Jump to content

~Official 2020 Congressional and State Races Thread~


Recommended Posts

This is NOT as comprehensive as I'd like right now, but between job, family stuff, and just a ton of video games (can't get around that :p), this is what I have so far.

 

This is the current composition of each state's governor, legislature, House representatives and Senators. 

 

pmBYdtz.png

 

dIkDH4g.png

 

LCN28Js.png

 

 

House composition:

 

Democrats: 233

Republicans: 197

Libertarians: 1

 

To get a majority, you need 218 seats.

 

RHSBILf.png

 

Dark blue/red are open Democratic and Republican seats. The light colors are seats against incumbents. Gray means a special election still need to take place.

 

 

Senate composition:

 

Democrats: 45

Republicans: 53

 

A majority needs either 51, or 50 plus the vice president. For Democrats to win the majority, they either need 50 seats total and the presidency, or 51 seats if Trump wins reelection. Republicans are defending 23 seats, while the Democrats are defending 12. Democrats have more room to expand their seats, which is the opposite of 2018 when they played mostly defense and had fewer pickup opportunities.

 

ZdULRZG.png

 

Dark red means the incumbent is retiring. Dark blue means the Democrat is. Light colors represent races against incumbents. The rectangle in Georgia represents a special election as both Republicans are defending their seats. Perdue is defending his after winning in 2014, while the special election is a seat that was vacated in 2019 by former Senator Isakson.

 

Here are some of the races getting national attention (challenger vs incumbent):

 

Alabama: Former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville wins his primary against former Alabama Senator and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He'll face Democrat Doug Jones in a race that Jones is an underdog despite being an incumbent. In fact, he's the only Democratic incumbent who is currently an underdog in 2020.

 

LxulFPi.png?1 vs uAaJEie.png

 

Arizona: Gun control activist and former astronaut Mark Kelly is running unopposed in his primary and is the likely nominee to face Republican incumbent Martha McSally. Mark Kelly has led McSally by large margins as of this post (7/16).

 

nHOfGYD.png?1 vs rEuxpjW.png

 

Colorado: Former Democratic governor John Hickenlooper wins his primary and faces Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

 

pjve2A2.png?1 vs 3m8a379.png

 

Georgia (general election): Along with a special election for the other Senate seat, Georgia is holding an election for this one as well. Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist and media executive, is the Democratic nominee to face Republican Senator David Perdue (first cousin to former Georgia governor and Democrat-turned-Republican Sonny Perdue). Ossoff campaigned and lost in an unusually expensive and extremely competitive and close special election for a Georgia House seat in 2017. Despite being a safe seat for Republicans in recent history (it was in Republican hands, many times unopposed, since at least 2000, and easily voted Republican in 2016), the New York Times reported that in that race, Ossoff drove the strongest Democratic turnout in an off-year election in at least a decade. Side note: although Ossoff lost the race to Republican Karen Handel, Democrat Lucy McBath was able to defeat her in 2018.

 

gcNdJ7Z.png?1 vs PPLarYN.png?1

 

Georgia Special Election: This election is to serve the remaining time of former Senator Isakson, who stepped down due to health issues. The top two vote-getters, assuming the likely event that nobody wins a majority of the vote, will go to a runoff. Democrat Raphael Warnock will nearly 100% be the Democrat who goes to the runoff. The two Republicans running are Representative Collins and current Senator Kelly Loeffler, who is mired in controversy involving insider trading.

 

nd9AwDh.png?2 vsd8SI5FT.png?1vsL6NIxD7.png?1

 

Iowa: Farmer and businesswoman Theresa Greenfield won her primary to face incumbent Republican Senator Joni Ernst.

 

mub1Uko.jpg?1 vs IuHnwlq.png?1

 

Kentucky: Former marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath won a competitive Democratic primary race to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell's last competitive election was in 2008, a heavily Democratic year.

 

TxuAIjW.png?1 vs YXKjFsW.png?1

 

Maine: Democrat and Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon wins her primary to challenge incumbent SenatoSusan Collins. Susan Collins' approval ratings have been hurt after her vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which is resulting in polls showing a tossup despite easily winning every election for Senate except for her first one in 1996.

 

IzQrokQ.png?2 vs VFu8DJP.png

 

Montana: Current Democratic governor and former Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock easily won his primary. He faces incumbent Senator Steve Daines in the battle for Steven Supremacy.

 

mROs7ii.png?1 vs U62XZjP.png?1

 

North Carolina: Current Republican Senator Thom Tillis beat former Democratic Senator Kay Hagan in a close race in 2014, a big Republican year. He's a vulnerable incumbent in a state that is still Republican-leaning nationally but has been more competitive since 2008, plus has a Democratic governor who won in 2016. He faces Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham, a former member of the North Carolina State Senate and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

 

pPQCNJP.png?1 vs pdyab6R.png?1

 

South Carolina: Former Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Jaime Harrison, faced on primary opposition. He wants to unseat Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham. He's raised $20 million, not much less than Graham's $22 million. Harrison is casting Graham as an out-of-touch Washington insider who has ignored South Carolina's problems and instead played politics for years.

 

GCjAycx.png?1 vs bRlEw0p.png?1

 

Texas: Democrat MJ Hegar wins her primary to run against Republican Senator John Cornyn

 

ZbrHWPr.png?1 vs PUfGf9m.png?1

 

 

Gubernatorial Races

 

Democrats currently control 24 governors' mansions to Republicans' 26. Unlike 2018, only a handful of gubernatorial elections are being held this year, 4 for Democrats and 7 for Republicans.

 

YcwZUZt.png

 

 

Legislative elections

 

This is the current composition of party power in the states. Blue means Democrats control the governor's mansion and the state legislation. Red means Republicans control all three. Gold(?) means divided government. And gray means the unicameral legislature is non-partisan (in theory).

 

zCwnebw.png

 

This is the map with just trifectas:

 

OlhMwp2.png?1

 

And this is how it looked prior to the 2018 elections:

 

nTC7DgT.png?1

 

And 2016:

 

ZHLUdPF.png?1

 

In 2016, Democrats broke up Republican control of North Carolina and Nevada. Republicans took full control of New Hampshire, Missouri, Iowa, and Kentucky.

 

In 2017, Democrats took control of Washington State and New Jersey's government and significantly increased their clout in Virginia's legislature. 

 

In 2018, Democrats gained total party control in Maine, Nevada, New York, New Mexico, Colorado, and Illinois. They broke Republican trifectas in Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.

 

In 2019, Democrats broke Republicans' trifecta in Kentucky and took full control over all levels of Virginia's state government.

 

State races are even more important this year as we have the census. All state and House seats will be redistricted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today, dozens of primaries are taking place. 

 

The two most closely watched ones are in Kentucky and New York.

 

Here is 538's summary of Kentucky's Democratic Senate primary:

 

Quote

The highest contested office on the ballot today is the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in the Bluegrass State. For months, Amy McGrath, a former Marine who gained national attention for her strong but unsuccessful House run in 2018, seemed like a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination to take on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Helped by her own national following, an intense Democratic desire to defeat McConnell and the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, McGrath raised massive sums of money for the race — $41.1 million as of June 3, even more than McConnell. But locally, there were some signs of resistance to McGrath. A few Democrats in Kentucky’s state legislature have backed state Rep. Charles Booker, while some progressive activists support farmer and former Marine Mike Broihier.

 

Recently, however, Booker — who would be Kentucky’s first Black senator — has gained attention for speaking out about racial inequality at local protests against police violence, which have carried special meaning in Louisville as the hometown of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman whom police shot and killed at her home in March. Booker’s leadership impressed the state’s two biggest newspapers, which endorsed him, and even galvanized progressives nationally: Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed Booker in the final weeks of the race. Now, polls show a tight race between McGrath and Booker, and it’s not clear which candidate will come out ahead. Either way, though, McConnell will remain a heavy favorite in November; he leads both McGrath and Booker by double digits in hypothetical matchups.

 

And New York's Congressional primary in the Bronx:

 

Quote

The Empire State has 10 House races we’re watching, including eight matchups between establishment and insurgent candidates and five incumbents who could theoretically lose their safe seats.

 

The most direct clash between the two wings of the party is in the 16th District, where 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel is being challenged by former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman. Unlike some other Democrats who have faced progressive primary challenges this year, Engel is pretty liberal (according to DW-Nominate, he’s more liberal than 64 percent of the current House Democratic Caucus), and he has the support of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. However, Engel has been criticized for neglecting his district; he rode out the first two months of the pandemic in Washington, D.C., even as his Bronx- and Westchester County-based district became a coronavirus hotspot, and a hot mic caught him pleading to speak at a press conference about the anti-police-violence protests by saying, “if I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”
 

That gaffe, plus another progressive challenger dropping out and endorsing Bowman, gave Bowman momentum; the Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party had been backing Bowman for months, but he also now has the support of Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and The New York Times editorial board. Bowman’s campaign says it also raised more than $600,000 from June 1-12, although Engel had spent more and had more cash on hand as of June 3. And a Data for Progress poll conducted for Bowman gave the challenger a surprisingly wide 10-point lead, although Engel’s campaign claims that its internal polls show Engel ahead.

 

A few of New York City’s other incumbents also face notable challenges, though a lack of polling means it’s hard to gauge how serious they are.

 

538 has a rundown of many other races, including this one where a Democrat who is considering voting for Trump could win the primary in a safe blue seat for the general:

 

Quote

In two other dark-blue open seats, many liberals are fighting to prevent the nomination from going to someone who might actually vote with Republicans. In the South Bronx 15th District, New York City Council Member Rubén Díaz, Sr., is a conservative Democrat who opposes abortion, has claimed that city government is “controlled by the homosexual community” and is openly considering a vote for Trump this fall. But as the patriarch of a Bronx political dynasty — he represented the area in the state Senate for 15 years, and his son is now borough president — Díaz has enough of a base to be a front-runner in the fractured, 12-candidate field.

 

Liberals are split on their preferred alternative: Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders endorsed affordable-housing activist Samelys López, while the Black political establishment has rallied around Assemblyman Michael Blake. And symbolic of Democrats’ indecision, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is backing New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres, but the caucus’s chair, Rep. Joaquin Castro, has endorsed former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Torres, the Bronx’s first openly LGBT elected official, may be the candidate best positioned to beat Díaz. As of June 3, he had spent the most money in the race, at $856,531 (although Blake was not far behind at $705,648). And a Data for Progress poll in May found Díaz with 22 percent, Torres with 20 percent and no other candidate above 6 percent. However, 34 percent of likely voters were still undecided.

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

The rundown in Kentucky on McGrath omits that she has 0, count it 0, support from local democratic politicians lol, and most of her fundraising has been from out of state

 

Indeed, Kentucky Democrats are endorsing Booker.

 

Quote

Still, he has some in-state boosters that were already helping his bid, including the state’s two largest newspapers, Matt Jones, a popular sports radio host, and nearly two-dozen of his colleagues in the state legislature. This week, he’s added endorsements from Alison Lundergan Grimes — who challenged McConnell in 2014 — and Greg Stumbo, a longtime Kentucky Democratic figure who has served as state attorney general and state House speaker.

 

McGrath, a Marine veteran who lost a House bid in 2018, which was her first run for office, does not have substantial in-state endorsements from legislators or others in the political class. More than a dozen local and national unions have backed her campaign, and she has endorsements from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, VoteVets, the gun control group Giffords, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's group Off the Sidelines and a handful of others. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed confidence in McGrath earlier this week, and she remains the frontrunner in the race

 

Pretty sure you posted about Grimes in the other thread. That one was surprising just because she is much more establishment and was the establishment pick in 2014 to face McConnell.

 

Kentucky has shown that moderate Democrats can do well there in state races, and this was even before their gubernatorial win last year. McGrath, though, is polling around the same against McConnell as Booker, and Booker isn't as well-known. I haven't watched their debate, only this clip from his ad:

 

 

You know, you could make the case that being at a protest right now isn't a good idea (side note: really loved seeing the protesters in masks), but I feel like the way she handled the question -- sounded like she didn't know how to answer until the end, like she found a good reason later -- doesn't inspire confidence against someone seasoned like McConnell despite him being a piece of shit. On the other hand, she was quite competitive in a red seat in 2018.

 

Obviously I hope she wins the general if nominated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AOC on her win:

 

 

"When I won in 2018, many dismissed our victory as a “fluke.”

 

Our win was treated as an aberration, or bc my opponent “didn’t try.”

 

So from the start, tonight’s race was important to me.

 

Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It‘s a mandate."

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...