Is Secretary of State a Stepping Stone?

This is a high-risk, high-reward opportunity for Hillary Clinton. If she accepts, and serves out six or eight years in a popular Obama administration, then she is practically guaranteed the Presidency in 2016 ... However, there is always a chance she will be replaced, or that Obama will not be a popular President. In either of these scenarios, taking the job might make it the last job Hillary Clinton has in politics.

That commentary is from Chris Bowers at Open Left. I tend to agree with the gist of what Chris has to say -- were Clinton to accept Obama's offer to become Secretary of State, her political fate would be tied fairly strongly to the success or failure of his administration.

The fundamental question I am concerned with, however, is slightly different. If Hillary Clinton's goal is to become President of the United States in 2016, would she improve her odds by accepting the Secretary of State position? The answer to this question is less clear.

It was once very common for Secretaries of State to ascend to the Presidency. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan and Martin Van Buren had at one point served as Secretary of State before they served as President; three of the six (Madison, Monroe, Adams) held the Secretary of State position at the time of their election.

However, following Buchanan's election in 1856, we have now gone more than 150 years since a Secretary of State became President. There are a couple of good reasons for the change. The first is the increase in the stature of the Vice Presidency dating from the mid-20th century onward. No sitting Vice President ran for President between 1860 and 1960, but since then four have (Nixon, Humphrey, Bush 41, Gore). Whereas Secretaries of States were once seen as the natural successors to the Presidency, now that honor falls to Vice Presidents.

Barack Obama's situation is somewhat unusual in that he selected a Vice President in Joe Biden who, because of his age, probably will not have Presidential aspirations in 2016. Thus, Secretary of State might again serve the role of housing the President's designated successor. Of course, it is also possible that Joe Biden will not be Obama's VP selection when he runs for re-election in 2012, which could make things very awkward for Clinton.

The other reason why Secretaries of States rarely run for President is because of the increasing demands of the campaign cycle, which can now occupy as many as two years of a candidate's time. Voters might find it off-putting for a Secretary of State to be barnstorming in Iowa when it is supposed to be her duty to serve her president and her country. It is more likely that Clinton would serve as Secretary of State for somewhere between four and six years, but would have vacated the position by the time she ran for President. (Frankly, this is likely to be the case whether or not she'd want to run for President, as nobody since George Schultz in 1982-1989 has served more than four consecutive years as Secretary of State).

Still, we haven't really addressed our question: If Hillary Clinton's goal is to become President of the United States in 2016, would she improve her odds by accepting the Secretary of State position?

My answer to this is a qualified 'no'. If the Obama administration is perceived as successful, that will likely make Clinton's road to the White House easier. But this is probably true whether or not she serves in Obama's Cabinet. If the Democratic brand is strong in 2016, Clinton will have little trouble riding that wave and presenting herself as a safe, trusted, capital-D Democrat (which is essentially her brand to begin with), almost no matter what she had spent her time doing.

On the other hand, it would probably be easier for Clinton to extricate herself from an unpopular Obama had she avoided serving in his Cabinet. This is particularly the case if Obama loses in 2012, in which case Democrats would inevitably want to go in a "new" direction in 2016. Clinton would find it easier to present herself as that alternative if, say, she served as Governor of New York, rather than as a member of Obama's cabinet.

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Alaska Update: Begich Leads By 1,061, Then 1,022

There's been an update today in the Alaska Senate race, with 11,612 more votes counted. Mark Begich now leads incumbent Ted Stevens by 1,061 votes.

Later update: 1,022. An additional 3,333 votes have been counted and Stevens pulled back 39 votes.

Per Sean Cockerham at the Anchorage Daily News, the ballots counted today:

About 510 questioned ballots from Southeast, the Peninsula and Southwest Alaska

About 5,180 absentee and questioned ballots from Mat-Su

Questioned, absentee ballots from Richardson Highway and the Interior

About 3,600 absentee and questioned ballots from Western and Northwest Alaska, and North Slope

Monday the extra Richardson Highway ballots will be counted, and Tuesday another 24,000 or so ballots will be counted from Anchorage, Southeast, Kenai Peninsula and Southwest Alaska.

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Dartmouth Study: Minnesota Undervotes Should Favor Franken

Dartmouth professors Michael Herron, Jonathan Chipman and Jeffrey Lewis have put together a terrific study of the recount situation in Minnesota. They suggest that -- while many African-American voters in the Minneapolis area may have skipped the senate race intentionally -- the majority of unintentional undervotes that will be counted during the recount process are also liable to favor Franken.

We show using a combination of precinct voting returns from the 2006 and 2008 General Elections that patterns in Senate race residual votes are consistent with, one, the presence of a large number of Democratic-leaning voters, in particular African-American voters, who appear to have deliberately skipped voting in the Coleman-Franken Senate contest and, two, the presence of a smaller number of Democratic-leaning voters who almost certainly intended to cast a vote in the Senate race but for some reason did not do so. Ultimately, the anticipated recount may clarify the relative proportions of intentional versus unintentional residual votes. At present, though, the data available suggest that the recount will uncover many of the former and that, of the latter, a majority will likely prove to be supportive of Franken.

The Darmouth guys don't offer a specific prediction about whether the number of recounted votes is likely to tip the balance of the race toward Franken, but their entire study (PDF) is worth a read.

(h/t Andrew Gelman)

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Runoffs All About Enthusiasm, GOTV

When wave enthusiasm cuts against the base population partisan identification, special elections favor the wave-associated candidate, provided the race is somewhat close to begin with.

After the successful 2006 Tester Senate race, I was hungry for more. A couple weeks drinking champagne, catching up on the third season of The Wire, and asserting dominance over my fantasy football league, I then got in the car and headed for Texas.

In TX-23, incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla was facing special election against former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez. Every single poll showed Bonilla comfortably ahead, including the Election Eve SurveyUSA poll that showed Bonilla up 51-47. The SurveyUSA poll a week before the election put Bonilla up 53-46.

Rodriguez won by 9 points, 54-45. And, with big DCCC investment and hundreds of workers pouring into the effort from around the country, the effort made the difference.

Consider that 2006 was a wave year, like 2008. Consider that turnout in the special election was 70,473, whereas a few weeks earlier the turnout on November 7 had been 123,799.

Or, take another example from this year. Don Cazayoux, who won a special election in May to take the Louisiana 6th district House seat on 101,017 turnout. On November 4, Cazayoux lost, with at least 312,416 having voted in the race.

Special elections simply have lower turnout, and thus it falls to base enthusiasm and getting out the vote. Organization becomes the key. How many Democratic organizers and volunteers in Georgia and around the country are not yet slaked of their thirst for beating Republicans? These people exist. How many will get in their cars and drive to Georgia to work? How many Republicans will be motivated to arrive from around the country to do the same work?

Already, we know that many among Obama's Ohio staff are flooding to Georgia. When we were down there just before Election Day, we got emails from Obama organizers telling us they'd already bought the tickets assuming there would be a runoff.

This doesn't guarantee a win -- by any stretch. When we arrive in ten days or so, we may find a sense among some Democratic voters that Obama's win was the golden prize, and the foot may come off the accelerator a bit. Or we might find steely-nerved motivation.

But the bottom line is that special elections don't tend to draw the iffy voters. It's about voter education and organization and turnout. From what we saw in the state when we were there the weekend before Election Day, Democrats had the edge. Keep an eye on the organizing stories from Georgia. They may be determinative.

[UPDATE] Many commenters seem to be missing the forest for the trees. Runoff, special election... a distinction without a difference. These are races not on the main election day when turnout is large. These are elections unto themselves on different days that attract fewer overall votes. Votes aren't fewer because it's a runoff or because it's a special election. Votes are fewer because it's not when the Big Election Day takes place that's in everyone's mind. Even primaries attract many fewer voters than general election days. Special elections, runoffs, these take special effort. Many more people will not take the effort to show up. The question is, will more Chambliss voters drop off or will more Martin voters drop off? That's the unknown. In wave years I'd tend to bet with the wave party, but I'm nowhere near ready to conclude Martin will win.

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A Few More Hillary Hypotheticals

Color me skeptical about this:

As voters left the polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic candidate; 41 percent would have voted for McCain, wider than Obama’s 7-point margin over McCain.

If America had woken up last Tuesday morning and magically found Hillary Clinton's name on the ballot in lieu of Barack Obama, might she have won by 11 points? Perhaps. She certainly proved herself to be an exceptionally compelling candidate, even if her execution and staffing decisions were sometimes wanting.

But what would Clinton's numbers have looked like if she had actually endured ... you know ... a campaign?

Would she have handled the financial crisis with as much aplomb as Obama did? Probably. Would she have been so capable and reassuring in the debates? Almost certainly. Would she have had an easier time resonating with working class voters in places like Missouri and West Virginia? Yes.

But would she have managed the media as deftly as Obama did? Perhaps not. Would Republican attacks on Bill Clinton and Kazakhstan been as counterproductive to their cause as their effort to link Barack Obama and Bill Ayers? Maybe -- or maybe not. Would she have matched Obama's field organization and raised as much money? Doubtful.

Would her campaign have had the same steely confidence as Obama's did after the Republican convention bounce? Unlikely. Would she have delivered as strong a speech as Mr. Obama did in Denver? Iffy. Would she have catalyzed near-universal turnout in the black community? No.

If Hillary Clinton had headed the Democratic ticket, would John McCain have been dumb enough to name Sarah Palin as his running mate? One would hope not. Might McCain have been smart enough to hire Mike Murphy rather than Steve Schmidt, campaign on themes of bipartisanship, honor, and good government, and appeal as much as possible to independent voters (as the political climate dictated that he ought to have done in the first place)? Who knows. He just might have figured it out.

And what would Clinton's numbers have looked like after the Republicans had gotten done accusing her of being a socialist, a puppet for her husband, and an all-around conniving you-know-what?

Hillary Clinton might have beaten John McCain by more than Barack Obama did. She also might have lost to him. I doubt you'll find too many Democrats who would be willing to take that trade.

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Georgia Runoff Will Be Tough on Pollsters

SurveyUSA has a new poll out about the impending runoff in Georgia between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. For some reason, they didn't poll the trial heat question (e.g. "who are you going to vote for?"), but there are a number of other items of interest.

In particular, 87 percent of registered Georgia voters claim that they are going to participate in the runoff on December 2nd -- this in a state where only 67 percent of registered voters turned out for the general election last Tuesday! People may have the best intentions, certainly, and there is probably some response bias in the sort of person who might answer a series of a pollster's questions about the runoff election. Nevertheless, a lot of these people are pretty much ... lying. They're not going to show up. In 1992, when the late Paul Coverdell won his senate seat against Wyche Fowler in a runoff, participation declined from 2,251,587 Georgians in the first go-around to 1,253,991 in the runoff, roughly a 50 percent drop.

The tricky thing for pollsters will be in figuring out just which of these people are lying about their intent to participate and which of them aren't. Pollsters like to root their models in recent precedent, but things like runoffs and special elections happen so rarely that there's just not very much to key oneself off of. The point is ... if the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn't be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn't be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20. This will be a return to the high margins of uncertainty that we saw in the primaries.

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Begich Leads By 814 Going Into Thursday

The Alaska Board of Elections has finally updated (pdf). With 17,728 votes counted since the previous update, Democrat Mark Begich has the lead over Republican Ted Stevens, 132,196 to 131,382.

More votes to be counted tomorrow and possibly Friday.

As we've pointed out and has been pointed out elsewhere, the remaining votes come from Begich-friendly districts. Mark Begich is now an overwhelming favorite to win the Alaska Senate seat.

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Begich Goes Into Lead by Three Votes

Roughly 15,000 additional votes have come in in Alaska, with more to come, and Democrat Mark Begich has taken a three-vote lead over Republican Ted Stevens, 125019 to 125016.

More to come tonight and in the coming few days to finish off the race, but given where we expect the remaining votes are located, this looks very good for Begich. It looks very bad for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, and Andrew Sullivan, who probably wanted the material if Sarah Palin were to run to replace Stevens in a special election.

This might be a good time to mention to readers that FiveThirtyEight will be on the ground in Minnesota and Georgia in the coming weeks to cover the recount/runoff.

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Stevens' Lead Shrinks to 971 Votes, With Many Yet to be Counted

The state of Alaska is now reporting that Ted Stevens has 118,602 votes to Mark Begich's 117,631, a gap of 971 ballots. This incorporates 28,519 ballots which have been counted since this morning.

Prior to today, Stevens' lead over Begich had been 3,257 votes, with the state of Alaska having reported that about 90,000 votes remained to be counted. Although some of those votes will be thrown out (such as duplicate votes when the voter both sent in an absentee ballot and came to the polling place), there are still plenty of votes remaining to be counted, and Begich is making up ground at a sufficient pace that he appears more likely than not to surpass Stevens.

A significant number of additional votes will be counted before close of business today, although approximately 8 of Alaska's 40 house districts won't finalize their counting process until Friday at the earliest. The areas that will report late consist mostly of rural, Begich-friendly districts (contrary to our earlier reporting, Begich performed quite well in rural Alaska; his weaknesses were in the Anchorage Suburbs and the Mat-Su Valley).

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Is Jackson Jr. Illinois' Choice?

A Zogby poll commissioned for Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. reports the following:

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois' 2nd District is the favorite among possible replacements to fill the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, a new Zogby telephone poll shows.

The survey, conducted Nov. 5-6, 2008, shows that, given a choice of 10 possible candidates, 21% think Gov. Rod Blagojevich should appoint Jackson to the seat when Obama leaves it vacant to ascend to the presidency, far more than the rest of the field. Tammy Duckworth, a former Democratic congressional candidate from a suburban Chicago district, is the only other potential candidate to win double-digit support -14% said she should be appointed.

This is spun as favorable news for Jackson, but I'm not so certain; having the support of 21 percent of Illinoisans is hardly a rousing consensus.

In addition, we probably have to account for name recognition, since most of these candidates are pretty obscure. The Zogby poll says that 65 percent of Illinoisans are familiar with Jackson, so one way to read these numbers is that 32 percent of Illinoisans who know of Jackson have him as their top choice. By contrast, Tammy Duckworth's name recognition is just 40 percent. Among Illinoisans who are familiar with Duckworth, 35 percent have her as their top choice, a slightly larger fraction than Jackson.

This may all prove to be a moot point, however, as FiveThirtyEight is hearing that State Senate President and Obama mentor Emil Jones may have the inside track on being named Obama's replacement. Jones is 73, however, and had reportedly announced his plans to retire, so he may just serve to keep the seat warm until the Democrats have at it in a primary in 2010.

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Was 2008 A Realigning Election? Ask Me In Eight Years.

This whole debate about whether 2008 was or was not a 'realigning' election is rather silly.

Since the turn of the last century, there have been 11 cases in which the presidency changed parties: 1912 (Wilson), 1920 (Harding), 1932 (Roosevelt), 1952 (Eisenhower), 1960 (Kennedy), 1968 (Nixon), 1976 (Carter), 1980 (Reagan), 1992 (Clinton), 2000 (Bush), and 2008 (Obama). In 9 of the 11 cases, the party winning the presidency had also made substantial gains in the Congress as compared with four years' earlier (although not necessarily as compared with two years' earlier). The two exceptions were the last two party changes before Obama: Clinton in 1992, when the Democrats were pretty much treading water in the Congress, and Bush in 2000, when the Republicans were doing likewise.

What ultimately distinguishes the elections that are considered to have been realignments is the efficacy of the governance of the rising party, rather than the force with which said party took office. Ronald Reagan and FDR, famously, had coattails -- but so did Warren G. Harding, who brought the Republicans a net gain of 123 (!) seats in the House in 1920. One might likewise have been tempted to consider the combination of the Democrats' landslide in the 1974 midterms and Jimmy Carter's ascendancy in 1976 a 'realignment'. Reagan and FDR, however, were effective Presidents, whereas Carter and Harding were not, quickly managing to relinquish most of what they had gained. Barack Obama, perhaps, may be the first President since Reagan in 1980 to have an opportunity to realign the country; whether or not he'll do so is another matter.

(As to the two exceptions I discussed earlier: I think you can argue, in essence, that Bill Clinton's election was something of an historical accident, a correction in the long bull market for conservatives that ran from 1980 through 2006. And Clinton governed from the center, arguably accomplishing more for conservatives during his presidency than he did for liberals, ranging from the Defense of Marriage Act to NAFTA to welfare reform.)

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Ballot Design Quiz

Which one of the following three ballot designs is the MOST likely to produce an undervote, such as the voter marking his choice in the wrong place on the ballot?

Ballot A:


Ballot B:


Ballot C:

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Prop 8 Myths

Writes Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee:

Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure's margin of victory.

To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional – meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher – chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.

Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that -- and there's no polite way to put this -- the older voters aren't going to be around for all that much longer, and they'll gradually be cycled out and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. Everyone knew going in that Prop 8 was going to be a photo finish -- California might be just progressive enough and 2008 might be just soon enough for the voters to affirm marriage equity. Or, it might fall just short, which is what happened. But two or four or six or eight years from now, it will get across the finish line.

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Minnesota Recount: Number of Discrepancies May Be Low

Although it might seem like we've already covered all the ground there is to cover on the Minnesota recount process, we may be able to draw some additional lessons from Florida's recount experience in 2000.

In 2001, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago undertook a comprehensive review of almost all ballots rejected in initial counts in the state of Florida in 2000, a process known as the Florida Ballot Project. NORC provides a wealth of data for public consumption, some of which is especially helpful to our purposes here.

Specifically, I examined records for a set of 6,902 undervotes in a series of 37 Florida counties that used optical scanning technology (as Minnesota does) in 2000. This excludes data from Volusia County, which NORC recommends against using because of ambiguities surrounding which ballots were and weren't included in its initial count.

NORC researchers went through each of these ballots, attempting to determine whether voter intent was discernible as a result of any kind of marking on the ballot. Among the 6,902 undervotes:

-- In 4,505 cases (65.3%), there were no clear markings on the ballot and voter intent was not discernible. In most or many of these cases, the voter probably skipped the presidential race intentionally.

-- In 179 cases (2.6%), there were markings beside more than one candidate. Although these votes should probably have been classified as overvotes rather than undervotes, in either eventuality they are not very useful to us.

-- In the remaining 2,217 cases (32.1%), there was a marking next to one candidate only -or- there was an affirmative marking next to one candidate and a negative marking (such as the candidate's name being crossed out) next to one or more candidates (such negative markings were rare and represented just a small fraction of the total).

There were 34,916 unrecorded votes in Minnesota's senate race. If the voter's intent can in fact be discerned in 32.1% of these cases, that would total 11,208 reclassified ballots. This would likely be more than enough to give Franken a victory given that his voters are probably more likely to have cast a discarded ballot.

However, I believe this may overestimate the number of correctable errors for two reasons. Firstly, the proportion of intentional undervotes (i.e. where the voter skipped the race on purpose) is liable to be higher the further one goes down the ballot; a top-of-the-ticket race like the presidential election in Florida does not make for an apples-to-apples comparison with a second-on-the-ticket race like the senate election in Minnesota . Secondly, I have only examined the data for undervotes and not overvotes, and overvotes are usually harder to correct during a recount.

Still, let's dig a little deeper and see what we might find. The NORC data set also provides a brief description of the nature of the voter's mark in cases when a ballot is reclassified upon a hand recount. Among our 2,217 reclassified ballots, the description of the marks were as follows:

746 Arrow/oval filled
442 Arrow/oval marked other than fill
   (circled, X, ?, checked, scribble)
418 Other mark near arrow/oval
263 Other mark on or near party name
227 Other mark on or near candidate name
89 Circled party name
32 Circled candidate name

In 746 of 2,217 cases -- almost exactly one-third -- the voter appeared to have filled in the oval or arrow properly, but the machine did not record the vote. These votes can be thought of as cases of machine error (although, in some subset of cases, they may consist of instances where a voter used a nonreadable marking device such as a dull pencil). The other two-thirds of cases are various forms of voter error, such as a voter circling a candidate's name rather than filling in his oval.

This distinction between machine error and voter error happens to be particularly helpful to us because the state of Minnesota periodically conducts an audit of its optical scanning systems. This audit is designed to detect the incidence of machine error and machine error only; cases of voter error are explicitly disregarded by the audit.

In Minnesota's 2006 senate race, the audit detected just 53 discrepancies out of 94,073 ballots tested, or an error rate of 0.056%. However, these are the cases of machine error only, whereas the state has a liberal voter intent law to cover cases of voter error as well during the process of an actual recount.

From our Florida data set, we believe that machine error represents approximately one-third of the total number of correctable errors. That would imply that about 0.169% of ballots -- roughly 1 ballot out of every 600 cast -- will be reclassified in Minnesota. Given the total number of ballots cast in Minnesota's senate race, this translates to 4,835 ballots that will in fact be reclassified during the hand recount.

Would this number be sufficient to provide Al Franken with a victory? It is very, very close. Using the Daily Kos estimate that 52.5% of recounted ballots will go to Franken (after dropping votes for third parties), we estimate a net gain of 206 votes for him, which is almost exactly the margin by which he presently trails Norm Coleman. (The margin is in fact exactly 206 votes as of this writing).

Another piece of information from the Florida data set, however, contains heartening news for Franken. Among the 2,217 reclassified ballots, 1,129 (50.9%) went to Al Gore, and 1,013 (45.7%) went to George W. Bush, with the balance going to third party candidates. This doesn't seem like that big a discrepancy. However, the counties that were using the optical scanning system in 2000 tended to be wealthy, suburban and quite red. When we look at the results of the officially-tallied ballots in those counties (weighted based on the number of recounted ballots) we find that 56.2% of those votes went to Bush and just 42.2% to Gore. Instead of losing to Bush by 15 points, however, as he had among regular ballots in these counties, Gore beat Bush by 5 points among the reclassified undervotes.

(As an aside, Gore and Bush split roughly evenly those ballots that were rejected due to apparent machine error, while Gore beat Bush about 3:2 among undervotes due to voter error).

The Daily Kos estimate of 52.5% reclassified ballots going to Franken is based on an examination of precinct-level data (specifically, the weighted average of already-counted ballots in those precincts which were scored for Franken), and therefore may be closer to the mark than the county-level data I examined in Florida. Even so, however, there is a certain amount of heterogeneity within a given precinct, and it is probable that those voters within a precinct that mismarked their ballots are more likely to be disposed toward Franken. If anything, therefore, the 52.5% estimate may be conservative.

The more that I examine this data, the more I'm beginning to believe that the number of reclassifiable ballots may be relatively low, but that the proportion of such ballots that are resolved in Franken's favor may be relatively high. How these two factors will ultimately reconcile themselves, I don't know.

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Democrats Net Two Secretary of State Seats

Democrats will gain control of three new chief elections officer positions -- in Montana, West Virginia and Colorado -- and lose one -- in Tennessee -- for a net gain of two.

In most states, the chief elections officer is the Secretary of State. Similarly, most are directly elected by the voters. Other chief elections officials are appointed by the governor or state legislature.

In 2008, there were seven direct elections of Secretaries of State who control oversight of statewide elections. Going into the elections, Democrats held four seats while Republicans held three. After Tuesday, Democrats hold six of the seven up for grabs. Democrats flipped seats in Montana and West Virginia via direct election. Incumbent Brad Johnson lost to Linda McCulloch in Montana, and Natalie Tennant won an open, Republican-held seat in West Virginia to replace outgoing Betty Ireland.

In Missouri, Vermont and North Carolina, incumbent Democrats won Secretary of State races. In Oregon, Democrats won an open, Democratic-held office when Kate Brown won. Only in Washington did the incumbent Republican hold his seat.

Colorado presents a Democratic pickup because Secretary of State Mike Coffman left to pursue Tom Tancredo's 6th district House seat, which he won. Democratic governor Bill Ritter will name a replacement, almost certainly a Democrat (Republican Governor Bill Owens appointed a Republican to replace Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar after Salazar won a Senate seat in 2004).

Democrats will lose an office in Tennessee because the state legislature appoints the chief elections official there, and it has finally flipped Republican with this year's elections. Indeed, in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee the chief elections officers have flipped Republican since 2004.

However, while Republicans held the offices during the 2004 elections, Democrats gained control with gubernatorial pickups in Maryland and New York (and ultimately Colorado, though that will be special appointment). Dems also gained offices by winning statewide elections in Missouri (2004), Minnesota (2006), Nevada (2006), Ohio (2006), Montana (2008) and West Virginia (2008).

In 2010, Secretary of State races with incumbent Republicans will be held in Alabama, Alaska (Lieutenant Governor appoints), Arizona, Florida (governor appoints), Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina (governor appoints), South Dakota, Texas (governor appoints), and Wyoming.

Secretary of State races with incumbent Democrats in 2010 will be held in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania (governor appoints), and Rhode Island (governor appoints).

The Virginia chief elections officer is appointed by the governor, and that race will be in 2009. Races in 2011 include Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi, all held by Republicans.

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More Minnesota Madness

A Minneapolis-based Daily Kos diarist named 'bitwise' has done some further sleuthing on the impending Minnesota senate recount, which we had discussed at length this morning. Here's what he's found:

The freshest data, pulled from the state website minutes ago, shows Franken down by 206 votes. The total presidential undervote is 10086. The total senate undervote is 34916. If the senate undervote is allocated to Coleman and Franken along their fraction of the Coleman+Franken vote in that precinct, Coleman would receive 16573 new votes, Franken 18342, for a Franken gain of +1769.

There are a couple of things to pick through here. Firstly, it appears that slightly more than 10,000 people undervoted the presidential race. Although there are undoubtedly cases in which the voter undervoted the presidency but not the senate race, it would appear that for the most part the presidential undervote is a subset of the senate undervote.

The research I've come across suggests that about two-thirds of presidential undervotes are unintentional. So let's take two-thirds of that 10,086 vote total and assign them to the recount pile -- that equals 6,724 votes.

There were also about 25,000 cases in which the voter voted for the presidency but undervoted the senate race (consistent with the AP's reportined finding last week). Let's assume that in most of these cases, the voter intentionally skipped the senate race, but that in one-third of cases he did not. This equals another 8,277 votes, or a total of 15,001 cases in which the voter intended to vote for the senate race, but his vote was not recorded.

In not all of these 15,001 cases, however, will the voter's intention be clear. Let's assume that one-quarter of these ballots will be unresolvable, even upon a hand recount. This means that 11,251 ballots will actually be reclassified during the recount, or about 0.4% of the total cast.

Bitwise notes, however, that Franken did in fact perform better -- really, quite a bit better -- in precincts with more undervotes. If undervotes follow the pattern of the recorded votes, then Franken would win 52.5% of recounted ballots (excluding any ballots cast for third parties). This is a significant finding, as these are the first numbers I have seen to break the undervote down to the precinct level.

Let's approach this in a couple of different directions. Firstly, let's assume that my estimate of 11,251 recounted ballots is correct and hold this number constant, but vary the share of such ballots that go to Franken. Here are his win percentages under various such scenarios:

11,251 recounted ballots (0.4% correctable error rate)
======================================================
Recounted Ballots
Resolved for Franken    Franken Win %
50.0%                   1.85%
50.1%                   2.93%
50.5%                   13.39%
51.0%                   44.82%
51.5%                   80.18%
52.0%                   96.61%
52.5%                   99.75%
53.0%                   99.99%

Alternatively, let's assume that Bitwise's estimate of 52.5% of recounted ballots being resolved for Franken is correct, but vary the number of qualified ballots:

Franken Wins 52.5% of Recounted Ballots
======================================================
Number of Recounted Ballots     Franken Win %
2,500                           1.68%
5,000                           54.60%
5,623                           68.93%
7,500                           92.49%
10,000                          99.15%
11,251                          99.75%
15,000                          99.99%
20,000                          100.00%

The long story short is as follows: if Al Franken in fact wins anywhere near 52.5% of the undercounted ballots, it is quite likely that he will prevail, even given what I would consider to be fairly pessimistic assumptions about the number of correctable errors. You could halve my estimate of the number of recounted ballots, for instance (to 5,623) and Franken still projects to prevail around 69% of the time. If, on the other hand, Franken only wins say 51% of the undercount, then the precise number of correctable errors is more important.

I hesitate to say this, but I think the evidence points on balance toward Franken being a slight favorite to win the recount.

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Whistling Past Bubba

Although it's natural to compare Barack Obama's map against that of the losing Democratic efforts in 2000 and 2004, perhaps the more interesting comparison is with 1992, as Bill Clinton won both the popular vote and the Electoral College by similar margins to Obama:



The Democrats seem to be on the verge of quarantining the Republicans to a few, relatively electorally dry areas. As compared with 1992, there has been a net swing of at least 19 points to the Republicans in seven states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, West Virginia, Wyoming and Arkansas. All of these states but Wyoming form a contiguous region, which we refer to as the "Highlands" region but which is more commonly called the Inland South.

As compared with 1992, this represents a significant loss for Democrats, as Bill Clinton carried each of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana and Arkansas in 1992. As compared with 2000 or 2004, however, the loss of these states is less electorally relevant to the Democrats. Al Gore was not able to carry any of these states, including his home state of Tennessee, nor was John Kerry. If you're going to have to sacrifice a particular region of the country, this is not a bad one to sacrifice. The only state that may sting a little is Missouri, which shares much in common with this region and is quickly losing its bellwether status.

What's more, the Democrats have not had to sacrifice the entirety of the South. As compared with 1992, they performed better in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, and much better in Virginia. The three Southern states that Barack Obama carried but Bill Clinton didn't -- North Carolina, Virginia and Florida -- account for 55 electoral votes, nearly canceling out the 65 electoral votes from the seven Southern states (Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and West Virgina) that Bill Clinton carried but Barack Obama didn't.

Elsewhere, the Democrats have now put the Northeast completely out of reach. Although some of these gains are superfluous, at least four former swing states (New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware and Maine) no longer seem to fit that description. The Democrats have also gained ground in essentially all states in the industrial Midwest except Minnesota, but including Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, (and by smaller margins Ohio and Pennsylvania).

West of the Mississippi, there is something of a parallel pattern to the South. Democrats have fallen further behind in the Mormon belt -- Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, but have gained ground in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Arizona may be more fruitful with John McCain off the ballot in 2012. Only in California do their gains seem somewhat superfluous, but there is some utility to them in having a large enough cushion that they do not need to defend the state.

Essentially, by sacrificing 50 or so Electoral Votes from the inland South, the Democrats have taken about 60 votes from former swing states and turned them into Lean Democratic states, and another 44 or so from former lean Republican states and turned them into swing states. This is a good trade-off.

Former swing states which are now lean Republican (45):
Missouri (11)
Tennessee (11)
Louisiana (9)
Kentucky (8)
Arkansas (6)

Former lean Democratic states which are now lean Republican (5):
West Virginia (5)

Former swing states with are now lean Democrat (60):
New Jersey (15)
Washington (11)
Wisconsin (10)
Oregon (7)
New Mexico (5)
Maine (4)
New Hampshire (4)
Delaware (3)

Former lean Republican states which are now swing states (53 EV):
North Carolina (15)
Virginia (13)
Indiana (11)
Colorado (9)
Nevada (5)

Former lean Democratic states which are now swing states (0 EV):
--None--

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Franken's Odds of Winning Recount May Be Long -- or Short

Votes counted in Minnesota's senate race: 2,833,089

Votes separating Norm Coleman and Al Franken: 221

Determining a candidate's odds of winning a recount is a function of three parameters. The first parameter is the margin separating the leading and trailing candidates. In Minnesota, this margin is apparently 221 votes -- although it has changed several times since results first came in on Tuesday night (it was originally more than 700), and it may change again before results are finalized this week. But let's assume that 221 is the correct number for the time being.

The second parameter is what I call the Correctable Error Rate (CER). This is the percentage of ballots that were not counted originally, but which will be counted given a hand recount.

The third parameter is the percentage of recounted ballots which are resolved for the trailing candidate -- in this case, Al Franken. It might seem natural to assume that this number is 50.0%, but there is good reason to think that it might not be. More in this in a moment.

But for now, let's get back to estimating that other parameter, the Correctable Error Rate. There are essentially two reasons why a vote might be missed in a machine count. The first is if the voter undervotes the ballot, and the second is if he overvotes it.

An overvote occurs when a machine -- in this case, Minnesota's optical ballot scanners -- registers a vote for two or more candidates in a given race. When this occurs, the machine throws both votes out, meaning that no vote is recorded in that race. An overvote is always -- or almost always -- unintentional. It may occur, for instance, when a voter initially selects one candidate and then crosses his name out before picking the other one (see example from the Minnesota Secretary of State below). It might also occur if, say, a voter fully fills in the oval beside one candidate, but then leaves a stray pen mark beside another candidate's name.



An undervote is just the opposite -- it occurs when the machine is unable to record a vote for any candidate in that race. This is probably the more common error, and may occur if the voter fails to follow the ballot's instructions in any number of ways, such as by placing an 'X' by the candidate's name rather than filling in his oval, or using his own pen or pencil rather than the one provided to him. Unlike an overvote, however, an undervote may oftentimes be intentional -- the voter may simply skip a race that he is not interested in.



The Associated Press has reported that there were approximately 25,000 ballots -- or about 0.9 percent of the total cast in Minnesota -- in which a vote was recorded for the presidency but not for Minnesota's senate race. This figure might be either too high or too low as an estimate of the true error rate in Minnesota. On the one hand, in many or perhaps even most of these cases, the voter may have left the senate race blank intentionally. On the other hand, this total is not inclusive of certain other types of errors, such as when the voter undervoted both the presidency and the senate race (as might occur when the voter was systematically making the same error in all the races on his ballot), or when the machine recorded a vote, but did so for the wrong candidate (this particular error should be fairly rare, but may happen occasionally).

For what it is worth, an 0.9 percent error rate would be fairly consistent with other studies of optical scanning systems, which are considered among the more reliable voting technologies (they are almost certainly the most reliable fully auditable voting system). These error rates are relatively low, in part, because most optical scanning systems can quickly read a ballot before it is handed to the poll worker, alerting a voter to potential overvotes or undervotes -- a process known as 'precinct scan'. In Minnesota, the vast majority of counties have such precinct scanning systems, but they may be applied inconsistently -- it appears that in most precincts, for instance, the machines were programmed to alert the voter to an overvote, but not to an undervote. If a precinct scan check is not applied, or the poll worker is too busy or distracted to alert the voter, error rates using optical scanning systems be at least twice as high.

Still, I would guess that 0.9 percent is toward the higher end of the plausible range for what I am calling the Correctable Error Rate -- the fraction of ballots that will be resolved differently when recounted by hand than when initially counted by machine. Many undervotes, as mentioned above, may be intentional. Among those that aren't, moreover, the voter's intent might not be sufficiently easy to determine even upon a hand recount. I would guess that somewhere between 7,500 and 25,000 ballots (or about 0.25 percent to 0.90 percent of the total vote) will actually be reclassified during the hand recount. Moreover, about 15 percent of these votes will be counted for third-party candidate Dean Barkley, rendering them essentially meaningless.

If the Correctable Error Rate in fact falls somewhere in this range, than Franken's chances of winning a recount are not very strong -- provided that a misclassified ballot is equally likely to favor Franken or Coleman. By using a binomial distribution, we can estimate Franken's chances of gaining at least 221 votes given various CER's:

Correctable      Odds of Franken
Error Rate       Winning Recount*
=================================
0.10%            0.00%
0.25%            0.24%
0.50%            2.27%
0.75%            5.14%
0.90%            6.93%
1.00%            8.01%
1.50%            12.52%
2.00%            16.04%
3.00%            21.00%
* Assuming equal distribution of Franken, Coleman errors.

If, for instance, 25,000 votes or about 0.9 percent of the total are reclassified during the recount, than Franken's odds of winning are only about 7 percent. If only 0.5 percent of the total vote is reclassified, then his odds of winning are not much more than 2 percent.

Until now, however, we have been assuming that ballot tabulation errors are equally likely to favor Franken and Coleman -- but this is probably not the case. Why not? There is substantial evidence that undervotes and overvotes are significantly more common among what we might call vulnerable voters -- in particular, minorities, elderly voters, low-income and low-education voters, and first-time voters. A 2001 study for the House Committee on Government Reform, found that undervoted ballots were more than twice as common in minority-heavy, low-income precincts than in predominately white, upper-income precincts -- even when using the relatively reliable, precinct-based optical scanning system that Minnesota uses. (The discrepancies are significantly higher when using less reliable technologies like punch cards.)

How might these demographics play out in Minnesota? According to exit polls, elderly voters split their votes almost exactly evenly between Franken and Coleman (Coleman's strength came from middle-aged voters, not older or younger ones). There was little relationship, moreover, between education levels and voter preferences.

Among other groups of vulnerable voters, however, Franken sigificantly outperformed Coleman. Franken led by 15 points among voters making $50,000 or less, while Coleman led by 3 among voters making between $50,000 and $100,000, and by 16 among voters making $100,000 or more. Coleman won white voters by 3 points, but Franken won among minorities by 40 points. And while there is no direct evidence of this in the exit polls, it is likely that Franken performed significantly better than Coleman among first-time voters.

Assume that minorities are 50% more likely than white voters to have undervoted the ballot; this is arguably a conservative assumption. If this is the case, than about 51.0% of reclassified ballots (excluding those cast for third parties) are likely to be resolved in Franken's favor. Alternatively, suppose that voters making $50,000 or less are 50% more likely than wealthier voters to have undervoted the ballot. In this case, 51.3% of reclassified ballots would go to Franken. This might not seem like a big deal, but as you'll see in a moment, it makes a huge amount of difference.

If, over the long run, we expect Franken to win 51% of corrected ballots, his odds of winning the recount may be quite strong -- in fact, he may be the prohibitive favorite depending on the number of recounted ballots:

Correctable      Odds of Franken
Error Rate       Winning Recount*
=================================
0.10%            0.02%
0.25%            10.51%
0.50%            58.67%
0.75%            86.23%
0.90%            93.35%
1.00%            95.93%
1.50%            99.67%
2.00%            99.97%
3.00%            100.00%
* Assuming 51% of corrected ballots resolved for Franken over long-run.

Let me go ahead and give you an entire matrices' worth of data given various assumptions about the Correctable Error Rate and the fraction of correctable errors resolved in Franken's behalf -- the numbers in the table represent Franken's odds of winning the recount:



The values in bright yellow represent the ones that I consider to have stemmed from the most reasonable assumptions -- that is, a relatively low CER, but a slight majority of corrected ballots being resolved in Franken's favor. As you can see, this is not very helpful -- given different sets of "reasonable" assumptions, Franken is anywhere from the prohibitive underdog in the recount to the prohibitive favorite! The average value contained within the yellow region, however, is 44.3 percent, which is pretty close to where things are trading on Intrade right now.

A couple of additional notes before we close out. Firstly, it's very important that Franken's deficit is is down to 221 votes, rather than the 700 or so that it appeared to be originally. Suppose that the Corretable Error Rate is 0.75%, and that Franken wins 50.5% of corrected ballots; we have him winning the recount 39.3% of the time under these assumptions. If, however, Franken had to make up 700 votes rather than 221, his win percentage under these assumptions would be just 0.008% percent -- about a 13,000-to-1 longshot.

Secondly, in this article we have been thinking of ballot tabulation errors as essentially discrete and random events -- that is, there is no instrinsic relationship between your likelihood of having your vote miscounted and that of the person standing in line in front of you. There may be a separate class of errors, however, which we might call malfunctions: those which, presumably because of faulty technology, might affect a large number of ballots at once. If ballot tabulation errors are not independent of one another but instead are "clustered", than the odds for the trailing candidate to prevail in a recount may be higher than implied by the charts above.

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2010 Senate Rankings, Part I: Races #21-#35

At least 35 seats will be contested for the United States Senate in November, 2010, including 34 seats whose six-year terms are set to expire and one special election in Delaware (although Barack Obama's seat in Illinois will also require a replacement, it was set to expire in 2010 anyway). These include a number of tremendously interesting races, with many incumbents vulnerable to retirement or unusually strong challengers, and it is not inconceivable that as many as 15 or 20 races may wind up being seriously contested.

My feeling is that it is never too early to begin looking at these races. For one thing, I want to make it clear that FiveThirtyEight will be a presence on the political scene for a long time to come. For another, the competitive nature of some of these races may begin having implications almost immediately. For instance, if Arlen Specter believes he is vulnerable to being unseated in Pennsylvania, he may be more likely to side with the Obama administration on something like a cloture vote. Conversely, if Byron Dorgan thinks he is at risk in North Dakota, he might be more inclined to buck the new president. There are also a number of cases -- such as Washington on the Republican side or Oklahoma for the Democrats -- where if the opposition is thinking about mounting a serious challenge, it had better get started building infrastructure right away.

The races are ranked from 1 to 35 in order of their likelihood of changing hands to the opposition party. In some cases, this is a difficult calculation to handle because of uncertainty about whom the candidates might be. For instance, if Chuck Grassley decideds to run for re-election in Iowa, he is almost certainly safe, but if he retires, the seat probably leans Democrat. We have tried to reconcile these contengencies the best we can.

Where an incumbent is running, we have listed his approval, favorability or job performance ratings as compiled from recent surveys. Keep in mind that job approval scores vary heavily from survey to survey depending on question wording and are at best a rough guide to a congressman's standing.

Today, we will cover races #21 through 35.

35. Idaho (R-Crapo)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Mike Crapo (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          7/2007    61          26        +35

Idaho may be turning blue very, very slowly, and perhaps Walt Minnick can make a credible run at Jim Risch's newly-minted seat in 2014. But with Democrats just having lost an open-seat race by 24 points, they're not yet in any sort of position to take a run at a popular incumbent.

34. Alabama (R-Shelby)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Richard Shelby (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          10/18     61          32        +29

There's an outside chance that the well-liked Shelby could retire, but Alabama is one of those places where the Solid South is waning faster than the New South is waxing, and I just can't imagine the sort of Democrat who would be capable of winning a senate seat right now.

33. Utah (R-Bennett)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Bob Bennett (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Dan Jones          1/2007    67          18        +49

The Democrats might have just a glimmer of hope in the form of Jim Matheson, the Democrat who represents Utah's 2nd Congressional District, who could theoretically make a run at things were Bennett, who will be 77 in 2010, to retire. But there's no indication that Bennett will do so, nor that Matheson would be ready to risk his House seat, and even then a generic Republican like Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert would probably beat him.

32. Oregon (D-Wyden)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Ron Wyden (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA         10/18      54          34        +20

Wyden is a popular and effective senator, and Oregon, after some flirtation with battleground state status, now appears to be back firmly in the blue camp. The GOP has better places to invest resources.

31. Indiana (D-Bayh)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Evan Bayh (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          2/4       58          32        +26

The Bayh brand name is probably untouchable, and having a Democrat in this seat no longer seems like such an outlier now that Barack Obama carried Indiana on Election Day. Republican hopefuls will probably wait until Richard Lugar's possible retirement in 2012.

30. Vermont (D-Leahy)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Pat Leahy (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Research 2000      10/2007   67          29        +38

Some Republicans think that Governor Jim Douglas, who was just re-elected to his fourth two-year term, could be viable if Leahy were to retire, but Leahy probably has at least one more term left, and even then Peter Welch or perhaps Howard Dean would be formidable opponents.

29. New York (D-Schumer)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Chuck Schumer (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Marist             10/22     55          33        +22
SurveyUSA          10/18     60          31        +29
Quinnipiac         8/2       61          23        +38

It's possible that this race could attract Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki, but they'd likely be running a fool's errand against Schumer, who is quite popular in his home state and could raise virtually unlimited amounts of money. More likely, the Republicans will want to concentrate their resources on the governor's race.

28. Maryland (D-Mikulski)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Barbara Mikulski (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          11/2006   57          35        +22

Were Mikulski to retire, the Republicans could think about running Michael Steele or Bob Ehrlich, but with both having lost statewide races in 2006 against fairly marginal Democrats, that probably gives you an indication of how such a challenge would resolve itself.

27. South Dakota (R-Thune)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: John Thune (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Mason-Dixon        10/14     64          34        +30

There's no reason to think that Thune should be vulnerable in the first place, and were something unexpected to happen -- like Tom Daschle deciding he wanted a re-match -- the Republicans would throw tons of money at the race to protect one of the few rising stars in their party. The other long-shot scenario is that Thune decides he wants to run for governor to gain some executive experience prior to a prospective White House run in 2012 or 2016, in which case Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin might try her luck.

26. North Dakota (D-Dorgan)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Byron Dorgan (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          11/2006   75          21        +54

Theoretically, a red-state seat like this is always vulnerable given the right Republican challenger, but Dorgan is very popular and is the sort of incumbent who President Obama will be trying to make look good. Governor John Hoeven may eventually be a problem for Democrats once he picks his year to run for the Senate, but he resisted such overtures in 2006 and may wait until the Republican brand is in better shape.

25. Washington (D-Murray)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Patty Murray (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Strategic Vision   11/1      55          37        +18
SurveyUSA          10/18     55          35        +20

Murray's approval ratings are good but not great; she might be vulnerable against the perfect opponent running a pitch-perfect campaign. But there's no particular indication about whom that opponent might be. WA-5's Cathy McMorris Rodgers may eventually be an interesting candidate, but probably needs more seasoning.

24. Hawaii (D-Inouye)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Daniel Inouye (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          11/2006   68          26        +42

Inoyue is the more popular of Hawaii's two very popular Democratic senators, but he'll also be 86 years old in 2010. If he's unable or unwilling to run, governor Linda Lingle might have a chance at the seat. Barack Obama, however, could probably go a long way toward quashing her hopes if forced to rally for a Democrat like Mazie Hirono in his home state.

23. South Carolina (R-DeMint)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Jim DeMint (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
SurveyUSA          2/19      49          37        +12

DeMint is not terrifically popular and may be too conservative even by South Carolina standards. But as evidenced by their inability to nominate a credible opponent against Lindsay Graham, Democrats have real recruitment problems in this state.

22. Wisconsin (D-Feingold)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Russ Feingold (D)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Strategic Vision   11/1      57          33        +24
SurveyUSA          10/18     53          43        +10
WisPolitics.com    6/9       59          29        +30

Feingold is the sort of liberal icon whom the Republicans are always going to want to target; the problem is that he's become something of a Wisconsin icon too. If Tommy Thompson runs and there is some perception that the Obama government has overreached, he could be vulnerable; otherwise, probably not.

21. Oklahoma (R-Coburn)

Approval/Favorability Ratings: Tom Coburn (R)
Poll               Date    Approve   Disapprove    Net
Sooner Poll        7/21      59          24        +35

The survey you see above was a Republican-affiliated poll that probably exaggerates Coburn's favorability ratings, but this remains a tough state for Democrats. Democratic governor Brad Henry, however, will be term-limited in 2010 and could decide to run for the seat. Howard Dean should be looking for a commitment from Henry sooner rather than later, because while this one is winnable if Henry is the candidate, it will require some real tender loving care.

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Obama's Electoral Cushion

Throughout this election cycle, there was some debate about whether either candidate had a structural advantage in the Electoral College, with our model generally insisting that Barack Obama was more likely to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote rather than the other way around.

Obviously, this became something of a moot point once the vote began rolling in on Tuesday and it became clear that Obama was going to win decisively. But nevertheless, there is evidence that if the race had tightened significantly, Obama had an electoral cushion of between 2-3 points. Specifically, while Obama won the national popular vote by 6.5 points, he accumulated 269 electoral votes -- guaranteeing him at least an electoral tie -- between 22 states and the District of Columbia which he won by 9.3 points or more. And he went over the top to 278 electoral votes with Colorado, which he won by 8.6 points.

In other words, if you had subtracted 9.3 points from Barack Obama's margin in every state, he would still have tied the Electoral College -- even while losing the popular vote by almost 3 points. And if you had subtracted 8.6 points, he would have won the Electoral College outright, while losing the popular vote by 2.1 points. McCain's strategy of in effect conceding Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, while trying to compete in states like Pennsylvania and Iowa where Obama was already comfortably over 50 percent in almost all pre-election polls, was in retrospect a complete disaster.

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