Election News

The Washington Examiner reports "top Republicans in Texas are sounding the alarm about 2020, warning President Trump could lose the usually reliably red state unless he devotes resources and attention to it typically reserved for electoral battlegrounds."

Texas hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter won here by about 3% in 1976. Trump won the state by nine points in 2016. While not particularly close, it was the smallest GOP margin since Bob Dole's five point win here in 1996.

Could Trump win reelection if he were to lose Texas and its 38 electoral votes? Probably not, unless this was strictly a regional issue and he was able to offset it by building upon his 2016 realignment of the electoral map. That year, he flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that hadn't voted Democratic in a generation. In addition, he narrowly lost Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine's at-large electoral votes.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2020, it was reported Tuesday. Garcetti, who easily won a 2nd term as the city's mayor in 2017 was one of several mayors considering a 2020 bid.  South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg launched an exploratory committee last week. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has yet to decide if he will enter the race.  No mayor has ever moved directly from that office to the presidency.

The updated Democratic list:

Former West Virginia State. Sen. Richard Ojeda has ended his bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Ojeda had concluded that the campaign wasn't winnable. The move comes less than two weeks after Ojeda resigned his seat in the West Virginia Senate so that he could pursue the presidential run.

Ojeda made his announcement via a Facebook post. He is the first announced Democrat to withdraw.

The 2020 House Interactive Map is now live.  Use it to create and share your forecast for the 2020 House elections.

In the table below the interactive map, view the incumbent for each seat, along with their margin of victory in 2018. Compare that to the margins in the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. 

The table defaults to all races seen as competitive in 2020, based on initial ratings by Sabato's Crystal Ball. As you pan/zoom on the map, the table will update to show all seats visible in the map area. To view all districts in a specific state, choose it in the drop-down menu below the seat counter.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has set May 21 as the date for a special election to fill a vacancy in the state's congressional delegation. The date coincides with the state's primary election.  Former Rep. Tom Marino's last day in office was yesterday (Jan. 23rd). The GOP congressman had announced his plan to resign last week.

Donald Trump won this rural Pennsylvania district by over 35% in 2016, with Marino winning a fifth term by over 30% this past November. The seat is very likely to remain in GOP hands.

Democrat Pete Buttigieg (it's pronounced Boot-edge-edge) is forming an exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential bid. He made the announcement via video Wednesday morning.

A New Generation of Leadership from Pete for America on Vimeo.

California Senator Kamala Harris launched her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Monday. Harris, who is the 2nd* African American Senator in U.S. history, made the announcement Monday on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Before joining the Senate, Harris was her state's first female Attorney General.

Harris becomes the 5th Democrat to formally announce a 2020 run. Two of her Senate colleagues, Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) have created exploratory committees, which basically means they are running but are saving the 'formal' launch for a later date. 

The Map Color Palette, which was added to the congressional and gubernatorial interactive maps in 2018, is now available on the 2020 Electoral Map. The palette is located to the right of the electoral map, and includes options for tilt Democratic, tilt Republican and 3rd party.

Changing State(s) on the Map

Use -/+ buttons in the color palette area to display the ratings options you want to use. This can be changed at any time. As before, you can click a state repeatedly to change its rating. What's new here is that the rotation will only cycle through the ratings visible in the palette. So, if you only want to do a safe/toss-up map, there's no longer a need to cycle through all the other colors. 

GOP Rep. Tom Marino (PA-12) is resigning from Congress to take a job in the private sector.  The departure is effective on January 23rd. Marino easily won a fifth term in November.  He is resigning just two weeks after the 116th Congress was seated.  

Marino was nominated in 2017 by President Trump to be his drug czar. However, he withdrew later that year after a report by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes that detailed how he helped pass a law making opioids more easily available. 

The 2019-20 Governor Interactive Map is now available. Three starter maps are currently available, including the early projections from Sabato's Crystal Ball and The Cook Political Report. The final option is a blank map with all seats undecided. The table below the map has been expanded to include 2019 through 2022, with each displaying those states with an election that year.

Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi will each elect a governor in 2019.  About 10 months out, all three races look to be at least somewhat competitive*. 11 more states will follow in 2020. The 2020 races include New Hampshire and Vermont, the only two states where governors serve a two-year term. At least three of the 14 governors will be leaving. Phil Bryant (R-MS) and Steve Bullock (D-MT) cannot run due to term limits. In Utah, the country's longest-serving governor, Gary Herbert (R) is retiring.

The image below are the initial ratings from Sabato's Crystal Ball. You can read their analysis of the races here.