Democratic Rep. Ron Barber
Several races remain uncalled as of Thursday. We recently
ran through them here and we have updates below for any contests where we have new details. You can check who has won each key race at our
race tracker here, and you can also keep an eye on our continuously updated
list of uncalled races. (We're relying on
CNN's election results page for calls.)
• AZ-02: We'll start with one of the most unpredictable contests left. Republican Martha McSally leads Democratic Rep. Ron Barber by 1,293 votes. If this sounds very familiar there's a good reason: In 2012 McSally led Barber by almost the exact same number of votes, but ended up losing after the remaining ballots were tabulated.
At the moment it's not clear how many ballots are left to be counted: Some sources say 37,000, some say 50,000. Most of the votes are from Barber-friendly Pima County, and the more uncounted ballots there are, the better his chances become.
If we assume the number is 37,000, Barber would need to win the remaining votes by about 4 points. In 2012 Barber carried the late votes and pulled off a narrow victory after being down on Election Night, so this is doable. We'll be keeping a close eye on this one as things become clearer.
Head below the fold for a look at where other uncalled contests stand.
• AK-Sen: As of now, Republican Dan Sullivan leads Democratic Sen. Mark Begich by about 8,000 votes. There are as many as 50,000 absentees out and Begich has not conceded.
The Alaska Dispatch News breaks down what we know about the ballots:
State elections officials said there were nearly 24,000 uncounted absentee and early votes, which won’t be tallied until next week. There are also 13,804 absentee ballots voters had requested but not yet returned to the state, though it was unclear how many of those would ultimately end up being counted.
Then there are questioned ballots -- typically cast by Alaskans who voted at the wrong polling place. Elections officials won’t know how many questioned ballots were cast until Thursday, but there were roughly 13,000 in the last midterm election in 2010.
To beat Sullivan, Begich would have to take 8,000 votes from Sullivan out of all the outstanding ballots -- which appear unlikely to top 50,000 total. Republicans pointed to the party affiliation of absentee voters, which wasn’t substantially different from the party makeup of the general electorate.
Assuming there are 50,000 ballots, Begich would need to win them 58-42 to pull ahead. That's incredibly optimistic, especially since the actual pool of available votes will likely be smaller. Many of these ballots are from rural areas and should break for Begich, but there's less reason to think that questioned ballots will. Indeed, the
Dispatch estimates that if the 22,000 early and absentees voted like their districts did, Sullivan will gain.
• AK-Gov: As of now, independent Bill Walker leads Republican Gov. Sean Parnell by 3,165 votes. Neither side has declared victory or defeat, though Walker is making tentative transition plans: The new gubernatorial term is set to begin Dec. 1. Like the Senate race, there's a question of how many ballots are left and who they'll favor. Assuming the magic number is 50,000 ballots, Parnell would need to win them by a little more than 53-47 to pull ahead. Walker did very well in rural Alaska and if a disproportionate number of ballots came from the area, which is quite possible, he should pick up more votes.
• CA-07: Republican Doug Ose still leads Democratic Rep. Ami Bera by 3,011 votes. It's unclear how many are left: Ose's camp estimates the number is more than 60,000, which is a bit less than the 70,000 we reported Wednesday. Ose says they expect a result by Saturday, and we'll see what happens. If there are in fact 60,000 ballots out Bera would need to win them by about 52.5-47.5, which is possible but far from certain at this point.
• CA-16: Some Dude Republican Johnny Tacherra currently leads Democratic Rep. Jim Costa by 736 votes, but there's good reason to think Costa pulls this out. Most of the remaining ballots are reportedly from Fresno County, where Costa won 62-38. If true, it won't take much to push Costa over the edge. This would be an embarrassingly narrow victory for the congressman, but a victory nonetheless.
• CA-17: About 40,000 ballots remain uncounted here, where Rep. Mike Honda leads fellow Democrat Ro Khanna by 3,549 votes. Khanna has not conceded but there's no reason to think that these ballots will disproportionately favor him. Khanna would need to win these by about 9 points, far better than the 4-point deficit he has across the district right now.
• CA-26: Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley still holds a 530-vote lead over Republican Jeff Gorell. There are about 43,000 votes left in Ventura County, which makes up the vast majority of the district. Since California Democrats almost always do better in late counted ballots, Brownley should be fine.
• CA-31: Democrat Pete Aguilar leads Republican Paul Chabot by 1,635 and has claimed victory. On Thursday at about 7 PM ET, 15,834 remaining ballots are scheduled to be counted. Given how late ballots traditionally favor Democrats in California, a Chabot win is very unlikely.
• CA-52: Republican Carl DeMaio leads Democratic incumbent Scott Peters by 752 votes. There are about 40,000 ballots left, much higher than the 10,000 ballots we originally thought were still out. This is good news for Peters, since he'll almost certainly gain from the mail-in ballots. For Peters to win he'll need to take the 40,000 ballots 51-49, which is far from unreasonable.
• MD-06: Democratic Rep. John Delaney has declared victory over Republican Dan Bongino, with the congressman holding a 2,166 vote lead. Bongino has not conceded, but he would need to win the 5,847 absentee votes 68.5-31.5, which is very unlikely. The state should count these absentees Thursday, so we should know more soon.
• NY-25: Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter now has a 651 vote lead over Republican Mark Assini, up from 582 votes on Election Night. Slaughter has declared victory but Assini has not conceded. There are reportedly only 1,200 to 1,300 absentees left, but an unknown number of affidavit ballots. Everything should be counted next Wednesday, but there don't appear to be enough votes left for Assini to make up the ground he needs.
• VA-Sen, VT-Gov, CA-09, WA-04: As of this writing there are no new developments in the remaining uncalled races, but the writing is on the wall in each. In Virginia, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner has a 17,000 vote lead over Republican Ed Gillespie with almost everything counted, and his lead is expected to remain intact. In California's 9th Democrat Rep. Jerry McNerney holds a 52-48 point lead and should be fine. In Washington's 4th Dan Newhouse leads fellow Republican Clint Didier 52-48 and should win unless the remaining ballots look very different than the ones that have been counted.
In Vermont, the race will not be officially decided until January: Because Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin did not secure a majority of the vote, the legislature will need to pick the winner. Shumlin has declared victory and while Republican Scott Milne won't concede, there isn't any doubt that the legislature will pick Shumlin since he was the top vote getter. Barring a major surprise, there won't be any developments in this contest until January, and even that's just a formality.
We'll be staying on top of each of these races at Daily Kos Elections as things unfold.
