The 2018 Midterms Game Day Thread of Angst, Worry, (and maybe some hope?)

Another parcel of counted votes in Arizona puts Sinema up 29,500.

No surprise really, but AP calls this one:

McSally claims that the election day dropoffs break heavily for her. I’m not sure why she expects this, but the math is getting rough

This is pretty much Stacey Abrams last gasp.

I don’t think it is a last gasp to insist that all legit ballots be counted. Sad that it requires a lawsuit to follow what should be standard process.

Please do NOT read intent into my words that isn’t there.

It’s a “last gasp” in that there are very few votes that remain to be counted, and she will need an outsized percentage of them to force a run-off election.

Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you. But I do suspect there are numerous outlets that do view it that way. Which is a shame.

The math there is very difficult. The great majority of those provisionals would need to be accepted and counted by hand and break for Abrams.

And Tuesday is the deadline in Georgia to submit county vote counts, barring a judge pushing it back.

Sinema’s lead grew by another thousand votes. If the trend continues, two things may happen:

  1. Sinema wins by 2% or a little more, and
  2. Steve Gaynor, the voter-suppressing candidate for Secretary of State in AZ who was projected to win on Tuesday…will lose. He’s only up by 1,600 votes right now.

A lot depends on how these supposed firewall votes for McSally come in today

May her firewall hold as well as Hillary’s did.

35k more votes in Maricopa. Sinema gains 2.2k votes. The firewall not materializing. Dems will pickup this Senate seat. I expect a few MSM sources to call it tonight, but with a painful rate of 35k ballots a day, it still might be a couple days

Yeah, McSally and supporters keep talking about how any time now, there’s going to be a big ballot drop that favors her. We’ve heard it for three days now. Every time that reporting happens, Sinema gains on her.

And now untallied votes in Sinema’s strongest area, Pima County, loom as an insurmountable cliff. As has been said for a while now, this is over. Sinema up 32,000 now.

Also, Republican Steve Gaynor now trailing in the AZ SoS race there. That could be hugely important with another Senate race coming in 2020. Other implications too.

That’s our first official-ish call. Too bad Dave’s not working the desk at NBC tonight. :)

If you had told me that the Dems we’re going to make the House gains they did, and win Montana, Arizona and Nevada, I would have been estatic. Florida is the only blemish on a demolishing given by the Dems

The +2 projection at 538 includes this?

+2 is the GOP’s best case, if AZ goes Sinema, though it’s also likely to be what happens: they have 51 now +FL +MS once the runoff happens. Not impossible for Dems to pick up one of those two, but not probable.

Ok, so AZ doesn’t change that projection then, thanks.

If AZ (somehow) went McSally at this point, though, wouldn’t that make the R’s +3? I’ve been trying to puzzle this out since 538 posted that article, how is +2 their “best case?”