October 31, 2020

Kenosha was the closest county in the state in 2016. Today, residents brace for another tight race.

Four years ago, Donald Trump eked out a win in Kenosha County by 238 votes over then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. It was the closest county in a state with a razor-thin margin.

With Trump seeking reelection against Democratic candidate Joe Biden and tens of thousands of ballots already cast in the county, Kenosha could be close again.

In what has already been an unusual election cycle, the city of Kenosha had to replace its retiring city clerk with more than 30 years experience, and the new one, Matt Krauter, started on Friday.

“You have to pivot and be ready for anything,” Krauter said in an interview on this first day of work. “This is the election. It’s huge. It’s a major function of what this department does.”

Krauter said nearly 27,000 votes have already been cast in the city and there are roughly 53,000 registered voters, putting the voter turnout in the city around 50%.



https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/30/kenosha-wisconsins-closest-county-2016-braces-nail-biter/6092056002/

October 31, 2020

High stakes lead to high spending on legislative races in Mecklenburg, elsewhere in NC

Days before the election, Mecklenburg County’s Democratic lawmakers have wide financial advantages over their opponents amid what appears to be a record spending year in North Carolina legislative races.

At least two N.C. Senate races have seen spending by both candidates approach $3 million.

Both major parties combined have spent at least $28 million. Outside groups have spent millions more.

“As the Democrats learned, you lose redistricting and you can end up in the minority for a whole decade,” said Ferrel Guillory,” director of the Program on Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill.

Republicans were swept to power after the 2010 elections and have controlled redistricting as well as state spending and policy since.

Democrats need six seats to flip control of the N.C. House and five in the Senate, or four if Democrat Yvonne Holley becomes lieutenant governor.

In Mecklenburg, Democratic Sen. Jeff Jackson has raised over $974,000 in his race against Republican Sonja Nichols, according to reports filed this week with the State Board of Elections. A first-time candidate, she has raised over $268,000. Their District 37 has changed dramatically since Jackson won it easily three times.




https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article246729181.html#storylink=cpy

October 31, 2020

Kamala Harris to return to Georgia on Sunday,

Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is returning to Georgia on Sunday to rally voters as the campaign intensifies efforts to flip a state that hasn’t voted Democratic in a White House race since 1992.

The campaign announced the visit Friday, though no additional details were available. The California senator’s visit is only the latest indication that Georgia has become one of the most competitive battlegrounds in the race between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.

As word of Harris' return reverberated in Democratic circles, Trump’s campaign confirmed he would hold a Sunday evening rally in Rome aimed at energizing conservatives.

Biden trekked to Georgia on Tuesday in a late attempt to score a blowout victory against Trump, whose path to a second term would narrow considerably if he loses the state’s 16 electoral votes. And Harris held events in Atlanta on Oct. 23, targeting her message to Black voters.




https://www.ajc.com/politics/kamala-harris-is-returning-to-georgia-on-sunday/5PFOGGFUOFEAVDW4VDL6RNAKSU/

October 31, 2020

Hialeah was a tie in '16. Can Trump do better vs Biden? Six Miami-Dade cities to watch BY DOUGLAS H

1: CAN BIDEN OUTPERFORM CLINTON IN THE SUBURBS? WIDENING THE WIN IN PALMETTO BAY WOULD BE A START

An October poll by Bendixen & Amandi International found Biden ahead of Trump in Miami-Dade by 20 points, a margin closer to the 24-point win Obama secured in the county in 2012 with Biden on the ticket. Obama won Florida that year, and the Biden strategy hopes to recreate that Sunshine State coalition with a healthy margin in diverse Miami-Dade, and a better showing with white voters in areas Trump dominated in 2016.

2: A DEMOCRATIC EDGE WITH INDEPENDENTS? WATCH THE MARGINS IN DORAL

Trump’s status as job provider in the city of Doral — before the pandemic, his Trump National golf resort was the municipality’s third-largest employer, behind Carnival Cruise Lines and Univision — didn’t help him much with votes. Clinton took 68% of the vote in Doral in 2016, more than doubling Trump’s 28% share.


4: THE SIZE OF BIDEN’S MIAMI GARDENS LEAD WILL TEST WHETHER TRUMP GAINED WITH BLACK VOTERS

Polls show Trump performing better with non-white voters nationwide in 2020 than he did in 2016. That could lead to less of a wipe out for the president in Miami Gardens, the largest city in the Southeast with a majority of Black residents and a Democratic stronghold in Miami-Dade. Trump’s campaign is working to bring down the Democratic margin in a city where Clinton took 91% of the vote in 2016.

“They’re trying to find out what’s there,” said Darnell Roberts, an organizer for Democrats in Miami-Dade. “I’ve seen Blacks for Trump signs sprinkled around Miami Gardens. That’s new.”


5: DID BIDEN’S HAITIAN-AMERICAN STRATEGY WORK? WATCH THE SPREAD IN NORTH MIAMI

In a city where over 30% of residents are Haitian-American — by far the largest share in the county — North Miami offers one of the best barometers for whether Biden’s campaign has done enough to court Haitian-American voters. Clinton won 83% of the vote there.


6: DID THE “SOCIALIST” ATTACK STICK? THE BIDEN HIALEAH VOTE MAY HAVE THE ANSWER

Trump has tried to brand Biden a socialist in disguise for pushing a progressive agenda, and Gimenez has tried the same tack with his congressional opponent, freshman Democrat Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.





https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article246771762.html

October 31, 2020

Trump plans an election eve MAGA rally at airport in Miami-Dade County

If you’ve ever wanted to dance to YMCA on an airport runway after midnight, President Donald Trump has you covered.

Trump’s campaign on Friday announced that the president will attend an 11:30 PM rally on Sunday, Nov. 1, at Opa-locka Executive Airport, part of a frenetic, 48-hour, cross-country tour. The Opa-locka stop will be the end of a five-rally day for the president after events in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia.

The rally is expected to be Trump’s final South Florida appearance before Election Day. On Monday, he’s scheduled to appear in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Trump’s appearance will likely violate a 12 AM curfew in Miami-Dade County put in place by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who is also running for Congress as a Republican with Trump’s endorsement.

Trump has blanketed Florida with rallies and public appearances in the campaign’s final weeks, including a stop in Tampa on Thursday. But Trump himself hasn’t held a rally in Miami-Dade County in the campaign’s final months until Sunday, though Vice President Mike Pence held a rally on Oct. 15 aimed at South Florida’s Latino community ahead of a Trump town hall event in downtown Miami.



https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article246836467.html#storylink=cpy

October 31, 2020

Telemundo poll: Biden leads Trump among Latino voters in battleground Arizona

Joe Biden holds a wide lead over President Donald Trump among likely Latino Arizona voters, according to the latest Telemundo poll.

Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, leads Trump 64% to 28% among Latino voters in Arizona, the Telemundo poll found.

In Maricopa County, Biden leads Trump 65% to 28% among Latino voters.

Biden's lead is wider among Latino voters in Pima County, which includes Tucson, 71% to 23%.

Biden's lead among rural Latino voters in Arizona is significantly less, 54% to 33%, according to the Telemundo poll.

Trump campaigned in Bullhead City and Goodyear, a western suburb of Phoenix, on Wednesday, his seventh visit this year to Arizona. Trump hopes is trying to hold on to the battleground state after narrowly beating Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee by 3.5 percentage points.



https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2020/10/30/poll-biden-leads-trump-64-28-among-latino-voters-arizona/6069700002/

October 31, 2020

Jon Ralston's Nevada Early Voting Blog - Joe's in charge!

Major changes from this AM:

Clark Dem firewall (with new mail votes) is up to 81K. That is a big number — I have always said the Dems want to get up above 80K in Clark to feel good, and there is still one day left (today) of early voting while mail continues to come in through Tuesday.

Statewide, the lead for the Dems is just under 45K (so the Clark mail offset the rural gains). That’s a little under 4 percent or right at voter reg numbers.

More than 1 million Nevadans have cast ballots, which is closing in on 60 percent of active voters. If 1.4 million vote, which would be slightly above 2016’s 77 percent, that means 73 percent have already voted who will cast ballots in the election. If 1.5 million vote, which would be astounding (85 percent), that means before we see any early votes from today, 68 percent of the vote is in.

In 2016, 70 percent voted early or by mail after two weeks. Where are all these Election Day votes I keep hearing about? Are we really going to have 90 percent turnout?

Clark is up to 69 percent of the vote, with Washoe at 18 and the rurals at 13. That’s not far off what the actual registration is.

Here’s what the models look like with those million or so votes – you can see the Biden lead is holding steady and even in a ridiculously optimistic scenario for Trump, the president still is losing right now in Nevada:

The first column shows what would happen if both candidates received votes from 90 percent of their bases and the other candidate got 5 percent of the others and split others evenly, 45 percent to 45 percent.

And it may be worse than it looks.

Several folks, including poker pro Andy Bloch and data guru John Samuelsen, have pointed out that the “others” are voting more by mail (136,700) than by in-person (110,400) and that may indicate they are more Democratic-leaning than GOP-leaning. If you allocate proportionally, that’s a decent lead for Biden with indies, perhaps as much as 10 points.

If so, that’s more than game over; that’s a nearly double digit lead for him. Add in that “other” also are younger, as our Tabitha Mueller pointed out today, and the guy in the belltower is starting to walk up the stairs to make the bell toll.

I am that guy, and I’m not quite at the top of that tower yet. And I still may feel like Jimmy Stewart when I get there.

Unlike those data guys, I try to model various scenarios and don’t necessarily think that behavior of how they are voting (mail or in-person) is necessarily correlative. But the theory is pretty sound, especially in a year when the different partisan voting patterns are so stark.

I’ll dive deeper later when I can….



https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3

October 31, 2020

'We're on overdrive': Texas House campaigns working down to the wire to win competitive races

Joanna Cattanach, a Democratic state House candidate from Dallas, had a busy Wednesday.

She’d stood outside polling locations in cold weather encouraging voters to cast their ballots for her, then headed indoors to continue campaigning on phone banks, including one with former Congressman Beto O’Rourke that had more than 600 volunteers.

And, oh yeah, it was also her birthday. Cattanach munched on some birthday cake during a video conference as she made calls for her race in House District 108, which covers Uptown, parts of downtown, the Park Cities and Old East Dallas, where she is running against Republican incumbent Morgan Meyer.

“We’re on overdrive right now,” said Cattanach, who lost her bid to unseat Meyer two years ago by 220 votes and plans to spend the remaining days of the campaign on an all-out blitz to overcome that deficit.

Republicans are pulling out all the stops, too, as candidates in competitive statehouse elections across North Texas have similarly packed schedules as they race to finish strong ahead of Tuesday’s election. They are weathering cold and rain, block-walking in masks and face covers, and combing through their lists of supporters to ensure that their people are casting ballots.

And with good reason. Democrats are vying to win a majority in the Texas House for the first time since 2001, and experts say the road to victory for both parties runs through North Texas' contested elections.



https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/10/30/were-on-overdrive-texas-house-campaigns-working-down-to-the-wire-to-win-competitive-races/

October 31, 2020

With Election Day still ahead, Dallas County and Texas have already set total-turnout records

Dallas County voters ended three weeks of early voting Friday, breaking the record for the total number of votes cast during any election.

Texas' second-largest county broke its previous record of 770,590 votes, set in 2016. By 2 p.m. Friday, an estimated 771,200 people had voted either in person or by mail. A final count and turnout rate were expected to be reported to the state Saturday.

The county had 1.4 million registered voters.

Unprecedented turnout in North Texas and across the state has added frenetic energy to an election that was already one for the history books because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Recent polls suggest Democrats are within striking distance in several races in a state friendly to Republicans.

More than 9 million ballots had been cast as of Friday morning in the nation’s second-most-populous state, exceeding the 8.9 million-plus votes cast early and on Election Day four years ago, according to an Associated Press tally of early voting data in this state. Texas was the first state to hit the milestone, according to the AP’s count.



https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections/2020/10/30/dallas-county-sets-new-turnout-record-with-more-than-771000-votes-cast/

October 31, 2020

The country's most important climate election heats up

AUSTIN — A late $2.6 million donation from Michael Bloomberg and historic voter turnout across Texas may be tightening the race some are calling the most important climate election in the country with Election Day

just days away.

Bloomberg’s donation to Democrat candidate Chrysta Castañeda, first reported by the Texas Tribune earlier this week, elevated the Railroad Commission race to the national stage as she looks to accomplish something a Democrat has not done since 1994: Win a statewide race in Texas, as she tries to secure a seat on the three-member body that regulates oil and gas in the state.

Her Republican opponent, Jim Wright, has already turned heads by defeating incumbent Ryan Sitton in the March primary in a double-digit point victory.

While Wright held a 46.8% to 38.4% lead in the latest poll by the University of Houston’s Hobby School for Public Affairs, political scientist Mark Owens, who conducted the Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler poll, said the latest developments in voter turnout and donations could turn this race into a tossup leading up to Nov. 3.

“I think we can only expect that as turnout increases, and there then becomes campaign spending that highly favors Castañeda, this race will get closer,” Owens said. “It will not be separated by a 7-point spread. It will be closer to a tossup.”






https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections/2020/10/30/race-for-texas-railroad-commission-heats-up/