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November 2, 2020

The Most Important Races Other Than President

A look around the country on election eve

 

One of the few Philadelphia Eagles fans they let into the stadium last
night holds up a "Vote!" sign in the battleground of Pennsylvania.
(Chris Szagola/AP Photo)

**First Ballot**

I don't think there's a lot more to say about the presidential
election. Donald Trump's chances of winning depend on a decent-sized
polling error in Pennsylvania and a more modest polling error in
numerous other states. It's a real possibility and it shouldn't be
discounted, and I don't think a single Democrat is discounting it.
Here's Nate Silver's pre-election essay
,
and here's Nate Cohn's
.
I went through yesterday why I think the late deciders will swing to
Biden
.
We're in that moment where we wait to see what happens and fight to
get every vote counted. That's about it.

So it's time to look at the rest of the election landscape. I've
done a little of this, looking at state legislative chambers

and where the money is going in House races
.
Daily Kos has put together a comprehensive independent expenditures
tracker
,
which helpfully breaks out the money in the last week of the campaign,
so you can see who's been bolstered and who's been abandoned.

**Read all of our Election 2020 news here**

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So taking that into account, as well as other inputs, here's a
not-at-all-complete guide for what I'm looking at tomorrow:   

Senate: We are very close to a situation with a 49-49 Senate, with the
two Georgia races advancing to a January 5 runoff. In this instance,
Democrats across the country will pour millions of dollars into the
campaign of Jon Ossoff, again, just like they did in a special House
election in 2017. Because Georgia requires statewide winners to collect
50 percent +1, the Ossoff/David Perdue race could go into overtime.
(There's a libertarian on the ballot who will pull some votes.)
There's no expectation that the Georgia special election will yield a
majority, with multiple candidates from each party competing. So the
two-runoff scenario is very real.

The way to lower the temperature on that outcome is with Democrats
breaking through in one of the tossups. I'm looking at Iowa, where
Theresa Greenfield looked like she had a narrow lead, but recent polling
shows Joni Ernst back in front, and at North Carolina, where Cal
Cunningham seems to be persevering despite scandal. More under the radar
is the race in Kansas, a classic "Mods vs. Cons" election, with
ex-Republican Barbara Bollier against replacement-level conservative
Roger Marshall. If that race is at all close, in the most conservative
state with a contested Senate election, then I'd gather with a
relatively uniform swing that Democrats will break through somewhere.
(Texas is a dark horse.)

House: There are interesting bellwether House races up and down the map.
The ones with presidential implications include two seats in the tipping
point state of Pennsylvania: PA-10 in Harrisburg and York
,
where completely mismatched hard-core conservative Scott Perry faces
state auditor general Eugene DePasquale; and PA-01 in Bucks County (my
hometown), where moderate Brian Fitzpatrick didn't draw a particularly
high-profile opponent (local councilwoman Cristina Finello) yet is still
in a dogfight
.
If both of them lose, it makes it harder to see Trump taking the state.
NE-02, which we've discussed
,
is a district that could deliver its own electoral vote, and the race
between progressive Kara Eastman and incumbent Republican Don Bacon is
as tight as Biden/Trump here.

An out-of-nowhere race is AR-02
,
between Congressional Oversight Commission member French Hill and
Democrat Joyce Elliot. While this seat includes the capital of Little
Rock, it's exactly the kind of red-area suburban district that
Democrats overtook in 2018, and a win here would reveal that Republican
suburban gap remains. I've written about the Ann Wagner race in MO-02
,
where one of Wall Street's biggest supporters could lose a suburban
Missouri seat; the same dynamic applies.

A couple competitive seats with far-right Republican candidates include
CO-03
,
with open-carry gun-themed restaurant owner (yes) Lauren Boebert against
Diane Mitch Busch; and NC-11, where 25 year-old Madison Cawthorn took
the primary when Mark Meadows became chief of staff but could blow a
completely winnable seat
.
The Dem-on-Dem races in CA-53

and WA-10

are little windows into the establishment vs. left battle, but in a
general election the establishment has an advantage because the entire
electorate gets a say.

Finally, there are seven seats in Texas that have drawn national
interest, mostly in suburban and rapidly-growing counties, and it will
be fascinating to see where they land.

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Governor: There's not much of interest here, but two races could offer
clues. The Montana statewide races are all bunched together, and a
Democratic gubernatorial victory could mean good things for the current
governor, Steve Bullock, now running for U.S. Senate. Similarly, Roy
Cooper has a lead for re-election in North Carolina, but the margin of
victory could say something about the presidential battleground.

State legislatures: See this previous edition of Unsanitized
.

Prosecutors: Over the weekend we did a story on the Maricopa County

race in Arizona, an important seat for policing reform. In my backyard
of Los Angeles County, George Gascon (the former DA in San Francisco)
challenges incumbent Jackie Lacey, who has favored longer sentences and
the death penalty, while doing little on police violence. The
indispensable Daniel Nichanian has more on prosecutor races at The
Appeal .

State Supreme Court: The big races here are in Ohio, where a win for
former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and one Democratic colleague
could flip the high court; Michigan, where control is also on the line;
and Arizona, where three Republican judges have their retention
elections.

Ballot measures: California always looms large here. There's a chance
to end the legacy of Prop 13

with Prop 15, which would force businesses to pay fair assessment rates
on their properties. And Prop 22

would give Uber and Lyft an entirely new classification of labor law,
which they've spent a whopping $200 million so far to try to secure.

Florida has Amendment 2
,
a $15 an hour minimum wage, on the ballot. It needs a 60 percent margin
to pass, and it's plausible that it brings out a slightly more liberal
electorate. Minimum wage hikes have passed almost everywhere they've
been tried. Arizona's Proposition 208
,
a surtax on incomes above $250,000 for teacher salaries and schools, is
another bellwether to check the ideological leanings of a swing state.

Colorado has an important measure, Proposition 118
,
that would provide 12-16 weeks of paid family and medical leave through
a payroll tax surcharge, split between employers and employees. Also in
Colorado, Prop 113
is a referendum on the state's switch to the National Popular Vote
interstate compact. We wouldn't be all that concerned about this
election if it went by the national popular vote. We almost got a
Constitutional amendment

doing this 50 years ago, but the interstate compact would go around the
Electoral College, allowing states to distribute electoral votes to the
popular vote winner. Colorado entered into the compact last year, and
this referendum would remove them. There's an outside path to getting
states with 270 electoral votes in the compact by 2024, so this is a
critical vote if you think the Electoral College is a ridiculous
anachronism.

Finally, I'm looking at Oregon, where Measure 110

would decriminalize practically all drugs, and Missouri, which is
attempting to gut independent redistricting with Amendment 3
.

**Read all of our Unsanitized reports here**

We Really Can't Do This Without You!

Today at the Prospect

We had election stories running all weekend. Here's Sarah Jaffe
on blue-collar workers who lost
manufacturing jobs organizing against Trump; Mike Elk

on fracking losing its power as a wedge issue in western Pennsylvania;
Alex Sammon
on
another election being waged on health care; Maciel Spotted Elk

on voter suppression in Navajo Nation; and there's much more. Check
out our latest !

**Days Until the Election**

It's tomorrow.

Support Independent, Fact-Checked Journalism

Today I Learned

* There's always a nervous Democratic story about Black turnout before
the mass rush with Souls to the Polls

on election eve. (Los Angeles Times)

* How Joe Biden and young voters learned to love one another
.
(HuffPost)

* The informal ban on Senators from a Biden cabinet

actually makes sense because you don't want to deal with special
elections in a close to 50-50 Senate. (Axios)

* Voter fraud is a ridiculous cover for suppression

and the most experienced voter suppressor in the GOP, Ben Ginsburg, is
telling you so. (Washington Post)

* The final Cook Political Report House forecast
shows a 10 to 15
seat pickup for Democrats. (Cook Political Report)

* How many metaphors of Trump stranding supporters

can we have in one week? (Twitter)

* Federal judge orders the Postal Service

to expedite mail-in ballots. (Reuters)

* Overnight balloting

in Texas. (New York Times)

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