails this week proposing that we are in denial about the possibility that Donald Trump could win the 2024 presidential election, and that we are doing a disservice to readers by encouraging them to bury their heads in the sand.

We feel we have been clear about this, having written numerous times in the past month or two that our guess is that the election is a coin flip at this particular moment in time. That means that Trump most certainly could win—indeed, that he is as likely to win as Joe Biden is, as far as we can tell. Here are some arguments for why Trump might win:

• He's tied, or a little ahead in national preference polls. Thanks to the boost he gets from the Electoral College, that translates into a win.
• He's generally ahead in swing state polls.
• His liabilities—criminal cases, support for insurrection, fuzzy or unpopular stance on abortion, loss of mental vigor—seem to be hurting him less right now than Biden's liabilities.
• His base is much less in doubt than Biden's base is.

Again, Trump could definitely win. Full stop.

That said, there are reasons we think it's roughly a coin flip, and that you have to take the polling with a few grains of salt. And those reasons go beyond "We just can't believe a meanie like Trump isn't losing by 30 points." To try to explain, let's take a quick look at the numbers from the recent Siena poll (which are pretty much in line with all Siena polls this cycle), as compared to the actual numbers from Trump's other two elections:

	Southern			Northern
Election	AZ	GA	NV	MI	PA	WI	Spread
2024, Siena	R+6%	R+9%	R+13%	D+1%	R+3%	R+1%	14%
2020, Actual	D+0.3%	D+0.2%	D+2.4%	D+2.8%	D+1.2%	D+0.6%	2.6%
2016, Actual	R+3.5%	R+5.2%	D+2.4%	R+0.2%	R+0.7%	R+0.7%	7.6%

The spread is the gap between the most extreme result in the Democrats' direction and the most extreme result in the Republicans' direction. In 2020, for example, the Democrats did best in Michigan (+2.8%) and worst in Georgia (+0.2%), resulting in a spread of 2.6%.

To believe that Siena has the right of it, you have to believe that the three "Southern route" states have gone from being competitive to being laughers for Trump, even as the "Northern route" states remain close. Similarly, the reason these six are the "swing" states is that they usually correlate with each other in terms of being close. But now, the spread between them is nearly double what it was in 2016 and nearly quintuple what it was in 2020. It is certainly possible there has been this much movement, but it would be very unusual. And, zooming in a bit more, it is particularly hard to accept that Nevada—which is similar to Arizona demographically but more Democratic—has suddenly become seven points more Trumpy than the Grand Canyon State.

There's another way to examine this, and that's by looking at the crosstabs, which are just full of things that stretch credulity to the breaking point. According to Siena:

• Biden is up only 10 points with Latino voters in Arizona. (He won Arizona Latinos by 20 in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden is losing among Arizona men by 19 points. (He lost Arizona men by 2 points in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden will get the votes of 29% of Nevada women. (He got 54% of them in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden will lose Clark County by 12 points. (He won Clark by 9 points in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden has the votes of 73% of registered Democrats in Georgia. (He got 96% of Georgia Democrats in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden will get 55% of the Black vote in Georgia. (He got 88% of Black Georgians in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden has the support of 32% of independent voters in Michigan. (He got 51% of them in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden is up 22 points among voters 65+ in Michigan. (He won them by 2 points there in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden is leading among Black voters in Pennsylvania by 38 points. (He won that demographic in Pennsylvania by 84 points in 2020.)
  
  
• Biden is slated to get 44% of the vote in Philadelphia in 2024. (He got 81% there in 2020.)
  
  
• Jill Stein is getting 14% of the Black vote in Wisconsin. (She wasn't on the ballot there in 2020, and got 0.3% of the Black vote there in 2016.)
  
  
• Biden has the votes of 35% of Wisconsinites under the age of 30. (He got 59% of Wisconsinites under the age of 30 in 2020.)

We did not cherry-pick the most outlandish results; in choosing which two numbers to look at in each swing state, we actually were trying to give a broad representation of the various demographic categories. And note that not all the wackiness works in Biden's direction; Siena appears to be overstating his support with older voters in Michigan, for example. That said, the wackiness skews against Biden far more often than not, and the most extreme and head-scratching numbers almost always involve (apparently) understating Biden's support.

Let's put it this way. Steve Deace is a right-wing talker who does a show for Glenn Beck's The Blaze network. And as reader J.R. in Philadelphia, PA, brought to our attention, Deace looked over Siena's cross-tab numbers, just like we did above, and concluded the poll is very possibly... a Democratic trick. Seriously. He writes:

Trump's strong performance in the top-line of this poll is contrary to the cross-tabs that show him often under-performing where he was in 2020, and almost exclusively results from Biden's under-performance with core constituencies of the Democrat Party—blacks, Hispanics, and some demos of women. In other words, for this poll to be fulfilled 25 weeks from now would require Biden to perform worse with women than any Democrat since 1984, worse with Blacks than any Democrat since 1956, and worse with Hispanics than any Democrat ever.

This poll isn't a realistic path to victory. We all know Democrats will "fortify" their standing with these demos come Election Day/Week/Month/Festival.

Trump could win, but it won't look like this, because that would mean we're in an environment where Democrats would also be looking at a 40-seat loss in the House as well and nobody sees that.

At best this poll is problematic. At worse it's a psyop to convince you to stay drunk on numbing over-confidence and watching Fox News shilling all day, rather than the hard work of matching the Democrats' "ballot harvesting scheme."

We're not embracing the kooky elements here, but it's pretty good evidence that the numbers really don't add up when you look closely.

Exactly why they don't add up is a matter of conjecture. One possibility is pollster error, probably in the form of an inaccurate model of the electorate. Another possibility, and this is the drum we keep beating, is that a lot of voters are undecided, and considerably more probable Democrats are in that group than probable Republicans.

Now, if you want someone who will say these numbers are absolutely on target, and very meaningful, there are people out there happy to do it. That's what Nate Cohn is saying, although he kinda has to, because he runs the Times' polling operation. The other Nate (Silver) too, though we're not going to link to him because his stuff is paywalled. CNN's Harry Enten is another; he rarely sees a poll that he does not take at face value, it would seem.

As for us, we will continue to look at polls with a wary eye, probably until September or so. As we have noted, the conventions will be over by then, low-information voters will be paying (some amount of) attention, votes will start to become very real (as opposed to making a statement to pollsters), and that's when things start to settle in.

We'll have a "Part II" and a "Part III" tomorrow. We WERE going to have them today, but we're trying to keep the postings from getting too long, or from going live too late. So, we'll have to hold them. (Z)

Carter "Coming to the End"

Jimmy Carter has been in hospice care for over a year, and he lost his wife of 77+ years last November. So, it is not too much of a surprise that the former president is "coming to the end," according to his grandson Jason Carter. Whether that means days, weeks, or months, it sounds unlikely that #39 will make it to #100 on October 1.

We cannot think of another American politician currently living whose passing will affect as many people as will Carter's. Not only did his career take place in an era before the current partisan ultra-rancor, but he's also earned a lot of admiration for his clearly genuine religiosity, his rock-solid egalitarian marriage, his post-presidential work on fair elections and other causes, and his advocacy for housing for the poor. The passings of Barack and Michelle Obama, when they happen (presumably many years in the future) will be a big deal, and many will feel the loss of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger. But we just don't see anyone who is as beloved by as many people as Carter now is.

We are prepared for what we will write on that day, when it comes, but we thought it would also be good to have some reader remembrances as well. So, if you have a comment on the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter, please send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, and we will keep them on file until they are needed. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Biden should really be doing better in Minnesota and Virginia. Maybe it's the kids who are angry about Gaza?

State	Joe Biden	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Minnesota	44%	42%	May 08	May 11	SurveyUSA
Virginia	43%	42%	Apr 28	Apr 28	Fabrizio + Anzalone

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

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