The Daily Background

(MOST RECENT UPDATES ARE AT THE BOTTOM)

All right, here we go. I don’t know how late I’ll be staying up, and there are other primary races tonight as well, but this is the only one I’m particularly interested in (save perhaps a vague interest in the Democratic MT-Sen primary).


So far, not too much is going on. Apparently there are reports of low voter turnout which would appear to be a bad thing for Francine Busby, because California’s 50th district (which encompasses San Diego) is largely conservatives. Thus, Democrats need to show up at the polls doubly in order to compete. Low turnout ain’t good. Of course, this is largely anecdotal evidence, and should be taken with a grain of salt. We’ll see what happens. This will certainly be a very close race, if recent polls are any indication.

xxx11:11xxxx
Okay, here we go, first results, 57 precincts reporting (out of a total of 500, which is about 11%), gives Bilbray 50% and Busby 42%. Two other candidates who haven’t a stone’s throw in hell of winning are making up the difference. Are some of these absentee ballots? I’m not positive on this– I’ll update if I can get confirmation.

xxx11:17xxxx
Just a quick note here, about the page I just linked to- which is an unofficial but officially run results page. I gotta say, I’ve covered special elections in the past, and this particular electronic system is kind of crappy, compared to some others I’ve seen.

There’s no notice about how often it’s updated, no auto-reload feature, no separate pages for each race, and no breakdown of precincts for each candidate district-wide. To be fair, this is a primary, and not just a special election (thus, there are a lot more things on the ballot), and it would probably take up a huge amount of room to list precinct by precinct, but at least they could have made a separate page for each candidate and ballot initiative, and an auto-reload feature.

And at least some kind of indication on how often these results are updated. Because there’s one huge page, instead of a bunch of smaller ones, they’re taking a real hit in terms of traffic, with so many people reloading the site, so it’s going very slowly. What a pain.

xxx11:25xxxx
Election-guru Chris Bowers of MyDD is has this to say about the votes counted (still unclear whether they’re all absentee or not at this point):

They key will be the absentee totals, which will probably be reported in about an hour. If Busby is tied or ahead in absentees, she will win. If Busby is down by more than 4%, Bilbray will probably win. If it is between 1% and 4% lead for Bilbray, expect a close race and a long night.

If these are the only absentee votes, then things actually look good for Busby. She is only down by 3,000 votes, with fewer than 40,000 votes counted. I like those odds. However, I still don’t know if those were all of the absentee votes.

xxxx11:30xxx
I’m hearing more rumors about those being absentee ballots, which is bad per traditional wisdom, but good per Chris’ theory. At this time though, I cannot absolutely confirm about them being absentee. Still no update on the official count.

By the way, I thought I’d say a bit about the other two candidates who I said earlier don’t stand a chance. They don’t, but as is often the case in close elections, they may have a Nader-effect. The thinking is that they may draw conservative votes away from Bilbray, whereas progressive votes will all go straight to Busby. So good news, if they can make an effect. Divide and conquer.

xxx11:35xxx
Okay, I’ve got like triple-confirmation now, those were absentee ballots. Unknown how long it will be until live votes from today start trickling in, although it really could be any time now, because it’s a half hour after the polls closed. Expect to see some numbers up shortly. By the way, here’s a mirror for the CA-50th results only (mirror/blog provided by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter by the way).

xxx11:42xxx
Okay, I’m hearing that the absentee ballots are not fully counted yet (I’m unable to confirm if this is correct or not). It’s also worth pointing out that absentee ballots go strictly on party lines, as Chris says. It looks like Tester won in MT, which is great news for progressives, the liberal blogosphere, and the Netroots in general. I might have a little more on this later in the evening.

xxx11:56xxx
Nothing new yet, just hang on. Those were absentee ballots by the way, and all of them. Republicans were projecting a 10,000 vote advantage for Busby, based on the voting demographics (supposedly 10,000 more Republicans voted by absentee than Dems), but there’s only a 3,000 vote lead that Bilbray has right now from the absentees. A good sign.

xxx12:05xxx
I would like to take a moment to say that if Francine Busby does win this race, it would be amazingly great news for Democrats this fall. And if she loses, it’s not exactly a death sentence either. I think we already know that the margin that this race will be won by, no matter what it is (because we already know it’s going to be fairly close), will be encouraging to Dems for the midterm elections.

And besides, if Busby loses now, she’ll still be running for a real two year term as the Democratic candidate in November (this election is only to stand in for convicted Republican Duke Cunningham until January 2007, when whoever wins in November takes over). Francine is a great Dem, and if she doesn’t win it this time, she also has a real chance to win it in November. That said, I’m hearing cautious optimism from everywhere.

xxx12:13xxx
To clear up any confusion that people have, the current total count is all the absentees plus 57 precincts. It’s both added together, I believe. If this is true then it’s closer than we thought, therefore, it’s better (since Busby is the underdog, obviously guys).

xxx12:20xxx
God, I totally take what I just said back. I feel like an idiot. I was sourcing Christine Pelosi on that, but I seem to have misunderstood the implications of what she said. This is almost all the absentee ballots (okay not quite almost all at all- about 15-20 thousand have yet to be counted) plus those precincts. Which of course makes what I said about the CA-50 official unofficial returns page being stupidly set up twice as true. Those idiots are still saying “ABSENTEE RESULTS ONLY” in bright purple at the top of their page. What idiots, way to be totally and entirely misleading.

xxx12:30xxx
To everybody who has been reloading that damned idiotic official unofficial results page and waiting for something, anything, to happen, I’d just offer a reminder. Associated Press does “expect” that 50% of all votes will be counted by 2am Eastern (11 o’clock Pacific). Hahaha, I’m sure that really doesn’t sound like much encouragement at the moment.

xxx12:40xxx
Ugh. Okay Chris is now saying that the only votes counted thus far are absentee. Which brings us back to it being good news. Now what the hell is the holdup? it’s been more than an hour and a half, and not a single real, live vote from today has been counted? I’m sure that the Associated Press is shaking their collective head and tsk tsking the election officials in the 50th district of California right now.

xxx12:50xxx
I would like everyone to know that I spilled some watermelon on this blanket. Other than that, there is absolutely no news. I’ll have another update in about ten minutes. Oh and also, kos has a piece up on Jon Tester (MT, future Senator, hopefully, who just won the Democratic primary). Tester is great, and kos’ piece is one of those inspirational happy reads. Something to pass the time at least. Victory tonight, certainly, in Montana.

xxx1:00xxx
You can watch the local NBC affiliate streaming here. At the moment Busby is talking in front of a huge amount of press (to much applause). It’s in Windows Media streaming, but you can watch it on a mac with the flip4mac plugin, which you can find on google for free. The crowd is currently chanting “Fran-cine, Fran-cine, Fran-cine!”

xxx1:10xxx
I think things are about to start moving again. Consider me a rumor-starter. Chris says half an hour. I’ll be up.

xxx1:20xxx
HERE WE GO. I WAS RIGHT. Francine now has 43.24% of the vote, and Bilbray has 50.33%, this is an increase for Busby over the absentee ballots, so good news. 66 precincts out of 500 now, 13.2%

xxx1:30xxx
By the way, I was totally the first blogger to report that. Also, these CA-50 officials are really doing a poor job maintaining their online presence. I still haven’t seen anyone else pick these new numbers up.

xxx1:40xxx
20% of all precincts counted now, that’s 100 out of 500. Busby has 43.35% of the vote, and Bilbray has 50.52% of the vote, so Busby is inching upwards, but so is Bilbray. I’ll have another update in about ten minutes.

xxx1:50xxx
GREAT JUMP FOR BUSBY! Bilbray has lost votes percentage wise, he’s now at 50.02 percent, and Busby is at 44.05%! She’s climbing in the polls, this is great news. It’s not 124 precincts counted, out of 500, which is almost 25 percent.

xxx2:00xxx
MORE GOOD NEWS: Bilbray has sunken into the 40s range! He is now at 49.67%, and Busby is at 44.52% now! Keep on inching up, Busby! 30% of precincts reporting now.

xxx2:10xxx
No new news.

xxx2:20xxx
Busby has slipped a little bit to 44.44% and Bilbray has gained a tiny bit to 49.80. 25% reporting.

xxx2:30xxx
Nothing new, as far as I know.

xxx2:40xxx
Bilbray is at 49.59% of the vote, and Busby has inched up to 44.74%. Good news, certainly. 42% of the 500 precincts are reporting at this time.

xxx2:50xxx
Nothing new, but I am feeling rather tired right now. I’m on the east coast, and it’s 2:50 AM here (as perhaps was obvious from the time that I just wrote in bold above between the Xs).

xxx3:00xxx
46.4% of precincts are reporting now. Busby has 44.70% and Bilbray as 49.67%. Wrong direction here, folks. Hopefully it’ll turn around though, this is a relatively minor fluctuation.

xxx3:10xxx
Busby is up again. 44.84% (the highest she’s had in this race yet), and Bilbray is down to 49.66%. 51% of the precincts are now reporting. I’d like to note that it is now 3am here on the east coast, and Associated Press “predicted” that 50% of the votes would be counted by 2am. At this time of night, that type of thing really seems to matter.

xxx3:30xxx
Busby has slid down a bit (44.71% to 49.82%, 56% reporting). I’m amazingly tired at this point. I think I’m just going to head off to bed now, but you can catch more updates over at MyDD (or the raw numbers here). I really hope Busby can pull through and win this one, but it’s looking less likely at this point. No matter what happens, she’ll be facing Bilbray this November for the real House seat- for two years instead of the few months that are left in Cunningham’s term.

So even if she loses, she’ll be back. And again, even if she loses, we’ve got to keep in mind that the majority of America is not as conservative as this district. If Busby got so close to winning here and lost, then this bodes very well for Democrats later this year in the November midterm elections.

I think it’s been a great night, Jon Tester is one of the great victories of the Netroots right now, and that’s excellent news for Montana, and for the country as well. No matter what the final numbers are in the 50th district of California, Francine Busby will have impressed everyone by her incredibly strong showing in a very conservative district.

Update: By the way, the final poll numbers are Busby: 45.46%, Bilbray: 49.33%. Bilbray won, but everything I said certainly still counts.

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