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51% of the vote is in in Maine, and "Yes" is up to 58%. It's likely we're going to see a new state with expanded Medicaid tonight.

With 89 seats counted, Democrats are up 11 seats in Virginia. There are 11 seats left. Democrats lead or tie in 7 of them.

Democrats are extremely likely to retake the House, recount or not.

Holy shit, this is a huge humiliation for the GOP. Not even gerrymandering saved them here.

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10 minutes ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

With 89 seats counted, Democrats are up 11 seats in Virginia. There are 11 seats left. Democrats lead or tie in 7 of them.

Democrats are extremely likely to retake the House, recount or not.

It's looking to be close. It just became +12.

I hope to see a Democrat VA House. Even if they don't get a majority, damn did the GOP agenda in that building suffer a major setback.

That, and Dems can do this now: https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/928078755674935297

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Up to 13 now, with 8 seats left.

We have 4 leaning Democrat and 4 leaning Republican. 2 of the leaning Republican are ties.

Democrats, if they can get one defecting Republican in the Senate, will be in a position to expand Medicaid in Virginia after tonight.

Wider implications of the Maine and Virginia votes: they currently have 8 Republican House Representatives between them. If they both have expanded Medicaid, that means bills like the AHCA (aka Ryancare), which passed 217-213, are unlikely to ever pass again. Republicans would have to explain why they are stealing money from constituents.

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Good to see socialists are realizing they'll have far better luck infiltrating the Democratic Party than trying a third party bid. No more Steins and Johnsons, thanks.

http://www.businessinsider.sg/democrats-virginia-new-jersey-sweep-elections-tidal-wave-2017-11/

The 7 remaining Virginia House seats are so close - in some cases by dozens of votes - they will not be called until provisional and absentee ballots are counted. This could take several days. Democrats have 47, while Republicans have 46.

We'll be getting results from Washington State soon. Their special Senate elections could possibly see Democrats take control of the chamber and regain unified control of not just Washington, but the whole West Coast.

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I don't even know what to say. I keep typing sentences and then deleting them. This is just... this is an amazing night. The Republican Party badly needs to reassess what's left of its mandate, recalculate its priorities and its whole approach to governing. Trumpism lost tonight. Is it a sign that a "Blue Wave" is coming? Perhaps. Is it a sign that the pendulum of power doth swing in both directions? Absolutely.

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So the only question now is whether the Virginia House of Delegates will be red, blue, or a tie. It's still very VERY close.

I don't think we'll know for sure for days.

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The Virginia HoD won't be called until the absentee ballots have been counted, and those tend to swing left, iirc?

 

Conservatives like Hannity are trying to play tonight off as a loss in states Trump didn't win, but I think that misses the point. Disregarding the implication that they truly don't care about states' governments despite their stated position of reducing the federal government and giving power back to the states, these were mainly candidates that championed conservative agendas and went full ahead on Trumpian populism as if it was a golden ticket now. And failed. Extravagantly. 

And there's no way these guys would not be championing Trumpian populism if Gillepsie and Republicans had routed the VA chambers they already had firm control over, so it's just blowing smoke in the end.

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I'm happy conservatives don't see reason to panic, honestly.

They're going to say "there's nothing to worry about, nothing at all!" right into the wee hours of November 6, 2018. And then they'll regret being as certain of their victory as Democrats were of theirs in 2016.

Re: provisional ballots. Yes, they very often trend left, because they tend to be made by people who don't have proper identification. That is, the groups that get targeted by GOP suppression efforts.

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Well, I hope you guys liked the bits of input I've been giving from Virginia as this whole election thing played out. There's still a lot of Dem work to do elsewhere, but I can be pleased that Virginia turned a lot more blue tonight. I cannot begin to convey the amount of relief I have right now.

Here's hoping that Virginia's House of Delegates turns blue too.

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Man, this is so surreal. America actually came together and did a smart progressive leap! I'm amazed and so happy for today! 

Man, this is so surreal. America actually came together and did a smart progressive leap! I'm amazed and so happy for today! 

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In the same year that Trump tried to ban Sudanse immigrants, a Sudanese-American won tonight! :D

 

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So the bad news is that the Virginia House won't be Dem controlled.

The good news is they could still win a tie.

Worst case scenerio, the GOP controls the VA House by one vote. It's the smallest majority you can have. And boy is it not what anyone expected would happen.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/928363353264803840

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Oh those wins last night were glorious! It definitely sends a signal of how things will go in 2018 if things continue to go that way.

People are saying that this was a referendum on Trump, and while that may be true, history shows that the incumbent’s party tends to lose in midterms.

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If Obama, a president who generally seems to be pretty popular outside Trump territory, could preside over historic midterm losses to the GOP, then an historically unpopular Republican POTUS should preside over something resembling a blue wave. See also: 2006. This is only compounded by the fact that Trump's core constituency, the white working class, isn't all that good at turning out for midterms.

 

 

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The good news is that with Republican majorities of only 2 votes in each chamber, that just means Democrats can shop around. There has to be at least one GOP Senator and two GOP delegates who will be willing to defect. Particularly given the whooping that happened here. A lot of them only barely held on. With a fresh Governor eager to expand Medicaid and an unpopular national GOP, someone has to yield here. Even easier if Dems force a tie in the House, meaning only 1 in each chamber is necessary.

It should be remembered Virginia is the state where the Governor began pardoning ex-felons one after the other. It likely had a huge impact on last night's races.

McAuliffe and Northam would do good to spend every spare moment they have pardoning more and more ex-felons. That would be enough to tilt the balance next time around.

There's also a move with precedent: Northam could find moderate Republicans to appoint to government positions. That would open their seats and give the Dems shots at an early majority. Northam has a history of working with Republicans that will help him here. Prior Governors have appointed opposition to government posts to give their party majorities.

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Given Virigina's electoral map it's a good thing the HoD is still slightly in Repub control. Equivalent representation still has to account for something, and the current entire west side of Virgina could be seen as being played if the HoD got a blue majority.

 

The last thing Virginia Democrats need is accusations of doing the same things the conservatives did as far as consolidating power goes.

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On the other hand, if Democrats get more votes, they should get the most seats.

The thing with districts is they're drawn "roughly equal" in many states. This often means a margin of error of about 5% or so.

In the case of New York State, this is used to gerrymander the Senate towards the GOP and the Assembly towards the Democrats by making upstate get less seats in the House but more seats in the Senate.

I have no doubt Virginia has the same deal. If Democrats got more total votes in the House of Delegates, the GOP deserve to lose their majority, pure and simple.

Then there's the simple fact counties aren't a good indicator of equivalent representation. That's why it's obnoxious when Trump supporters post that map of all the red counties. Not only are most of those counties red every year, practically no one lives in most of them.

Single member constituencies are honestly one of the worst inventions ever created. Particularly when the legislature is nothing but them. It prevents truly representative democracy.

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55 minutes ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

Then there's the simple fact counties aren't a good indicator of equivalent representation. That's why it's obnoxious when Trump supporters post that map of all the red counties. Not only are most of those counties red every year, practically no one lives in most of them.

Single member constituencies are honestly one of the worst inventions ever created. Particularly when the legislature is nothing but them. It prevents truly representative democracy.

Actually when Obama won, there was a much larger coverage of blue counties. Also Alaska is the opposite when it comes to low population equals red counties. In Alaska the low population counties or boroughs as they call them, are blue while the big population counties are red.

Also good job Virginia on bringing change.

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1 minute ago, TailsTellsTales said:

Actually when Obama won, there was a much larger coverage of blue counties.

I said "most."

About 200 counties flipped from Obama to Trump. But Trump supporters don't share a map of those. They share the thousands of counties that vote red pretty much every election. It doesn't indicate anything in terms of electoral victory, nor in terms of mandate; few people live in those places.

And yes, Alaska is a weird state. It votes Republican federally but has a strong libertarian and independent movement, never mind the fact it engages in socialism by paying people to live there.

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6 minutes ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

I said "most."

About 200 counties flipped from Obama to Trump. But Trump supporters don't share a map of those. They share the thousands of counties that vote red pretty much every election. It doesn't indicate anything in terms of electoral victory, nor in terms of mandate; few people live in those places.

And yes, Alaska is a weird state. It votes Republican federally but has a strong libertarian and independent movement, never mind the fact it engages in socialism by paying people to live there.

Yeah that map would be very misleading since all those counties population combined would not total much. I mean yeah there are large population counties that go red too but generally speaking they are very low population. Alaska swung the most to Obama in 2012 since Sarah Palin was not on the ballot.

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