Another good election night resource is a guide published yesterday by The American Prospect. Among its virtues is a section on ballot initiatives written by Dana Goldstein.
As Dana notes, there are two ballot initiatives on the subject of abortion. One, in CO, is so extreme an abortion ban that even cultural conservatives are divided on it; it won’t pass. But another, in SD, is a revised version of the abortion ban statute overturned by a ballot intiative two years ago. It incorporates some of the exceptions whose absence was the centerpiece of the successful campaign to repeal the earlier ban. And polls show a very close vote is likely. It’s mainly symbolic until such time, if ever, that Roe v. Wade is overturned. But it could be a dress rehearsal for what we’ll see across the nation if Roe ever does succumb to a slightly more conservative Supreme Court.
Other ballot initiatives include two (in CO and NE) representing Ward Conerly’s endless franchise operation aimed at banning affirmative action programs. And there are even, believe it or not, some progressive ballot initiatives, including a clean energy mandate in MO, and an animal cruelty ban in CA.
But as always in recent years, the biggest ballot initiative topic is on gay marriage. In AZ, in a parallel development to the abortion ban in SD, conservatives lost a ballot initiative in 2006 because its gay marriage ban would have also denied domestic partnership rights for gay and straight couples alike. Today’s initiative sticks to gay marriage, and may well pass. And in FL, a ban on both gay marriage and domestic partnerships appears to have majority support, but may well fail since the state constitution requires a 60% vote.
The huge ballot initiative fight, of course, is over California’s Proposition 8, aimed at reversing the state supreme court decision that legalized gay marriage in that state. Richard Kim has a good summary of that fight in The Nation today. Here’s a sample:

Right now, polls show the measure as a toss-up. The money is dead even too. When all is said and done, both sides will have raised more than $35 million each–more than $70 million in all–making it the second most expensive race of 2008, second only to the presidency. A sizable minority of this money has come from out of state: from gay activists, celebrities and business leaders on the No side; and from the holy alliance of Mormons, Catholics (the Knights of Columbus) and Christian evangelicals (Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and Elsa Prince, mother of Blackwater founder Erik Prince) for the Yes team. As California goes, so goes the nation.

We’ll see about that, but in any event, if the presidential race is called early, and you get bored with congressional results, keep a sleepy eye on the Prop. 8 results.

Gee, I wonder why big cities in swing states seem to be especially prone to voting machine malfunctions. But the shortage of machines may be the most powerful instrument of vote suppression, as MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow explains it in this clip at Ezra Klein’s American Prospect post on the topic.

Despite record levels of early voting (roughly double what we saw in 2004), Election Day is already replete with accounts of long lines at voting places all across the country.
In Washington today, anecdotal reports of extremely heavy turnout in northern Virginia are everywhere. It should be noted, of course, that Virginia is not a particularly strong early voting state, since it requires the fiction of absentee voting. But since election administrators typically adjust their expectations based on early voting levels, it won’t be surprising if we see long lines even in states where something like a majority of registered voters have already cast ballots in person or by mail. And before long, we’ll be hearing plenty of stories about foul-ups at voting places, and eventually, some dirty GOP tricks. It would be nice if they don’t matter.

As David Paul Kuhn of Politico notes, 13 of 14 national polls released yesterday show Barack Obama winning over 50% of the popular vote (the exception being the exceptionally unreliable IBD/TIPP poll).
Lest we forget, it’s been thirty-two years since a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of the popular vote. I’m sure President Jimmy Carter will be happy to see this long streak since his 1976 victory broken.

With all of the day before the election polls in, Pollster.com’s Steve Lombardo is hanging tough with a 311 EV projection for Obama (270 wins), with 227 for McCain. Lombardo is also forecasting a 6 point popular vote edge for Obama, nationwide, close enough to the 7-point lead predicted by Nate Silver and the final Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of LV’s (GQR believes it could be +9 points by tomorrow). Lombardo’s forecast is less optimistic than Bowers’ 338 EV’s, but all of the data points to a comfortable Democratic margin of victory.
It’s hard to imagine the emotional roller coaster the Obama family is experiencing with the sad news today of the death of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was so important in shaping his character. But she died knowing she raised, not only a future president, but a leader who has given hope and inspiration to millions.

Note: This item is crossposted from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee site.

Heading into Election Day, Democrats control 27 state senate chambers and 30 state houses chambers. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans control 20 state senate chambers and 19 state house chambers. The state senates in Tennessee and Oklahoma are currently tied, and as always, Nebraska elects a unicameral, nonpartisan legislature.
In 2006 and 2007, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee helped Democrats pick up 12 new legislative majorities. This year, Democrats in many states will be focused on consolidating control of the chambers we currently hold.
That said, experts currently list 11 chambers as pure toss-ups — seven or which are held by Republicans and only four of which are held by Democrats. We believe November 4th presents an excellent opportunity to continue to expand upon our success.

Read more…

Over at Swing State Project, DavidNYC has posted an extremely useful map and chart of poll closing times correlated with key House, Senate and state legislative races.
It also shows how early we could see decisive results in the presidential race. Polls close at 7:00 EST in Indiana (6:00 in the eastern time zone portion of the state) and Virginia, and at 7:30 in Ohio and North Carolina. Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri close at 8:00 EST. If the networks call any of these states for Barack Obama, it will be very difficult for John McCain to win.

While most of the national attention has been focused on the presidential election, with some on the Democratic drive to make major gains in the Senate, a dramatic shift in the House looks increasingly likely as well. A rare second straight “wave” election for Democrats is now probable, and gains could possibly match or exceed the 31 seats picked up in 2006.
Four months ago I was on a panel with Cook Political Report House editor David Wasserman, and he was then projecting relatively modest Democratic gains in the neighborhood of 10 seats or so. As of his latest update, Wasserman’s now predicting Democratic gains between 24-30 seats. Just as interestingly, the Cookies’ analysis of battleground districts shows the extent to which the House map is being played out on Republican turf. Of 58 competitive races (defined as those that are leaning D or R, or are tossups), 42 are in Republican districts, and only 16 in Democratic districts. Even more astoundingly, 30 of 35 tossup races are in Republican-held districts.
As Democracy Corps has been showing all year in its polling of relatively vulnerable Republican districts, Democrats have maintained and then expanded an advantage in the top tier of 20 battleground seats, and are highly competitive in a second and third tier. Despite constant GOP efforts to identify House Democrats with the status quo, voters continue to perceive Republicans as the party resisting needed change.
What’s most shocking about the likely outcome of House races tomorrow is that as recently as four years ago, the conventional wisdom in Washington held that gerrymandering virtually guaranteed a Republican majority in the House until the next redistricting round after 2010. Even taking the low end of Wasserman’s projections for Democratic gains, we’d have Democrats holding a 259-175 margin in the House. That’s a hair under 60%. Amazing.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

Poll analyst Mark Blumenthal posted an early update this morning on 15 polls he has been tracking, and he cites a “very slight narrowing” of Obama’s lead in “key battleground states.” As of about 7:00 a.m., his forecast of 311 electoral votes for Obama vs. 142 for McCain, with 85 ev’s still a “toss-up” remained unchanged. Blumenthal will post another update this evening reflecting polls coming in today.