Election News

As in Iowa, there will be three sets of numbers released. Live results will appear below. 

Round One - First Alignment:  This will be the initial preference of caucusgoers across the state. The percentage results here should be somewhat consistent with the statewide polling that has preceded the caucus (if that proves accurate - there hasn't been a lot of polling here). In the final average, Bernie Sanders had a sizable lead at 30% support, with Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren in the mid-teens. 

Round 2 - Final Alignment: Candidates that don't receive 15% in Round 1 are considered nonviable. However, this threshold is determined at each individual precinct.^{1 1}For example, a candidate receiving 18% statewide in Round 1 may not be viable in all precincts. On the other hand, a candidate at 10% may be viable in some. In Round 2, caucusgoers who have supported a nonviable candidate at their location will have the option to move to a viable candidate^{2 2}Caucusgoers associated with a viable candidate in Round 1 are locked in. This is a change from prior cycles. or join forces with supporters of another nonviable candidate in an attempt to get one of them across the threshold.

Once this is complete, there will be a redistribution of votes cast early associated with nonviable candidates.  The early vote ballot allowed for up to five candidates to be selected, in order of preference. Should an early voter's first choice not be viable, their vote will be cast for the highest-ranking viable candidate.  Note that the number of early voting locations was much smaller than on caucus day. Those voting early could do so at any location in their county. These early ballots will be associated with the voter's home precinct on caucus day.

County Convention Delegates:  The final results are translated into county convention delegates. The person with the most of these is considered the winner.

Pledged Delegates: There are 36 pledged delegates to the national convention that are awarded proportionately based on the county convention delegates - for the most part.  As is the case in other states, a predetermined number of Nevada's delegates convention are awarded based on the statewide vote, with some awarded based on the vote in each congressional district.  Depending on how the results break across the individual districts, there could be a situation where these two results don't perfectly align.^{3 3}This outcome happened in the 2008 Nevada caucuses, where Hillary Clinton won the statewide vote by over 5 points, but Barack Obama ended up with a 13-12 margin in delegates.

Republican Caucus:  There will be no caucuses on the GOP side; they were cancelled by the state party. The 25 delegates will presumably be awarded to President Trump.

In Colorado, the analysis notes that Republican "Gardner has long appeared endangered by the Centennial State’s shift toward the Democrats. He has emphasized some local issues but has generally stuck with the president on the bigger-picture ones that are increasingly more salient in our nationalized elections. Gardner is in a tough spot: After distancing himself from Trump in 2016, Gardner risks losing his own base voters if he criticizes Trump, but if Trump again loses the state, voters may not have much reason to split their tickets in Gardner’s favor."

Should these two seats flip, it leaves the Senate unchanged at 53-47 GOP. That means Democrats would need to find 3 or 4 more seats to take control in 2021. According to Sabato, Arizona, North Carolina and Maine, in that order, seem to be the most fertile ground for the party at this point.

Click or tap the map for an interactive version.

The 7th district is the largest by land area in Wisconsin, covering the mostly rural northern third of the state.  Voters narrowly supported Mitt Romney over Barack Obama in 2012, but swung sharply for Donald Trump in 2016; the president won here by 20 points over Hillary Clinton.  Duffy won reelection in 2016 and 2018 by similar margins. The general election is seen as Likely to Safe Republican.

Results will appear below after the polls close at 8:00 PM local time (9:00 ET). 

Super Tuesday is two weeks from today, March 3. Over one-third of the Democratic Party's 3,979 pledged delegates will be up for grabs across 16 contests.

Bloomberg received 4% in that December poll, which was released less than a month after he formally entered the race. Sanders is up 9%, consolidating support on the party's progressive flank away from Elizabeth Warren.  In the more moderate wing, Bloomberg and Amy Klobuchar's ascent has corresponded with a drop in support for Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg.

Bloomberg, who is not taking individual donations, was able to qualify for Wednesday's debate after the Democratic National Committee removed that as a qualifying requirement. He will join Sanders, Biden, Warren, Klobuchar and Buttigieg on the stage. The debate will be hosted by NBC News and The Nevada Independent and broadcast by NBC and MSNBC at 9:00 PM ET.

The debate precedes the Nevada caucuses, which will take place this Saturday.

Kentucky

Kentucky is all but certain to vote for Donald Trump in November. It has voted Republican at the presidential level - with few exceptions - since 1956. The president carried the state by 30% in 2016, continuing a fairly consistent trend of increasing GOP margins in each election since 2000. 

Given this inevitability, the second half of this piece is dedicated to the boogeyman of the left, Mitch McConnell. Democrats revile the cunning effectiveness of the Senate Majority Leader and hope, perhaps naively, to oust him in November.

First though, let’s look at Kentucky’s political legacy and how it evolved into the deep red state it is today.

Statehood and Civil War

Until 1792, the region we know as Kentucky was a part of Virginia. The Appalachian Mountains isolated western Virginians, who started to push for an independent state. In 1790, the Virginia legislature approved the new state and two years later Congress accepted it. The new state was framed by its geography, with the Ohio River to its north, Mississippi River on its western tip, and the Cumberland Mountains in its east.

For most of its first elections, Kentucky voted along with the rest of the south for Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. The party broadly advocated for a less powerful federal government and supported the agrarian lifestyle of the south. Once the Democratic-Republican Party fractured, Kentucky shifted to the Whig Party that was founded by Henry Clay, at that time a U.S. Senator from the state.

In 1860, Kentucky cast its electoral votes for the Constitutional Union Party, which was a single-issue party focused on keeping the Union together. The state had economic ties to both the Confederate South and Union North and was physically located in the middle of the conflict — bordered by Tennessee and Virginia to the south and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to the north. Kentucky decided not to secede and initially claimed neutrality in the war. This stance ended in 1861 when the Confederate army invaded Kentucky in order to take control of tactical land before the Union army could. From then on, Kentucky sided with the Union.

Post-War Democratic Dominance

Kentucky, like most of the south, was steadily Democratic following the Civil War. The western region of the state was historically slave-holding territory and therefore voted for the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the population in the state’s east had supported the Union and would reliably vote Republican. Through most of the 19^th Century, however, these Republican regions were not enough to make the state competitive. Democrats regularly won the state by double digits.

The 1896 election broke the streak. That year, Democrats nominated the bimetallist and populist, William Jennings Bryan. The Republican standard bearer, William McKinley, eked out a 0.07% popular vote victory over Bryan, making him the first Republican presidential nominee to ever carry Kentucky. The state would flip back to its Democratic roots for the next six elections, but by smaller margins than before. In five of the six elections from 1900 to 1920, the Democratic nominee would win by less than 6%. In the 1920s lead-up to the Great Depression, Kentucky voted for two Republicans in 1924 and 1928. These were the Roaring Twenties and Kentucky, along with most of the nation, rewarded the incumbent Republican Party for the strong economy.

Then came the Great Depression. Kentucky voted for Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal which employed thousands of people in Kentucky and helped prop up and revive the coal, bourbon, and tobacco industries in Kentucky. 

A Shift Rightward

The popularity of the New Deal and Roosevelt would help Democrats win Kentucky through the 1952 election. Eventually, though, the Democratic Party’s leftward shift on social issues would push Kentucky progressively deeper into the Republican Party. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower won reelection and carried Kentucky in a landslide election over his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson. Since that 1956 Republican victory, Democrats have only carried the state four times.

All of these victors were southerners. First is Lyndon Johnson who carried Kentucky in his 1964 landslide. Second is Georgian Jimmy Carter who won Kentucky in his initial election of 1976 but lost it to Ronald Reagan in 1980. The last Democrat to win Kentucky was Bill Clinton of Arkansas in his 1992 and 1996 elections.

Bill Clinton was also the last Democratic presidential nominee to be competitive in Kentucky. Four years later, Democrats nominated Al Gore, whose signature issue was environmental protection. This did not play well in Kentucky’s coal country and, along with the Democratic Party’s liberal shift on social issues including abortion and gun control, helped push the state decisively towards George Bush.

Recent Elections & Political Landscape

Starting in 2000, every Republican nominee would carry Kentucky by double digits. George Bush did so by 15% and 20% in 2000 and 2004. John McCain beat Barack Obama by 16% in the state even as Obama won nationally by 7%. In 2012 Mitt Romney won the state by 23%. And finally, in 2016, Donald Trump expanded that margin to 30%, the largest margin of victory since 1868.

In 1996, Bill Clinton carried counties across the state. He won majorities in the mountainous east, the ancestrally Democratic west, and in the urban regions. Support for Democrats steadily eroded in most of these counties and every four years since, the Democratic nominee carried fewer counties than their predecessor.

While external forces are more to blame for the coal industry's decline, Barack Obama’s strict regulations on coal production did little to ingratiate his party to Kentuckians. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s infamous “we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” quote^{1 1}That often-quoted comment didn't capture the full context of what she actually said. did even more damage.

As jobs in the coal and manufacturing industry evaporated, Kentucky struggled to replace them. While the urban and suburban communities inside the Golden Triangle of Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati have thriving auto, equestrian, logistics, and bourbon industries, the rest of the state is in worse shape. Outside of this economically humming region, Kentuckians are facing lower incomes, higher poverty rates, shrinking populations, and drug addictions.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won just two counties, Jefferson and Fayette, that encompass the state’s biggest cities of Louisville and Lexington and are far more diverse than the state overall. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, expanded on Romney’s margin in nearly the entire state. He improved most in the state’s northeastern rural Appalachia. His populist calls to “Make America Great Again” were most effective with this struggling, shrinking, and disaffected population.

Demographics make the recent rightward shift unsurprising. 68% of the state's population are whites that do not have a college degree. This is a core constituency of today's GOP. Only neighboring West Virginia has a higher proportion (75%) of residents in this category. 

Republican Mastermind and Democratic Nemesis: Mitch McConnell

While Kentucky’s presidential contest in November is all but decided, Senate Majority Leader and Democratic boogeyman, Mitch McConnell, is up for reelection and Democrats are drooling at the idea of ousting him.

The Kentucky primary in the state is not until May, but both nominees are all but decided. Republicans are destined to re-nominate McConnell. Democrats are on track to nominate former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath. In 2018, McGrath made a high-profile congressional bid in Kentucky’s Sixth District against incumbent Rep. Andy Barr. It is a district much more receptive to Democrats than the state as a whole, but McGrath lost by 3%.

Democrats look at Kentucky’s 2019 gubernatorial election and hope that 2020 could be a repeat. Last year, Democrat Andy Beshear beat Republican Matt Bevin in Kentucky’s off-year gubernatorial election.  However, Bevin was a historically weak candidate who alienated voters at every turn.

McGrath boosters also point to McConnell’s extreme unpopularity as an indicator of his vulnerability. McConnell has had no problem carrying the state in the past even with low favorability ratings haunting him for much of his career. While his first two elections in 1984 and 1990 were real competitions — he won by just 0.4% and 4.4% — after that he was entrenched. His next four victories would be by 13%, 29%, 6%, and 17%. Even in 2008, a heavily blue year where Barack Obama won the national popular vote by over 7%, McConnell still won his election by 6%.

These victories were back when Kentucky was bluer, partisanship was weaker, and split ticket voting was more common. Voters today are less likely than ever to break with their party identity and Kentucky is more Republican than ever. With Trump at the top of the ticket, likely carrying the state by another 30% margin, Democrats would need an electoral miracle to oust McConnell. And with a candidate as vetted and battle-tested as he is, there is unlikely to be any surprising or unknown revelations that could damage his candidacy as to make him vulnerable.

The Cook Political Report has the election rated as Likely Republican. The newsletter’s Senate and Governors Editor, Jessica Taylor, explained to us why she is bullish on McConnell’s reelection prospects.

“Given the sheer amount of money that Amy McGrath has been raising means this is a race to keep an eye on, but Democrats have been aiming to take down McConnell for years and have failed, and the Senate Majority Leader is heavily favored once again.

McConnell is a shrewd politician who will do anything to win, especially when it comes to his own seat. The Kentucky governor's race may have flipped, but that was even close with an incredibly unpopular Republican, and voters look differently at federal versus state races. McGrath got off to a rocky start too when she rolled out her campaign, and many House Democrats were not happy with the race she ran in 2018 which should have been winnable in a very good year for Democrats. The environment won't be as favorable for Democrats again in a presidential year with Trump expected to carry Kentucky handily.

If we are talking about this being a toss up race in the fall, Democrats will definitely be taking back the Senate and winning the presidency. But that's really hard to imagine such a scenario.” 

Last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — the campaign wing of the Senate Democrats — endorsed McGrath. But as Taylor points out, McGrath would likely need an extremely favorable national environment to oust McConnell. Her impressive fundraising numbers might help her get her message out, but in the deep red Bluegrass State, that message is unlikely to resonate with enough voters to propel her to victory.

Next Week: Massachusetts

_{Reports in this series:}

Bernie Sanders leads Joe Biden by seven points in The Nevada Poll^TM, conducted by WPA Intelligence, that was released Friday.  Sanders saw 25% support to Biden's 18%; both candidates are polling statewide above the 15% threshold for winning delegates.  Also in double-digits are the four other candidates actively campaigning here:  Elizabeth Warren (13%), Tom Steyer (11%), Pete Buttigieg (10%) and Amy Klobuchar (10%). 

Thus far, five of these six candidates have qualified for the debate next Wednesday at Paris Las Vegas.  Tom Steyer is on the outside at this point; he has until February 18 to qualify via polling.  Given the lack of accredited polling leading up to the deadline, Steyer has asked the DNC to expand the window for qualifying polls to earlier in January.  Separately, although not on the Nevada ballot, Mike Bloomberg is just one poll away from making the stage. 

Early caucus voting begins Saturday and concludes Tuesday. The regular caucuses will take place next Saturday. 36 pledged delegates will be allocated based on the results. Yesterday, the State Democratic Party released details on how the vote will be transmitted, as it looks to avoid a results debacle like the one in Iowa earlier this month.

Dan Balz of the Washington post has an excellent article on the state of the Democratic race after Iowa and New Hampshire.  Balz writes:  "Democrats braced themselves Tuesday night for a long and divisive contest for their party's presidential nomination after New Hampshire voters added new uncertainty to a race already scrambled by last week's caucuses in Iowa."  He goes on to say that "if Sanders is the candidate of the liberal wing, those who are more moderate are still divided in their choice. The existence of that competition, and questions about each of the candidates seeking to become the alternative to Sanders, heightened the discontent about where this race might be heading."

While a dominant candidate hasn't emerged from the first two contests, they have served to finally begin winnowing the large field.  Both Andrew Yang and Sen. Michael Bennet announced an end to their respective campaigns Tuesday, with Deval Patrick expected to do the same today.