Here we go! 36 Governorships. 35 Senate Races. 435 House seats. Join us tonight at 6pm ET for our live blog watching returns.
Politico: “A staggering 36 million voters cast their ballots ahead of Election Day this year, setting the stage for much-higher-than-usual turnout for a midterm — and, potentially, big surprises on Tuesday night. Republican enthusiasm for President Donald Trump and Democrats’ itch to repudiate him at the ballot box have driven people to the polls far faster than in 2014, when 27.2 million people voted early.”
.
Good grief. ?
Today, all across America, folks are voting as if Trump were on the ballot.
Donny, Ya should be careful what ya wish for.
Blue wave!
Ultimate spin: Trump/GOP has gamed expectations to claim victory if they just keep Senate, even if they lose the House.
Well I went and voted to try and put a friend out of a job – he’s some kind of liaison for David McKinley. What that seems to entail is hanging around the two nicest restaurants in our little town in a suit (and 98% of the time he’s the only guy in the place wearing one) and being a hale fellow well met kind of guy. I love poking fun at him about funding for the Wall – or lack thereof.
I just came back from voting. The gal who handed me a ballot complimented me on my earrings. I said “notice they are blue”. Put a big smile on her face.
When I showed my DL the woman poll worker looked at the signature on it (it was renewed 5 years ago) and the one on the voter book (entered 20 years ago) – they do not resemble each other much – and then I had to sign next to my name in the book. My current signature is different from either of the older ones. In Georgia I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to vote – or vote only provisionally. Poll traffic was light but steady – and I know I was serving as a counter vote to the disagreeable old guy to my left, who I’d bet hasn’t even voted for a school excess levy in 40 years. He was complaining about having to vote on a machine – wanted a paper ballot – although the machine produces a paper ballot that is read after it is printed (and it can be reviewed for accuracy) and put into a ballot reader. The machine used to produce the paper ballot does not have any connection to the vote tally done by the ballot reader. I wasn’t offended by the system.
Voted by mail same day as I received my by mail ballot and dropped for free into a nearby vote deposit box since I’m a cheapskate with my stamps. I love the system, but miss the social aspect of the also nearby former polling place. All states should be so lucky.
Son & grandson are getting soup and salad tonight. I’m watching the returns.
One of Ann Telnaes’ best
KGC predicts
Giant, epic blue wave
Beto
The Senate and the House
I think Georgia will be a run-off the never mentioned other guy has somewhat of a following and could take enough votes to keep anyone from 50%.
I want to hear the Condom spin this into a Trump victory
Watching the news I am appalled — the irrelevant speculation the failure to cover actual news is so annoying
WASHINGTON – Hours before he was set to appear with Iowa’s governor in an election-eve rally, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said Monday that he hopes Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor “will elope to Cuba.”
Steve King, keeping it classy right up to the very end. What a waste of skin!
daily beast:
Fox News Slaps Hannity on the Wrist for Stumping With Trump
Fox News lightly criticized host Sean Hannity on Tuesday for campaigning for President Donald Trump after promising that the host would not do so.
Last week, the Trump campaign announced that Hannity would appear alongside conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh at a Trump rally in Missouri. Fox News and Hannity both clarified that he would only be interviewing Trump before the president’s rally, not participating in it.
But on Monday, both Hannity and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro both appeared onstage with the president and praised his performance in office.
“The one thing that has made and defined your presidency more than anything else: Promises made, promises kept,” Hannity said, repeating a Trump campaign slogan.
In a statement on Tuesday, a Fox News spokesperson said it did not condone Hannity or Pirro’s behavior and said the company had “addressed” the matter, though it did not name either host explicitly in the statement.
“FOX News does not condone any talent participating in campaign events. We have an extraordinary team of journalists helming our coverage tonight and we are extremely proud of their work. This was an unfortunate distraction and has been addressed.”
In his own tweet, Hannity explained that his appearance was “not planned.” He also said he was not criticizing his own colleagues when he dubbed the other reporters at Trump’s rally “fake news.”
“To be clear, I was not referring to my journalist colleagues at FOX News in those remarks. They do amazing work day in and day out in a fair and balanced way and It is an honor to work with such great professionals,” he said.
The boundary-pushing political activism from the opinion hosts at Fox News has rubbed some staffers the wrong way.
Several Fox News staffers who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity said that although many employees on the news side have long felt that opinion hosts are allowed more freedoms than the news side, Hannity had publicly embarrassed the network by directly contradicting himself.
“It’s just embarrassing that Hannity is allowed to play by his own rules, and that management is so hapless that they either can’t or won’t do anything about it,” a Fox News staffer told The Daily Beast. “He’s out of control and the second floor needs to step in because it’s getting ridiculous.”
Participating in explicit political activism on behalf of a candidate is frowned upon by serious news outlets. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was suspended for making small donations to Democrats in 2010, while Fox News host Brian Kilmeade apologized last month after he bought Christmas ornaments from the Trump campaign.
While Fox News opinion programs often advocate outright for Trump and other Republican candidates, Hannity and Pirro in particular have both pushed the boundaries and at times actively campaigned for candidates.
In 2010, Fox News stopped Hannity from broadcasting his show from a Tea Party fundraiser, but that didn’t stop him from soliciting donations for a Tea Party group in 2014 and appearing in a video advertisement for Trump in 2016. Earlier this year, Pirro was paid over $24,000 to appear as a fundraising event speaker for Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner.
the hill:
In a unanimous ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said state and local governments must follow labor laws that ban discrimination based on age regardless of how many employees they have.
The ruling is a win for John Guido and Dennis Rankin, two former Arizona firefighters, who argued the Mount Lemmon Fire District laid them off because of their age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
With fewer than 20 employees, the fire department argued it was too small to qualify as an employer that’s covered by the law.
When the ADEA was enacted in 1967 it only covered private sector employers and defined them as a “person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has twenty or more employees.”
But in delivering the 8-0 opinion of the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg settled a dispute over the proper reading of the law after it was amended in 1974 to say “the term also means any agent of such a person, and a state or political subdivision.”
Ginsburg said the court concluded that subsequent Congresses amended the law to add new categories of employers to the ADEAs reach, not clarify the term person.
She said she compared her reading to the Fair Labor Standards Act, on which much of the ADEA is based.
“Like the FLSA, the ADEA ranks states and political subdivisions as ‘employers’ regardless of the number of employees they have,” she said.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part part in considering the case since it was argued before he was confirmed to the bench.
The ruling is the first to come from the court this term.
Damn, that SCOTUS ruling means Mrs. P. can’t fire me? I was hanging my hopes for retirement on that.
BiD, here’s one for you from the hill:
Texas election official resigns after video shows her screaming at black voter
An election supervisor and judge in Williamson County, Texas, has stepped down after she was captured on video screaming at a black voter who was reportedly confused about where to vote.
In footage captured by a third party of the confrontation on Friday afternoon, Lila Guzman could be seen telling the voter repeatedly to leave, saying: “Get out. Get out. Get out. You are rude. You are not following the law. Go. Go.”
The voter who recorded the footage told a local ABC station that she began to record the incident after Guzman started getting louder.
[….continues…]
[heck, in Georgia they don’t even make an election official resign for keeping people from voting, Texas has gone right down liberal]
*
also in texas from a cnn story on voter problems:
[…]
Ballot shortage in Arlington, Texas
An Arlington, Texas, voting location didn’t have enough paper ballots for an entire precinct.
Khadija Farah told CNN that 20 minutes after she arrived at her polling place at T.A. Howard Middle School in Tarrant County, the line to vote stretched out the door. Farah says that the electronic voting machine was not working, and she was told by a poll worker that they did not have any ballots for her precinct.
“Once that info was shared, most of the people in line decided to leave,” she says.
Sam Taylor, communications director for the Texas Secretary of State’s office, told CNN that the location immediately made emergency ballots available so that voters could continue to cast their ballots.
[….continues…]
and in Arizona according to Arizona central:
Election Day issues: Foreclosure, running out of ballots, technology failures
Despite a polling-place foreclosure, malfunctioning ballot printers and complaints of long voting lines, Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said Tuesday morning had been “a typical election day with typical, run-of-the-mill problems.”
He acknowledged that some of the county’s 503 polling places had “our typical very long lines,” but said the county’s elections operations had experienced only minor problems and blamed the delays on massive turnout.
“The question of long lines,” he added, “is really relative,” and that most American voters expected to wait between 20 and 30 minutes, anyway.
“Our systems are working very well in most places,” he said. “And I think we’re having a really good election so far today.”
[…continues…]
I guess I have my choice between fox and cnn for election night coverage. So it will be cnn. What is everyone else watching? Does PBS stream their programming?
How the Hell do you not have enough ballots on Election Day?! Especially first thing in the morning when voting has barley begun.
I feel very good about voting in WA. It is easy it’s secure andI have every confidence that my vote will be accurately counted and recorded.
Jace, seems to me someone should come up with a machine that can make multiple copies of printed papers. The machine could have a nickname, like Xerox or something.
Funny how these “broken voting machine, no paper ballot” issues arise in precincts in close races. I’m sure it’s just coincidental.
Pogo,
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you…..
Same way Ohio didn’t have enough voting machines in largely democratic and or black precincts in 2008 people stood on line literally all day
CNN for me, they’ve got the most bases covered.
Saw a great little sign taped in a vehicle window the other day. It read “Liberals retire too”.
Craig,
I think I will watch CNN as well. I like getting my news from the “enemy of the people”?
I typically jump from CNN to MSNBC & back (and to Trevor, Colbert & Seth as their monologue times approach). I agree with Poobah about CNN having the most broad ranging coverage. And knowing that I can watch the enemy of the people is a plus.
Craig,
What is the earliest we will have some indication about Florida governor’s race?
Coming in an hour: new thread
Don’t know, Jace. But I always look for Pinellas County (St. Petersburg) results for a hint.
Trying CNN: David Gergen looks like hell. Prefer Anderson Cooper less grey. Wolfe Blitzer looks the same, sans hair coloring. John King is old. It has been a few years since I watched CNN. I think this is one of the big differences between CNN and MSNBC when watching sans noise – MSNBC is younger on average than CNN.
Of course I may can all of this and watch Back to the Future II.
In early voting 41% of the registered voters in Pinellas County voted that’s a higher percentage voting then in Sonoma County last year
Well, considering the precinct where they ran out of paper ballots (paper?), I am not surprised. Voter suppression.
So far, so good. All ahead full.
I can’t watch CNN. The personalities are the same that were on there half a century ago. I gave it a try, Craig, but I’m back to MSNBC. Brian is on tonight–he’s smart.
Kumcho and I spent about 15-years in the St Pete area; we enjoyed it. I thought USF was a wonderful place to further my education–still do. I keep thinking about going back for my doctorate–then I come to my senses.
Against the grain. I prefer MSNBC to CNN, despite the fact that the former employs not-so-crypto-repubs tweetybird and upchuck. I like Maddow because she goes over everything several times in different ways, making sure that even the most politically innocent can understand the often complex connections between characters and times, places and deeds.
Also, I hate hearing 8 people trying to shriek over each other simultaneously. CNN has a lot of that.
As to fakkks news, if it were printed on paper at least people would be able to cover the bottom of the birdcage.
Yep, think I’ll watch Brian Williams because he was always funny on Letterman and Imus.
Keeping fingers crossed for a Blue Tsunami, a Bluenami. I predicted a flip of the House AND the Senate last winter, and you all know that I love being right. Puhleeeeaze, let me be right this time.