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Daily Brew: March 21, 2019

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March 21, 2019

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Today's Brew highlights our analysis of close state legislative elections in 2018 + a summary of Tuesday’s election results  
The Daily Brew

Welcome to the Thursday, March 21 Brew. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. 105 legislative races were decided by less than 100 votes in 2018
  2. Curry wins re-election for mayor of Jacksonville
  3. Three years ago today, a look back at what was going on in the presidential election—courtesy of our daily briefing

One-hundred and five state legislative races were decided by less than 100 votes in 2018

Four months have passed since last year’s general elections, but Ballotpedia is still analyzing the results to unearth interesting information.

We recently took a closer look at the more than 6,000 state legislative races to find out how many were decided by a close electoral margin. In this case, we used 100 votes as the data point. Certified results indicate that 105 of the 6,073 state legislative races in 2018 were decided by fewer than 100 votes. Ninety-eight of these races were for state House seats, and seven were for state Senate seats.

Fifty-four of the races resulted in a change in partisan control—36 favoring Democrats and 18 favoring Republicans. In the seats that did not change control, Republicans held 36 and Democrats held 15. Therefore, in all 105 close races, Republicans won 54 and Democrats won 51.

Seventy-eight of the races (74.3 percent) occurred in state legislative districts with populations of less than 25,000. Districts of this size make up 26.3 percent of all state legislative districts.

  • The New Hampshire House, which has the smallest legislative districts in the country, had 34 of the races—more than any other chamber. New Hampshire’s state House has 400 members.
  • The Vermont House, whose districts are the second-smallest in the country, had eight of these races—the second-most of all legislative chambers.
  • The other 63 races were spread across 32 chambers. Twenty-two of these chambers had just one race.

One race in this analysis—Alaska House District 1—was critical for partisan control of state government. Bart LeBon (R) defeated Kathryn Dodge (D) for that seat by one vote. His win resulted in a 20-20 split between Republican-led and Democratic-led coalitions in the Alaska House of Representatives. That chamber is now being governed under a power-sharing agreement after a month-long period where no candidate from either party could get a majority of votes to be elected state House Speaker.

In the 2017 Virginia House of Delegates elections, David Yancey (R) and Shelly Simonds (D) were judged to have been tied after a recount in their District 94 race. Yancey won a random drawing to determine the winner of the seat which resulted in Republicans controlling the chamber, 51-49. The chamber would have been tied 50-50 had Simonds won the tie-breaker.

Learn more about these close races

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Curry wins re-election for mayor of Jacksonville

Here’s a quick summary of some of the results from Tuesday’s elections.

Jacksonville

Incumbent Lenny Curry (R) won re-election to a second term for mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, receiving almost 58 percent of the vote in a four-candidate field. He defeated Republican city councilwoman Anna Brosche, who took 24 percent, unaffiliated candidate Omega Allen, who had 10.5 percent, and Republican former Atlantic Beach City Councilman Jimmy Hill, who received 7.5 percent.

No Democratic candidate filed to run in the race, but the Duval County Democratic Party approved a resolution opposing Curry's re-election.

Five of 19 city council seats are headed to runoff elections to be held on May 14 after no candidate received a majority of the votes Tuesday. Two of the runoff races feature incumbents - at-large Position 3 incumbent Tommy Hazouri (D) and District 8 incumbent Ju'Coby Pittman (D).

The other nine incumbents on the ballot—six Republicans and three Democrats—won re-election outright and the five open-seat races that did not go to a runoff were all won by Republicans. After the elections, the Jacksonville City Council is guaranteed to have at least 11 Republicans and five Democrats, with three seats holding runoff elections which feature both a Democratic and Republican candidate. Currently, Republicans hold a 13-6 majority on the council.

The city also held elections for property appraiser, sheriff, supervisor of elections, and tax collector, and all four Republican incumbents won re-election outright to those offices.

Iowa

Cedar Falls School Board member Eric Giddens (D) defeated former state Rep. Walt Rogers (R) in a special election for the District 30 seat in the Iowa State Senate. Giddens won with 57 percent of the vote to Rogers' 42 percent.

The appearance of current and potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in the district thrust the race into national attention. At least three presidential hopefuls made appearances with Giddens, while others held separate campaign events in the district or sent staff to canvass for the Democratic candidate. The district voted Democratic in the past two presidential elections. In 2012, Obama won the district by 7.4 percent. In 2016, Clinton won the district by 3.5 percent.

The seat became vacant after Jeff Danielson (D) resigned on February 14, 2019. Heading into the election, Republicans held a 32-17 majority in the chamber.

Minnesota

Nathan Nelson (R) defeated Tim Burkhardt (D) for the District 11B seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives. The seat became vacant after former Rep. Jason Rarick (R) was elected last month to the state Senate and Nelson’s win holds the seat for Republicans. Minnesota is the only state in the country where the state legislature is under split control, as Democrats have a 75-59 advantage in the state House and Republicans have a 34-33 advantage in the state Senate.

While neither Iowa’s nor Minnesota’s state legislative elections on Tuesday resulted in a partisan switch, four seats have flipped parties in state legislative special elections so far in 2019, all of them going from Democratic to Republican control. In elections between 2011 and 2018, either the Democratic Party or Republican Party saw an average net gain of four seats in state legislative special elections across the country.

Three years ago today, a look back at what was going on in the presidential election—courtesy of our daily briefing

Our Daily Presidential News Briefing presents a comprehensive and curated account of the most important news stories about presidential politics. Part of our recurring workflow is to look back on the published briefings from this time in the election cycle three years ago. We wanted to share this tidbit from the briefing on March 21, 2016:

“According to a Deseret News poll released on Sunday, if Trump became the Republican nominee, Utah would become competitive for Democrats for the first time in 50 years, whether he ran against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. The Washington Post also reported on Saturday how a Clinton-Trump general election could redefine the electoral map. Because of Trump’s strong level of support from white voters, the “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota could come into contention. “On the other hand, states such as Nevada, New Mexico and possibly Colorado could see less competition unless Trump can overcome his extraordinarily high negative ratings within the Hispanic community,” The Post noted.”

As it turned out, Utah was not competitive for Democrats in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump carried the state, receiving 45.5 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton took 27.5 percent, independent candidate Evan McMullin, who was born and raised in Utah, received 21.5 percent, and other candidates received 5.5 percent.

However, the Washington Post story was accurate, as the blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were all decided by less than 1.5 percent. President Trump won MI, PA, and WI while losing Minnesota. Meanwhile, the margins in Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado were between 2.4 and 8.2 percent, and all three were won by Clinton.

Click the link below to subscribe with one click to our Daily Presidential News Briefing and stay up-to-date on the most important news in the 2020 presidential election.


See also

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