The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Note: Please see our Uncalled Races and Election Recaps sections below for a summary of all of Tuesday's action.
● Atlanta, GA Mayor: City Council President Felicia Moore took a decisive first place in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary to lead the loyally blue city of Atlanta, but, to the surprise of many political observers, it appears that her rival in the Nov. 30 runoff won't be former Mayor Kasim Reed after all. Moore is out in front with 41% of the vote with 96,000 votes counted, while City Councilman Andre Dickens holds a 23.0-22.4 lead over Reed—a margin of just over 600 votes—for the second spot in the runoff.
The math looks daunting for Reed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein noted on Wednesday that there were only 970 uncounted provisional ballots cast in the two counties Atlanta's based in (Fulton and DeKalb), and some were from voters outside city limits. Bluestein adds that those ballots could conceivably narrow Reed's deficit enough to place him within the 0.5% margin needed for a recount, but he'd need to overwhelmingly win them to actually outpace Dickens.
The election night results rolled in as the Atlanta Braves were winning their first World Series since 1995, and even the three leading candidates' supporters were distracted at their parties. Bluestein writes that at one point, a "deafening roar" convinced some of Reed's backers that he had outpaced Dickens, but in fact "the crowd was cheering a Freddie Freeman home run."
Campaign Action
However, at least a few Reed supporters seem to have since decided that, unlike the Braves, he won't be emerging with the win. While the AP has not called the second runoff berth and Reed has yet to concede, Bluestein tweets that some of the former mayor's allies admit that his comeback has failed.
Moore's wide lead in the first round makes her the favorite to win the contest to succeed Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who shocked Atlanta in May when she announced she wouldn't seek a second term, but she's likely to square off against a very different opponent than she may have expected to. Reed, who spent years as a rising star in Georgia Democratic politics, easily won a second term in 2013, and he'd amassed a huge war chest for his campaign to retake the post he was termed-out of in 2017.
The former mayor, though, spent the campaign dealing with questions about a federal corruption probe that resulted in the convictions of three former officials in his administration and the indictment of others. The candidate's attorneys said weeks before Election Day that federal prosecutors told them their client was no longer a target of their investigations, but that did nothing to deter Moore and Dickens from arguing that Reed still bore responsibility for what happened under his watch.
Reed was again at the center of headlines in late October when Richard Rose, the head of the local NAACP, released what he called "a rare repudiation" blasting Reed's eight years in office. Rose argued that well-off residents and well-connected interests benefited from policies that brought affordable housing "to a screeching halt." He further took Reed to task for accepting the backing of the city's police union.
Rose apologized days later after the national NAACP leadership publicly told him that he could face removal for violating the organization's rules against making a "public partisan statement," though he didn't actually back down from his criticism of Reed. Instead, Rose said only that he'd erred when he decided "to issue the repudiation of Kasim Reed on NAACP letterhead, in my position as president of the NAACP Atlanta Branch."
Dickens, for his part, looked like an underdog going into Election Day. Most polls showed Bottoms and Reed advancing, while just a lone late survey showed the city councilman beating out Reed for second.
Dickens may have benefited from the support of former Mayor Shirley Franklin, whose 2001 victory made her the first Black woman to lead a major Southern city. Franklin had once been allied with Reed, who was even her campaign manager during that history-making bid 20 years ago, and she backed him in the hotly competitive 2009 race to succeed her. The two have since had a very public falling out, though, and Franklin in June made news when she responded to Reed's comeback launch by saying she was "embarrassed by his lack of ethical leadership." Franklin went on to endorse Dickens and even starred in a commercial for him.
Bottoms, who is the second woman to ever lead Atlanta, said Wednesday she would be endorsing a candidate in the runoff herself, though she didn't indicate which one. She may not be inclined to support Moore, however, as the city council president launched a campaign to unseat her months before the incumbent announced her retirement. Dickens, by contrast, didn't enter the race until Bottoms had already left it.
● GA Redistricting: GOP leaders in Georgia's Republican-run legislature have unveiled draft maps for both chambers that would lock in wide majorities for their party despite the fast-moving demographic and political trends that led to Joe Biden's victory in the state last year. Lawmakers convened for a special legislative session on Wednesday to take up these plans, as well as a congressional proposal that Republicans released in September.
● NC Redistricting: North Carolina's Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps are making their way through both chambers and could become law this week. On party-line votes, the Senate passed the congressional plan on Tuesday and a map for its own districts on Wednesday. The House, meanwhile, passed a map for itself on Tuesday, again on a party-line vote. Once the maps pass both chambers, they'll immediately become law, because the state constitution explicitly removes the governor from the redistricting process.
● OH Redistricting: Republicans in Ohio's Senate and House have each released a draft congressional map, both equally extreme. The House version would likely send 13 Republicans and just two Democrats to Congress, while the Senate plan would do the same, albeit with districts configured differently.
Republicans have also made proper assessment of these proposals especially difficult: The Senate only released a tiny image of its map and none of the normal data files that would make any sort of detailed analysis possible. The House did little better, providing a data file that would normally be in spreadsheet format as a 5,882-page PDF instead. Fortunately we were able to convert the House's PDF and obtain proper data files for the Senate.
● CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, who made a name for herself as one of the Colorado GOP's most extreme members during her eight years in the state House, just became the first notable Republican to enter the race for the state's new 8th Congressional District, a swingy seat in the Denver suburbs. A somewhat less incendiary Republican, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, also says she's considering a bid and last month promised an announcement "soon" after the state Supreme Court gave its approval to Colorado's new districts (it did so earlier this week).
● MI-03: Conservative commentator John Gibbs, whose nomination to head the Office of Personnel Management under Donald Trump failed because of his conspiratorial ravings, has filed paperwork ahead of a possible primary challenge to Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. Among other things, Gibbs repeatedly amplified the batshit conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, had partaken in some sort of satanic ritual, based on personal emails stolen by Russian hackers. Trump named Gibbs to run the OPM in 2020, but the Senate never acted on the nomination.
Meijer already faces intra-party opposition from Army National Guard veteran Tom Norton, who ran for the GOP nomination last year, and so-called "MAGA bride" Audra Johnson (quite the cast of characters, huh?). It takes only a simple plurality to win a primary in Michigan, so Meijer might benefit from a split field.
● OH-01: Former healthcare executive Kate Schroder, who was the Democrats' nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot last year, has announced that she won't seek a rematch. Schroder ran a competitive campaign but lost to Chabot 52-45 in Ohio's badly gerrymandered 1st District, which voted for Donald Trump 51-48. Republicans are likely to try to shore up Chabot further in redistricting (see our separate OH Redistricting item above).
● TX-08: Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, who hadn't ruled out a bid for Texas' open 8th Congressional District, has said he'll seek re-election to the legislature instead.
● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's key legislative special elections. For a full rundown of Tuesday's action, along with a look at other special elections from earlier this cycle, check out our big board here.
ME-HD-86: Democrat Raegan LaRochelle defeated Republican James Orr 56-44 to flip this seat for Team Blue. Democrats now control this chamber 80-65 with five independent/third party members and one other seat vacant.
MI-SD-28: Republican Mark Huizenga defeated Democrat Keith Courtade 61-37 to hold this seat for his party. This chamber is now at full strength with Republicans in control 22-16.
TX-HD-118: Republican John Lujan defeated Democrat Frank Ramirez 51-49 to flip this seat for Team Red. This was the runoff from a September all-party primary where Lujan led Ramirez 42-20 and the GOP candidates narrowly outpaced the Democratic candidates 50.3-49.7.
This is a heavily Hispanic district, a group that Democrats have recently lost some ground with in Texas. However, there hadn't previously been many signs of slippage for Democrats in this particular district, as Joe Biden won it 56-42 last year, similar to Hillary Clinton's 56-40 win in 2016, and former Rep. Leo Pacheco easily carried it 57-40 last year as well.
Republicans now control this chamber 84-66 with no other seats vacant.
Items in this section and the one following it are organized alphabetically by state.
● FL-20: It's going to be some time before we know who has won the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings in this safely blue South Florida seat. With 49,000 ballots counted, Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness holds a 9 vote lead—a margin of 23.76-23.74—over businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who badly lost primary challenges to Hastings in both 2018 and 2020. Another member of the Broward County Commission, Barbara Sharief, is in third with 18%.
Florida requires an automatic machine recount in races where the margin between the top two candidates is within 0.5%, and this contest definitely qualifies. The vote totals could also shift before the recount takes place: Politico's Gary Fineout wrote Wednesday that military and overseas ballots could be received for another 10 days, while voters had two days to fix any signature issues that caused their mail-in ballots to be rejected.
The eventual Democratic nominee will have no trouble in the Jan. 11 special election, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled to take place nine months after Hastings' death, effectively doubling the length the seat will remain vacant compared to other recent Florida specials.
● NJ Legislature: There's no question that Democrats will keep control of both the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly, where they went into Election Day with majorities of 25-15 and 52-28, respectively, but the GOP has netted seats in both chambers. And in a true surprise, state Senate President Steve Sweeney trails Republican Edward Durr, a truck driver who spent all of $153 on his campaign, 52-48 with 63,000 votes counted.
Donald Trump carried the 3rd Legislative District in South Jersey 50-48 last year, which made Sweeney the one Democrat to represent Trump turf in the upper chamber. But Republicans, as evidenced by Durr's tiny expenditures, had little confidence in beating him until the results began to roll in on Tuesday. Durr himself unsuccessfully ran as an independent for the Assembly in 2017 (in New Jersey, Senate and Assembly districts are coterminous) before trying again as a Republican two years later.
However, the likely fall of the conservative Sweeney, who has run the Senate since early 2010, may leave plenty of powerful Democrats less than upset. In 2017, the last time he was on the ballot, the New Jersey Education Association took the unusual step of backing his Republican opponent, though that didn't stop Sweeney from winning a very expensive campaign 59-41.
The Senate president has often come into conflict with Gov. Phil Murphy, and he didn't rule out launching a primary campaign against the governor when asked back in 2019. Politico adds that Sweeney "was until recently talked up in Democratic circles as a likely 2025 candidate for governor." Barring a big vote shift back in his direction, that chatter probably won't pick up again anytime soon.
● Nassau County, NY Executive: With 257,000 votes tabulated, Republican Bruce Blakeman holds a 52-48 lead, a margin of close to 12,000 ballots, over Democratic incumbent Laura Curran in the race to lead this large Long Island county. Curran said early Wednesday that she wasn't conceding, declaring, "There are many thousands of absentee ballots that still must be counted, with more coming in." Newsday reports that the Nassau Board of Elections had received close to 20,000 uncounted absentees as of Monday.
● VA State House: Republicans, as of Wednesday evening, lead in 52 of the 100 seats in the Virginia state House, which Democrats had held with a 55-45 majority going into the election. The Virginia Public Access Project reports that there are three contests where the margin between the candidates is less than 1%: HD-21, where Democratic incumbent Kelly Fowler holds a 234-vote edge, and HD-85 and HD-91, where Republicans Karen Greenhalgh and A.C. Cordoza have advantages of 202 and 272 votes, respectively.
VPAP adds that on Friday, local election officials will tally any provisional votes as well as ballots received through noon Friday that were postmarked by Election Day; VPAP continues that "it's hard to say how many mail ballots might come in by Friday."
● Hialeah, FL Mayor: Steve Bovo, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner who lost last year's general election for county mayor, decisively beat his fellow Republican, ex-City Council President Isis Garcia-Martinez, 59-22 in the race to lead this conservative Miami-area community. Bovo had the backing of Donald Trump and other Florida Republican bigwigs like Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
● St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch defeated Republican City Councilman Robert Blackmon 60-40 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed his fellow Democrat, termed-out Mayor Rick Kriseman. Welch will be the first African American to lead a city that was run by GOP mayors for decades until Kriseman's 2013 win.
● Boston, MA Mayor: City Councilor Michelle Wu defeated her more moderate colleague, Annissa Essaibi George, 64-36 in this officially nonpartisan race in a campaign that made history in one of America's oldest cities.
Either of these candidates, who each identify as Democrats, would have been both the first woman and person of color elected to this post; acting Mayor Kim Janey became the first woman of color to hold this office when she ascended to the job in March, but she lost the September nonpartisan primary to keep it. The Chicago-raised Wu also marks the first time in over a century that Boston will be led by a mayor born outside the city.
● Minneapolis, MN Mayor: City election authorities announced Wednesday that Mayor Jacob Frey won a second term after a second and final round of ranked-choice tabulations.
Frey led activist Sheila Nezhad 43-21 among voter's first-choice preferences, while a third Democrat, former state Rep. Kate Knuth, was in third with 18%. Enough of the other 16 candidates' supporters listed Knuth as their second and third choice for her to edge out Nezhad and reach the second round, but Frey ultimately defeated her 56-44. We also learned Wednesday that, for the first time in Minneapolis history, people of color will hold a majority of the 13 seats on the City Council.
● Minneapolis, MN Ballot: Minneapolis voters approved Question 1, which will greatly strengthen the mayor's executive powers by, among other things, "consolidating administrative authority over all operating departments," by a 52-48 margin. At the same time, though, they rejected the far more high-profile Question 2, which would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety and shifted more control of the department to the City Council, 56-44.
● Manchester, NH Mayor: Democratic incumbent Joyce Craig won a third two-year term as mayor of this swing state's largest city by defeating former Republican state Rep. Victoria Sullivan 53-47 in the nonpartisan general election. Back in 2019, Craig beat Sullivan by a larger 57-43 spread.
● NJ-Gov: The Associated Press has called this contest for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli after a shockingly tight race. Counties can receive ballots through Nov. 8 as long as they were postmarked by Election Day so we won't know the final margin for some time, but Murphy, who began Wednesday narrowly trailing, leads 50.0-49.2 with 2.4 million votes counted.
● Albuquerque, NM Mayor: Democratic incumbent Tim Keller scored 56% of the vote in the nonpartisan race, which was above the majority he needed to avoid a runoff. Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, a self-described "strong fiscal conservative" who remains a nominal Democrat, was a distant second with 26%.
● NY Ballot: Three statewide election-related ballot measures have all lost by double digits. Proposal 1, which would reduce the threshold for lawmakers to approve a redistricting plan, failed by a 56-44 margin. It's a similar story for Proposals 3 and 4, which would respectively allow the legislature to create a same-day voter registration law and remove the excuse requirement to vote absentee. Proposal 3 lost 58-42, while Proposal 4 lost 56-44. It’s unclear how many absentee ballots, which are likely heavily Democratic, remain left to count and could thus narrow the margins, but the Associated Press already called all three contests.
● Buffalo, NY Mayor: Mayor Byron Brown looks to have won a fifth term as a write-in candidate months after losing the June Democratic primary to India Walton, an outcome that Walton acknowledged on Wednesday was likely. Walton, who was the only candidate on the general election ballot, secured just 41% of the vote, while a 59% majority selected a write-in option. Election officials won't actually start to examine the write-in votes until Nov. 17, but there's little question that the vast majority of them were cast for Brown in a race without any other serious write-in candidates.
Walton herself said on election night that she wasn't conceding because it wasn't clear whom the write-ins were going to, but she admitted the next day that "it seems unlikely that we will end up with enough votes to inaugurate a Walton administration in January." Brown's apparent victory makes him, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the rare incumbents to win a write-in campaign after losing a primary.
● Nassau County, NY District Attorney: Republican prosecutor Anne Donnelly flipped this post 60-40 by defeating Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky in a special election to succeed Democrat Madeline Singas, who resigned in June to join the state's highest judicial body, the Court of Appeals.
Donnelly, who campaigned almost exclusively on her opposition to ending cash bail and other criminal justice reforms, is the first Republican to hold the D.A.'s office since Denis Dillon lost to now-Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice in 2005; she will be up for a full four-year term in 2023.
● Staten Island, NY Borough President: Former Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican who retired from Congress after the public learned about his secret second family in 2008, completed his comeback by defeating Democrat Mark Murphy 62-30. Fossella's victory extends GOP control of an office they've held since the 1989 elections.
● Suffolk County, NY District Attorney: Despite being badly outspent, Republican prosecutor Ray Tierney unseated first-term Democratic incumbent Timothy Sini 57-43. Tierney, like his counterpart in neighboring Nassau County, campaigned on his opposition to bail reform, which Sini also said he opposed.
Republicans also took control of the Suffolk County Legislature for the first time since the historic 2005 Democratic victory in this swingy Long Island community.
● Syracuse, NY Mayor: Independent Mayor Ben Walsh overwhelmingly won a second term in this very blue city by defeating Democratic nominee Khalid Bey, a longtime member of the Syracuse Common Council, 61-27.
● OH-11, OH-15: Ohio's two special House elections unfolded exactly as expected, with Democrat Shontel Brown easily dispensing with her Republican opponent 79-21 in the safely blue 11th District, while Republican lobbyist Mike Carey defeated Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo 58-42 in the solidly red 15th. According to Daily Kos Elections' calculations, the 11th went for Joe Biden 80-19 and the 15th voted for Donald Trump 56-42. Once Brown and Carey are sworn in, the only vacant seat in the House will be Florida's 20th.
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval defeated his fellow Democrat, City Councilman David Mann, 66-34 in the race to succeed termed-out Mayor John Cranley, an accomplishment that makes him the first Asian American to lead the Queen City. Pureval was the 2018 Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in the 1st Congressional District, while Mann lost his 1994 bid for re-election to Congress to none other than Chabot.
● Cleveland, OH Mayor: Nonprofit head Justin Bibb beat City Council President Kevin Kelley, a fellow Democrat who had the backing of retiring four-term incumbent Frank Jackson, 63-37. Bibb, who is 34, will be the second-youngest mayor in the city's history.
● PA Supreme Court: Republican Kevin Brobson defeated Democrat Maria McLaughlin 52-48 to hold an open seat on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court for the GOP. Democrats, however, still retain their 5-2 advantage on the bench, and barring unexpected vacancies, the soonest Republicans could retake the majority would be 2025.
● Bucks County, PA District Attorney & Sheriff: Republicans bounced back from their 2017 drubbing in this competitive suburban Philadelphia county by sweeping all of the so-called "row offices," the local name for the countywide offices other than the commissioner.
District Attorney Matt Weintraub, who was the one Republican row officer to prevail four years ago, turned back Democratic rival Antonetta Stancu 59-41. Fred Harran, the Republican who is Bensalem Township's director of public safety, retook the sheriff's post by scoring a 53-46 victory over Warrington Township Board of Supervisors member Mark Lomax, who unseated incumbent Milt Warrell in the May Democratic primary. Team Red also picked up lower-profile offices like prothonotary, a post that administers civil court documents.
● Erie County, PA Executive: Republican Brenton Davis won the race to succeed retiring Democratic incumbent Kathy Dahlkemper by defeating Democrat Tyler Titus 52-48 in this swingy northwest Pennsylvania county. Titus, who would have been the first trans county executive in American history, conceded Wednesday afternoon.
● King County, WA Executive: Incumbent Dow Constantine won a fourth term as head of Washington's largest county by defeating his fellow Democrat, state Sen. Joe Nguyen, 58-42.
● Seattle, WA Mayor: Former City Council President Bruce Harrell defeated his successor, Lorena González, 65-35 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed retiring Mayor Jenny Durkin in this very blue city. Harrell, who is the first Asian American elected to this post as well as Seattle's second Black mayor, was close to business interests, while most labor endorsements went to González.
● Where Are They Now?: Two former one-term congressmen were on Tuesday's ballot, but we so far only know the electoral fate of one.
Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, who last year lost New York's 22nd District to Republican Claudia Tenney by 109 votes, ran for a 14-year term in a New York State Supreme Court seat that had backed Donald Trump 49.2-48.7 and was defeated 54-43 by Republican Danielle Fogel. (Despite its name, the body is not the Empire State's highest court: That honor goes to the Court of Appeals.)
We also saw a comeback attempt in New Jersey from ex-Republican Rep. Mike Pappas, who earned his brief moment in the political spotlight in 1998 when he took to the House floor to deliver an ode to the special prosecutor probing the Clinton White House that began, "Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr / Now we see how brave you are." Pappas is running in an open state Senate seat, but, with 72,000 votes tabulated, he trails Democrat Andrew Zwicker 52-48. The Associated Press has not yet called the race for the 16th Legislative District, which supported Joe Biden 60-38.
Note: Please see our Uncalled Races and Election Recaps sections below for a summary of all of Tuesday's action.
Leading Off
● Atlanta, GA Mayor: City Council President Felicia Moore took a decisive first place in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary to lead the loyally blue city of Atlanta, but, to the surprise of many political observers, it appears that her rival in the Nov. 30 runoff won't be former Mayor Kasim Reed after all. Moore is out in front with 41% of the vote with 96,000 votes counted, while City Councilman Andre Dickens holds a 23.0-22.4 lead over Reed—a margin of just over 600 votes—for the second spot in the runoff.
The math looks daunting for Reed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein noted on Wednesday that there were only 970 uncounted provisional ballots cast in the two counties Atlanta's based in (Fulton and DeKalb), and some were from voters outside city limits. Bluestein adds that those ballots could conceivably narrow Reed's deficit enough to place him within the 0.5% margin needed for a recount, but he'd need to overwhelmingly win them to actually outpace Dickens.
The election night results rolled in as the Atlanta Braves were winning their first World Series since 1995, and even the three leading candidates' supporters were distracted at their parties. Bluestein writes that at one point, a "deafening roar" convinced some of Reed's backers that he had outpaced Dickens, but in fact "the crowd was cheering a Freddie Freeman home run."
Campaign Action
However, at least a few Reed supporters seem to have since decided that, unlike the Braves, he won't be emerging with the win. While the AP has not called the second runoff berth and Reed has yet to concede, Bluestein tweets that some of the former mayor's allies admit that his comeback has failed.
Moore's wide lead in the first round makes her the favorite to win the contest to succeed Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who shocked Atlanta in May when she announced she wouldn't seek a second term, but she's likely to square off against a very different opponent than she may have expected to. Reed, who spent years as a rising star in Georgia Democratic politics, easily won a second term in 2013, and he'd amassed a huge war chest for his campaign to retake the post he was termed-out of in 2017.
The former mayor, though, spent the campaign dealing with questions about a federal corruption probe that resulted in the convictions of three former officials in his administration and the indictment of others. The candidate's attorneys said weeks before Election Day that federal prosecutors told them their client was no longer a target of their investigations, but that did nothing to deter Moore and Dickens from arguing that Reed still bore responsibility for what happened under his watch.
Reed was again at the center of headlines in late October when Richard Rose, the head of the local NAACP, released what he called "a rare repudiation" blasting Reed's eight years in office. Rose argued that well-off residents and well-connected interests benefited from policies that brought affordable housing "to a screeching halt." He further took Reed to task for accepting the backing of the city's police union.
Rose apologized days later after the national NAACP leadership publicly told him that he could face removal for violating the organization's rules against making a "public partisan statement," though he didn't actually back down from his criticism of Reed. Instead, Rose said only that he'd erred when he decided "to issue the repudiation of Kasim Reed on NAACP letterhead, in my position as president of the NAACP Atlanta Branch."
Dickens, for his part, looked like an underdog going into Election Day. Most polls showed Bottoms and Reed advancing, while just a lone late survey showed the city councilman beating out Reed for second.
Dickens may have benefited from the support of former Mayor Shirley Franklin, whose 2001 victory made her the first Black woman to lead a major Southern city. Franklin had once been allied with Reed, who was even her campaign manager during that history-making bid 20 years ago, and she backed him in the hotly competitive 2009 race to succeed her. The two have since had a very public falling out, though, and Franklin in June made news when she responded to Reed's comeback launch by saying she was "embarrassed by his lack of ethical leadership." Franklin went on to endorse Dickens and even starred in a commercial for him.
Bottoms, who is the second woman to ever lead Atlanta, said Wednesday she would be endorsing a candidate in the runoff herself, though she didn't indicate which one. She may not be inclined to support Moore, however, as the city council president launched a campaign to unseat her months before the incumbent announced her retirement. Dickens, by contrast, didn't enter the race until Bottoms had already left it.
Redistricting
● GA Redistricting: GOP leaders in Georgia's Republican-run legislature have unveiled draft maps for both chambers that would lock in wide majorities for their party despite the fast-moving demographic and political trends that led to Joe Biden's victory in the state last year. Lawmakers convened for a special legislative session on Wednesday to take up these plans, as well as a congressional proposal that Republicans released in September.
● NC Redistricting: North Carolina's Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps are making their way through both chambers and could become law this week. On party-line votes, the Senate passed the congressional plan on Tuesday and a map for its own districts on Wednesday. The House, meanwhile, passed a map for itself on Tuesday, again on a party-line vote. Once the maps pass both chambers, they'll immediately become law, because the state constitution explicitly removes the governor from the redistricting process.
● OH Redistricting: Republicans in Ohio's Senate and House have each released a draft congressional map, both equally extreme. The House version would likely send 13 Republicans and just two Democrats to Congress, while the Senate plan would do the same, albeit with districts configured differently.
Republicans have also made proper assessment of these proposals especially difficult: The Senate only released a tiny image of its map and none of the normal data files that would make any sort of detailed analysis possible. The House did little better, providing a data file that would normally be in spreadsheet format as a 5,882-page PDF instead. Fortunately we were able to convert the House's PDF and obtain proper data files for the Senate.
House
● CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, who made a name for herself as one of the Colorado GOP's most extreme members during her eight years in the state House, just became the first notable Republican to enter the race for the state's new 8th Congressional District, a swingy seat in the Denver suburbs. A somewhat less incendiary Republican, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, also says she's considering a bid and last month promised an announcement "soon" after the state Supreme Court gave its approval to Colorado's new districts (it did so earlier this week).
● MI-03: Conservative commentator John Gibbs, whose nomination to head the Office of Personnel Management under Donald Trump failed because of his conspiratorial ravings, has filed paperwork ahead of a possible primary challenge to Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. Among other things, Gibbs repeatedly amplified the batshit conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, had partaken in some sort of satanic ritual, based on personal emails stolen by Russian hackers. Trump named Gibbs to run the OPM in 2020, but the Senate never acted on the nomination.
Meijer already faces intra-party opposition from Army National Guard veteran Tom Norton, who ran for the GOP nomination last year, and so-called "MAGA bride" Audra Johnson (quite the cast of characters, huh?). It takes only a simple plurality to win a primary in Michigan, so Meijer might benefit from a split field.
● OH-01: Former healthcare executive Kate Schroder, who was the Democrats' nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot last year, has announced that she won't seek a rematch. Schroder ran a competitive campaign but lost to Chabot 52-45 in Ohio's badly gerrymandered 1st District, which voted for Donald Trump 51-48. Republicans are likely to try to shore up Chabot further in redistricting (see our separate OH Redistricting item above).
● TX-08: Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, who hadn't ruled out a bid for Texas' open 8th Congressional District, has said he'll seek re-election to the legislature instead.
Legislatures
● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's key legislative special elections. For a full rundown of Tuesday's action, along with a look at other special elections from earlier this cycle, check out our big board here.
ME-HD-86: Democrat Raegan LaRochelle defeated Republican James Orr 56-44 to flip this seat for Team Blue. Democrats now control this chamber 80-65 with five independent/third party members and one other seat vacant.
MI-SD-28: Republican Mark Huizenga defeated Democrat Keith Courtade 61-37 to hold this seat for his party. This chamber is now at full strength with Republicans in control 22-16.
TX-HD-118: Republican John Lujan defeated Democrat Frank Ramirez 51-49 to flip this seat for Team Red. This was the runoff from a September all-party primary where Lujan led Ramirez 42-20 and the GOP candidates narrowly outpaced the Democratic candidates 50.3-49.7.
This is a heavily Hispanic district, a group that Democrats have recently lost some ground with in Texas. However, there hadn't previously been many signs of slippage for Democrats in this particular district, as Joe Biden won it 56-42 last year, similar to Hillary Clinton's 56-40 win in 2016, and former Rep. Leo Pacheco easily carried it 57-40 last year as well.
Republicans now control this chamber 84-66 with no other seats vacant.
Uncalled Races
Items in this section and the one following it are organized alphabetically by state.
● FL-20: It's going to be some time before we know who has won the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings in this safely blue South Florida seat. With 49,000 ballots counted, Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness holds a 9 vote lead—a margin of 23.76-23.74—over businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who badly lost primary challenges to Hastings in both 2018 and 2020. Another member of the Broward County Commission, Barbara Sharief, is in third with 18%.
Florida requires an automatic machine recount in races where the margin between the top two candidates is within 0.5%, and this contest definitely qualifies. The vote totals could also shift before the recount takes place: Politico's Gary Fineout wrote Wednesday that military and overseas ballots could be received for another 10 days, while voters had two days to fix any signature issues that caused their mail-in ballots to be rejected.
The eventual Democratic nominee will have no trouble in the Jan. 11 special election, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled to take place nine months after Hastings' death, effectively doubling the length the seat will remain vacant compared to other recent Florida specials.
● NJ Legislature: There's no question that Democrats will keep control of both the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly, where they went into Election Day with majorities of 25-15 and 52-28, respectively, but the GOP has netted seats in both chambers. And in a true surprise, state Senate President Steve Sweeney trails Republican Edward Durr, a truck driver who spent all of $153 on his campaign, 52-48 with 63,000 votes counted.
Donald Trump carried the 3rd Legislative District in South Jersey 50-48 last year, which made Sweeney the one Democrat to represent Trump turf in the upper chamber. But Republicans, as evidenced by Durr's tiny expenditures, had little confidence in beating him until the results began to roll in on Tuesday. Durr himself unsuccessfully ran as an independent for the Assembly in 2017 (in New Jersey, Senate and Assembly districts are coterminous) before trying again as a Republican two years later.
However, the likely fall of the conservative Sweeney, who has run the Senate since early 2010, may leave plenty of powerful Democrats less than upset. In 2017, the last time he was on the ballot, the New Jersey Education Association took the unusual step of backing his Republican opponent, though that didn't stop Sweeney from winning a very expensive campaign 59-41.
The Senate president has often come into conflict with Gov. Phil Murphy, and he didn't rule out launching a primary campaign against the governor when asked back in 2019. Politico adds that Sweeney "was until recently talked up in Democratic circles as a likely 2025 candidate for governor." Barring a big vote shift back in his direction, that chatter probably won't pick up again anytime soon.
● Nassau County, NY Executive: With 257,000 votes tabulated, Republican Bruce Blakeman holds a 52-48 lead, a margin of close to 12,000 ballots, over Democratic incumbent Laura Curran in the race to lead this large Long Island county. Curran said early Wednesday that she wasn't conceding, declaring, "There are many thousands of absentee ballots that still must be counted, with more coming in." Newsday reports that the Nassau Board of Elections had received close to 20,000 uncounted absentees as of Monday.
● VA State House: Republicans, as of Wednesday evening, lead in 52 of the 100 seats in the Virginia state House, which Democrats had held with a 55-45 majority going into the election. The Virginia Public Access Project reports that there are three contests where the margin between the candidates is less than 1%: HD-21, where Democratic incumbent Kelly Fowler holds a 234-vote edge, and HD-85 and HD-91, where Republicans Karen Greenhalgh and A.C. Cordoza have advantages of 202 and 272 votes, respectively.
VPAP adds that on Friday, local election officials will tally any provisional votes as well as ballots received through noon Friday that were postmarked by Election Day; VPAP continues that "it's hard to say how many mail ballots might come in by Friday."
Election Recaps
● Hialeah, FL Mayor: Steve Bovo, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner who lost last year's general election for county mayor, decisively beat his fellow Republican, ex-City Council President Isis Garcia-Martinez, 59-22 in the race to lead this conservative Miami-area community. Bovo had the backing of Donald Trump and other Florida Republican bigwigs like Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
● St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch defeated Republican City Councilman Robert Blackmon 60-40 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed his fellow Democrat, termed-out Mayor Rick Kriseman. Welch will be the first African American to lead a city that was run by GOP mayors for decades until Kriseman's 2013 win.
● Boston, MA Mayor: City Councilor Michelle Wu defeated her more moderate colleague, Annissa Essaibi George, 64-36 in this officially nonpartisan race in a campaign that made history in one of America's oldest cities.
Either of these candidates, who each identify as Democrats, would have been both the first woman and person of color elected to this post; acting Mayor Kim Janey became the first woman of color to hold this office when she ascended to the job in March, but she lost the September nonpartisan primary to keep it. The Chicago-raised Wu also marks the first time in over a century that Boston will be led by a mayor born outside the city.
● Minneapolis, MN Mayor: City election authorities announced Wednesday that Mayor Jacob Frey won a second term after a second and final round of ranked-choice tabulations.
Frey led activist Sheila Nezhad 43-21 among voter's first-choice preferences, while a third Democrat, former state Rep. Kate Knuth, was in third with 18%. Enough of the other 16 candidates' supporters listed Knuth as their second and third choice for her to edge out Nezhad and reach the second round, but Frey ultimately defeated her 56-44. We also learned Wednesday that, for the first time in Minneapolis history, people of color will hold a majority of the 13 seats on the City Council.
● Minneapolis, MN Ballot: Minneapolis voters approved Question 1, which will greatly strengthen the mayor's executive powers by, among other things, "consolidating administrative authority over all operating departments," by a 52-48 margin. At the same time, though, they rejected the far more high-profile Question 2, which would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety and shifted more control of the department to the City Council, 56-44.
● Manchester, NH Mayor: Democratic incumbent Joyce Craig won a third two-year term as mayor of this swing state's largest city by defeating former Republican state Rep. Victoria Sullivan 53-47 in the nonpartisan general election. Back in 2019, Craig beat Sullivan by a larger 57-43 spread.
● NJ-Gov: The Associated Press has called this contest for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli after a shockingly tight race. Counties can receive ballots through Nov. 8 as long as they were postmarked by Election Day so we won't know the final margin for some time, but Murphy, who began Wednesday narrowly trailing, leads 50.0-49.2 with 2.4 million votes counted.
● Albuquerque, NM Mayor: Democratic incumbent Tim Keller scored 56% of the vote in the nonpartisan race, which was above the majority he needed to avoid a runoff. Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, a self-described "strong fiscal conservative" who remains a nominal Democrat, was a distant second with 26%.
● NY Ballot: Three statewide election-related ballot measures have all lost by double digits. Proposal 1, which would reduce the threshold for lawmakers to approve a redistricting plan, failed by a 56-44 margin. It's a similar story for Proposals 3 and 4, which would respectively allow the legislature to create a same-day voter registration law and remove the excuse requirement to vote absentee. Proposal 3 lost 58-42, while Proposal 4 lost 56-44. It’s unclear how many absentee ballots, which are likely heavily Democratic, remain left to count and could thus narrow the margins, but the Associated Press already called all three contests.
● Buffalo, NY Mayor: Mayor Byron Brown looks to have won a fifth term as a write-in candidate months after losing the June Democratic primary to India Walton, an outcome that Walton acknowledged on Wednesday was likely. Walton, who was the only candidate on the general election ballot, secured just 41% of the vote, while a 59% majority selected a write-in option. Election officials won't actually start to examine the write-in votes until Nov. 17, but there's little question that the vast majority of them were cast for Brown in a race without any other serious write-in candidates.
Walton herself said on election night that she wasn't conceding because it wasn't clear whom the write-ins were going to, but she admitted the next day that "it seems unlikely that we will end up with enough votes to inaugurate a Walton administration in January." Brown's apparent victory makes him, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the rare incumbents to win a write-in campaign after losing a primary.
● Nassau County, NY District Attorney: Republican prosecutor Anne Donnelly flipped this post 60-40 by defeating Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky in a special election to succeed Democrat Madeline Singas, who resigned in June to join the state's highest judicial body, the Court of Appeals.
Donnelly, who campaigned almost exclusively on her opposition to ending cash bail and other criminal justice reforms, is the first Republican to hold the D.A.'s office since Denis Dillon lost to now-Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice in 2005; she will be up for a full four-year term in 2023.
● Staten Island, NY Borough President: Former Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican who retired from Congress after the public learned about his secret second family in 2008, completed his comeback by defeating Democrat Mark Murphy 62-30. Fossella's victory extends GOP control of an office they've held since the 1989 elections.
● Suffolk County, NY District Attorney: Despite being badly outspent, Republican prosecutor Ray Tierney unseated first-term Democratic incumbent Timothy Sini 57-43. Tierney, like his counterpart in neighboring Nassau County, campaigned on his opposition to bail reform, which Sini also said he opposed.
Republicans also took control of the Suffolk County Legislature for the first time since the historic 2005 Democratic victory in this swingy Long Island community.
● Syracuse, NY Mayor: Independent Mayor Ben Walsh overwhelmingly won a second term in this very blue city by defeating Democratic nominee Khalid Bey, a longtime member of the Syracuse Common Council, 61-27.
● OH-11, OH-15: Ohio's two special House elections unfolded exactly as expected, with Democrat Shontel Brown easily dispensing with her Republican opponent 79-21 in the safely blue 11th District, while Republican lobbyist Mike Carey defeated Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo 58-42 in the solidly red 15th. According to Daily Kos Elections' calculations, the 11th went for Joe Biden 80-19 and the 15th voted for Donald Trump 56-42. Once Brown and Carey are sworn in, the only vacant seat in the House will be Florida's 20th.
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval defeated his fellow Democrat, City Councilman David Mann, 66-34 in the race to succeed termed-out Mayor John Cranley, an accomplishment that makes him the first Asian American to lead the Queen City. Pureval was the 2018 Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in the 1st Congressional District, while Mann lost his 1994 bid for re-election to Congress to none other than Chabot.
● Cleveland, OH Mayor: Nonprofit head Justin Bibb beat City Council President Kevin Kelley, a fellow Democrat who had the backing of retiring four-term incumbent Frank Jackson, 63-37. Bibb, who is 34, will be the second-youngest mayor in the city's history.
● PA Supreme Court: Republican Kevin Brobson defeated Democrat Maria McLaughlin 52-48 to hold an open seat on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court for the GOP. Democrats, however, still retain their 5-2 advantage on the bench, and barring unexpected vacancies, the soonest Republicans could retake the majority would be 2025.
● Bucks County, PA District Attorney & Sheriff: Republicans bounced back from their 2017 drubbing in this competitive suburban Philadelphia county by sweeping all of the so-called "row offices," the local name for the countywide offices other than the commissioner.
District Attorney Matt Weintraub, who was the one Republican row officer to prevail four years ago, turned back Democratic rival Antonetta Stancu 59-41. Fred Harran, the Republican who is Bensalem Township's director of public safety, retook the sheriff's post by scoring a 53-46 victory over Warrington Township Board of Supervisors member Mark Lomax, who unseated incumbent Milt Warrell in the May Democratic primary. Team Red also picked up lower-profile offices like prothonotary, a post that administers civil court documents.
● Erie County, PA Executive: Republican Brenton Davis won the race to succeed retiring Democratic incumbent Kathy Dahlkemper by defeating Democrat Tyler Titus 52-48 in this swingy northwest Pennsylvania county. Titus, who would have been the first trans county executive in American history, conceded Wednesday afternoon.
● King County, WA Executive: Incumbent Dow Constantine won a fourth term as head of Washington's largest county by defeating his fellow Democrat, state Sen. Joe Nguyen, 58-42.
● Seattle, WA Mayor: Former City Council President Bruce Harrell defeated his successor, Lorena González, 65-35 in the nonpartisan contest to succeed retiring Mayor Jenny Durkin in this very blue city. Harrell, who is the first Asian American elected to this post as well as Seattle's second Black mayor, was close to business interests, while most labor endorsements went to González.
Grab Bag
● Where Are They Now?: Two former one-term congressmen were on Tuesday's ballot, but we so far only know the electoral fate of one.
Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, who last year lost New York's 22nd District to Republican Claudia Tenney by 109 votes, ran for a 14-year term in a New York State Supreme Court seat that had backed Donald Trump 49.2-48.7 and was defeated 54-43 by Republican Danielle Fogel. (Despite its name, the body is not the Empire State's highest court: That honor goes to the Court of Appeals.)
We also saw a comeback attempt in New Jersey from ex-Republican Rep. Mike Pappas, who earned his brief moment in the political spotlight in 1998 when he took to the House floor to deliver an ode to the special prosecutor probing the Clinton White House that began, "Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr / Now we see how brave you are." Pappas is running in an open state Senate seat, but, with 72,000 votes tabulated, he trails Democrat Andrew Zwicker 52-48. The Associated Press has not yet called the race for the 16th Legislative District, which supported Joe Biden 60-38.