Where Undecided House Races Stood, 11/20+

By
Greg Diamond
– November 11, 2024Posted in: "The OC", Fresh Juice

1 race left. CA-13 has overtaken OC’s CA-45 as the closest Congressional race (but that could change!)

CA-45 is no longer the closest Congressional race (but Gray could still build his lead in CA-13!)

OK, today we’re starting with analysis first! Again: Democrats currently trail 220-214 and are likely to add the CA-13 seat. I prefer to describe this results as a 219-215 House plus Omaha’s Don Bacon, who might be induced to vote for himself as an impartial speaker if Democrats have the brains and the gonads to push him and if he can bring two other non-MAGA Republicans with him!. Here’s how the rest of the races stand or stood.

CA-45 has been trending towards Tran in each of the last several cycles, as we moved into the “timely postmarked but late-arriving and late-tabulated mail-in” ballots) and barring the highly unexpected it is not turning around. As predicted, it looks like Tran did lose a few votes due to Republican cures and/or paper ballots and the like going Steel’s way — but that was way too little (though right on time!)

CA-13 is likely to flip to Democratic, but it’s not something you would know from the results you can see without digging. CA-13 contains five counties: from southeast to northwest, along with the number of votes already counted and the current result, they are: Fresno (19,389 votes cast,12-point advantage for Duarte, 95%+counted; Madera (33,505 votes cast, 14-point advantage for Duarte, 95%+ counted); Merced (78,217 votes case, 2% advantage for Gray, 93% counted); Stanislaus (56,732 votes cast, 7-point advantage for Gray, 95%+ counted); and San Joaquin (14,195 votes case, 7-point advantage for Gray, 94% counted). We don’t know exactly what “>95%” means, but at a minimum it means from 95.1% to 99.9% — and more likely 96% to 99%. So, ignoring for the moment the blue shift towards Duarte that we’ve been seeing in recent returns: the affects of these counties pretty much balance out. Adding back in the blue shift after the red mirage, and Gray has to be favored.

IA-1 was won by Miller-Meeks last time by only 6 votes. Bohannon has requested a recount, but she needs to pick up 801 votes to tie, and that seems very unlikely. A substantial blue shift in the remaining ballots is her best hope. [Update: Didn’t happen]

Alaska has instant-runoff voting, which involves ranked choices (up to 4) and then a recanvas where anything other than the top votes are assigned as those originally voted for (most of which are either write-ins or for the Alaska Independence Party) are reassigned to one of the top two candidates, if at all. That recount, at the state house, takes place today. [Didn’t happen.]

In short, I see two likely Democratic wins, one likely Republican one, and one I can’t handicap. So the over/under on the Republican margin would be 3-5 votes. Maybe too much for the Bacon Gambit to work — but maybe not!

  • CA-13 D+0.09, 190 votes (was R+.017, 258) counted (Adam Gray over John Duarte*)
  • Races recently called
  • CA-45 D+0.19, 596 votes (was D+.10, 134 (Derek Tran over Michelle Steel*) [called for Dem 11/26]
  • IA-1 R+0.19, 798 votes (Miller-Meeks* over Christina Bohannon) [called for GOP 11/27-ish]
  • AK-1 R+2 >95% (was R+4, 91%) counted [called for Republican Begich over incumbent Peltola*)]
  • OH-9 D+0.33, 99+% counted, 2,282 votes (Marcy Kaptur* over Derek Merrin) [called for Dem 11/15]
  • ME-2 D+0.6, >100% counted (Jared Golden* over Austin Theriault) [called for Dem 11/15]
  • CA-47 D+1.8, 89% (was D+0.9, 80%) counted (Dave Min over Scott Baugh) [called for Dem 11/14]
  • CA-27 D+2.6, 94% counted (George Whitesides over Mike Garcia*) [called for Dem 11/13]
  • OR-5 D+2.6, 94% (was D+3.0, 92%) counted (Bynum over Chavez-DeRemer*) [called for Dem 11/14]
  • CA-49 D+3.4, 77% counted (Mike Levin* over Matt Gunderson) [called for Dem 11/13]
  • CA-9 D+3.8, 89%, 873 votes counted (Josh Harder* over Kevin Lincoln) [called for Dem 11/15]
  • CA-21 D 4.6, 92%, 6,333 votes counted (Jim Costa* over Michael Maher) [called for Dem 11/15]

Interesting point about C-13: its 5 counties are more for Gray in rank-order of proximity to San Jose!

PREVIOUS INTRODUCTION

Here’s that the New York Times is reporting about the 17 remaining undecided House races.

As of this writing, Republicans have 214 of the 218 seats that they need to win the House (and need 4 more) and Democrats have 204 seats (and so would need 14 more.)

But I will add: if the Democrats and Republicans are tied at 217-217 without Republican moderate Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska’s 2nd District, and they DO NOT offer Bacon the Speakership in a divided House (for which he’d be perfect), I am going to do things that I shall not write down here.

BALLOT CURING! I believe that the “ballot curing” process is still underway. This is where voters whose ballots have been disallowed due to a failed signature match have the opportunity to sign again and/or show ID to show that their ballots were legitimate and should be counted.

Undecided districts from largest Republican lead down through even and then down through largest Democratic lead. (Look up the states’ postal codes if you don’t know them. A * indicates incumbency)

If you’re not already ballot curing for Derek Tran (who needs it a lot more than Dave Min does), contact the campaign and try to help out! With Adam Gray likely to win in CA-13 with this many ballots outstanding, the Steel/Tran race looks like THE LIKELY TIPPING POINT for a Republican victory

And now the undecided races. Republicans need 4 more seats to win the majority (or 5, if the Dems try and succeed with the Bacon Gambit)

  1. CA-22 R+6.4, 91% counted (David Valadao* over Rudy Salas) [called for GOP, 11/13]
  2. WA-4 R+5, 84% counted (Dan Newhouse* over Jarrod Sessler — both Republican [called 11/13])
  3. AK-1 R+3, 91% (was R+4, 80%) counted (Nick Begich over Mary Peltola*)
  4. CA-41 R+2.8%, 70% counted (Ken Calvert* over Will Rollins) [called for GOP 11/13]
  5. CA-13 R+2.4%, 74% (was R+2.6, 61%) counted (John Duarte* over Adam Gray)
  6. CA-45 R+0.78%, 90% (was R+2.2, 80%) counted (Michelle Steel* over Derek Tran)
  7. IA-1 R+0.19, >95% counted (Mariannette Miller-Meeks* over Christina Bohannon)
  8. AZ-6 R+1.7, 90% counted (Juan Ciscomani* over Kristen Engel) [conceded, but not called]
  9. ME-2 D+0.19, >95% counted (Jared Golden* over Austin Theriault)
  10. OH-9 D+0.33, >95% counted (Marcy Kaptur* over Derek Merrin)
  11. CA-47 D+1.8, 89% (was D+0.9, 80%) counted (Dave Min over Scott Baugh)
  12. CA-21 D+3.4 , 81% (was D+1.0, 66%) counted (Jim Costa* over Michael Maher)
  13. CA-27 D+2.6, 94% counted (George Whitesides over Mike Garcia*) [called for Dem 11/13]
  14. CA-9 D+3.6, 75% (was D+2.4, 64%) counted (Josh Harder* over Kevin Lincoln)
  15. OR-5 D+3.0, 92% (was D+2.8, 87%) counted (Janelle Bynum over Lori Chavez-DeRemer*)
  16. CA-49 D+3.4, 77% counted (Mike Levin* over Matt Gunderson) [called for Dem 11/13]
  17. CA-39 D+12, 95% counted (Mark Takano* over David Serpa) [called for Dem 11/11]

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)