Special Election inaugurees into U. S. House of Representatives
A "special election" means a vacant House seat was filled -- and the winner gets seated immediately.
Winners of the general election will be seated on Jan. 3, 2019.
The new members of Congress listed below are part of the "lame duck" session
-- the period after the election and before the new Congress' inauguration in January.
Some special elections took place before November and some races took some time to count -- inauguration dates listed below.
Florida Governor race decided 11/17: Candidate Gillum previously conceded but rescinded his concession due to new-found ballots; Gillum re-conceded on 11/17.
Florida Senate race decided 11/16: Recount did not change result.
Senatorial Results in 35 races:
2 Democratic takeovers: AZ, NV
4 Republican takeovers: FL, IN, MO, ND
22 Democratic retentions: CA, CT, DE, HI, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN-2, MN-6, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT, VA, WA, WI, WV
2018 House partisan balance: 239 Republicans to 196 Democrats (counting four vacancies as party of incumbent);
2019 House partisan balance: 202/201/200 Republicans to 233/234/235 Democrats.
Total size of Freshman class (new members who were not elected in Nov. 2016): 35/36 Republicans + 60/61/62 Democrats.
OnTheIssues disendorsements for candidates who refuse to take issue stances
OnTheIssues condemns candidates with an "IFFY Award" for running an "Issue-Free campaign." These are "iffy" candidates because they refused to provide voters with information on what they believe and how they will legislate. They are likely to be "iffy legislators" too -- never providing their constituents with information, on the belief that the less voters know, the more likely the "iffy" candidates are to get re-elected.
An IFFY award is a non-partisan condemnation: OnTheIssues doesn't care WHAT candidates' issue stances are -- as long as they HAVE issue stances!
At OnTheIssues, we believe that candidates should make clear their issue stances, and if they don't do that, then they should not run for office at all, and if they get elected and still won't divulge their issue stances, that they should resign or be driven from office by outraged constituents. Following are our three "iffy" candidates for 2018:
NBC-10-TV reports that Fung avoided all primary debates:
"The two favorite contenders for the major party’s nominations are refusing to appear in any of the offered statewide forums.
'It’s not OK in a democracy,' NBC 10's political analyst said. 'Avoiding debates might rub voters the wrong way and they might just end up staying home in the general election.' "
During the general election debate, the Providence Journal reported that Fung's independent opponent Joe Trillo brought up the IFFY issue:
"Trillo saved his most colorful exchanges for Fung, whom he called 'wimpy' for not taking positions on issues."
OnTheIssues has been attempting to gather issue stances from Mayor Fung since 2014, when he also ran for Governor (and also provided few issue stances). Mayor Fung has declined to respond to our VoteMatch quiz repeatedly.
KGOU's Trevor Brown reported that the sole one-hour debate on Sept. 24 "waded into social issues,
including abortion, parental rights and gun control. Neither candidate, however, seemed to want to press these issues as campaign focal points."
Edmondson's opponent, however, has made public his stances on those three issues (and more), while Edmondson has not.
OnTheIssues has been attempting to gather issue stances from Edmondson all campaign season. Edmondson has declined to respond to our VoteMatch quiz repeatedly.
Project VoteSmart reprots, "Chele Farley has refused to provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2018 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart and voters like you."
The Auburn Citizen commented that "In her campaign launch video... Farley blamed Gillibrand, a Democrat, for the state not getting its fair share from the federal government.... There wasn't much revealed in the video about Farley's platform."
Farley has continued that lack of platform throughout the campaign, running on a platform of Gillibrand's failings.
OnTheIssues has been attempting to gather issue stances from Farley all campaign season. Farley has declined to respond to our VoteMatch quiz repeatedly.
Predictions in four House races: two GOP victories; two Democratic victories
OnTheIssues makes four predictions in House races for the four districts for which we have web pages for both nominees.
(for most House districts, we only cover the incumbent).
We predict races based on the relative number of viewers of the candidates' pages on our website.
This "polling" method indicates interest in the issue stances of the candidates, which serves as a proxy for voting for candidates.
Downsides of this prediction method include:
- We don't count whether the website viewer actually resides in the district or is registered to vote
- Interest in the issue stances of a candidate could mean negative interest as well as positive interest
- Reading about a candidate doesn't necessarily translate into voting for a candidate
Upsides of this prediction method include:
- This method would have predicted Trump in the 2016 presidential election when most polls predicted Hillary would win.
- Pundits have trouble predicting the 2018 election because hinges on "voter enthusiasm" -- but so does reading our website!
- Internet viewership correlates with youth, which in most elections vote poorly, but are predicted to vote highly in 2018.
Some details of our methodology:
We count only "unique pageviews", which means one "vote" per person for the entire duration of our "poll".
For our House predictions, we count the "viewership score" (number of unique people) from Oct. 1 through Oct. 24 (but if the outcome prediction changes in the next week, we'll report that!)
For our upcoming Gubernatorial and Senatorial predictions, we will count the "viewership score" from Oct. 1 through Oct. 31 (a full month).
The numbers represent unique page views, in some cases for more than one page (because we host a separate page for a gubernatorial candidate who served in the House, e.g.)
House district and analysis:
Predicted winner and loser, and OnTheIssues viewership scores:
The Democratic nominee served in the U.S. House in this district from 2009-2011 and lost re-election in November 2010 to the current Republican incumbent.
In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in this district, 65-33. Results were similarly lopsided in the previous four presidential elections.
We predict an overwhelming Republican victory in this district.
Democratic incumbent Ruben Kihuen retiring in 2018.
The Republican nominee served in the U.S. House in this district from 2015-2017 and lost re-election in November 2016 to the current Democratic incumbent.
The Democratic nominee served in the U.S. House in this district from 2013-2015 and lost re-election in November 2014 to the current Republican nominee.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in this district, 50-45. Results were similar in 2012, favoring Obama over Romney.
We predict a Republican victory in this district, despite its Democratic history.
Source: Google Analytics and OnTheIssues analysis.
Primary election results: Sept. 11-13, 2018
Nominees decided in NH, RI, and NY
State primary on Sept. 11th-13th:
Winners and losers and notes:
New York Gubernatorial primaries: Thursday, Sept. 13 (Democratic incumbent running for re-election)
The New York primary system allows candidates to run on multiple party lines;
Cynthia Nixon lost on the Democratic Party line but won on the Working Families Party line.
Maryland Senatorial primary: (Incumbent Democrat running for re-election but challenged in primary)
Note that this is the 6-year Senate seat; there is also a special election in Mississippi for a 2-year Senate seat
-- that will take place as a jungle primary on Nov. 6 with a runoff afterwards if needed.
Mississippi Senatorial Democratic runoff: (Two top vote-getters advanced from June 5 Democratic primary)
Note that this is the 6-year Senate seat; there is also a special election in Mississippi for a 2-year Senate seat
-- that will take place as a jungle primary on Nov. 6 with a runoff afterwards if needed.
New York Senatorial primary: Note: the New York gubernatorial primary will take place on Sept. 13
(most states hold the Sentorial and gubernatorial primaries simultaneously, but NY does not).
Mississippi Special Senatorial primary: Note: This is the 2-year Senate special election for seat vacated by Thad Cochran.
The three candidates listed will participate in a jungle primary on November 6th, with a runoff (if no candidate gets over 50%) on November 27th.
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