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Kamala Harris Claims Victory in Attorney General Race

by: Robert Cruickshank

Wed Nov 03, 2010 at 14:43:28 PM PDT


The Secretary of State shows 100% of precincts reporting, and Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley by approximately 15,000 votes:

Harris: 3,292,836 (45.9%)
Cooley: 3,277,998 (45.7%)

Now the "100% precincts reporting" stat does not mean that every last vote has been counted. There remain potentially hundreds of thousands of uncounted late absentee ballots across the state. However, Harris's campaign believes - and I agree - that these ballots will likely break for her, and lead to her becoming the next Attorney General.

Today Harris declared victory and her campaign manager, Ace Smith, put out the following statement:

In spite of Steve Cooley's Dewey-esque declaration of victory at 11:00 pm Tuesday night - which was followed six hours later by a cancellation of a Wednesday morning "victory" press conference - San Francisco  District Attorney Kamala Harris will be the next Attorney General of the State of California. Here is why:

• With 100% of precincts reporting, Kamala Harris has won the Election Day count by 14,838 votes, 45.9% to 45.7%.

• Uncounted ballots will only bolster Kamala Harris's lead, as they will reflect Harris's strong Election Day advantage.

• Considering that Cooley jumped out to a 50% to 42% lead on Tuesday night thanks to early absentee ballots - and considering where the vote total ended up - our model shows that Kamala Harris clearly won the vote on Election Day by 3%. The provisional ballots cast on Tuesday will reflect Harris's victory.

• The late absentee ballots will reflect Harris's late surge in the race - which was captured both in public and private polling.

This all seems quite sound to me, especially considering their evidence that Harris won on election day. Let's hope her lead holds. Not just because Dems would then have had a clean sweep of the statewide offices, but also because Steve Cooley is a crazy right-winger who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a position of power like the AG's office.
Robert Cruickshank :: Kamala Harris Claims Victory in Attorney General Race
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Kamala Harris Claims Victory in Attorney General Race | 46 comments
I really hope Kamala wins! (3.00 / 1)
I totally agree that Steve Cooley is a right-wing wing nut, and I do not want him in the AG office, I watched him declare victory then I watched the count come in throughout the night and I saw that Kamala's stronghold is the Bay Area and Los Angeles County while Cooley's stronghold is rural California and Orange County.
 I am wondering how many of the ballots yet to be counted come from Cooley's strongholds. Aren't conservatives more likely to mail in their ballots and vote absentee? What makes Kamala's camp so sure that the ballots yet to be counted will swing her way? I am so excited that she passed him up, but I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch....so I would like to hear about what signs they have that makes them think the late ballots will swing for Kamala.  
Absentee ballots are counted right away (0.00 / 0)
They pop up in the vote totals immediately upon the close of the polls.  Then the rural counties come in.

Urban counties always come in late / last, and take a while to be counted and verified.

[ Parent ]
ah ok (0.00 / 0)
so that would be good news for Kamala.....except that Orange County is urban and conservative and Cooley,,,but not cool lol......uggh I would love to see Cooley EAT HIS WORDS from last night!!  
[ Parent ]
SOME absentee ballots pop up at 8pm. (5.00 / 2)
absentee ballots turned in before election day are reported at 8pm.

absentee ballots turned in in polling places on election day are counted after the precinct ballots are counted, but before provisionals.

[ Parent ]
thus the term "late absentees" for the ones (0.00 / 0)
   that are carried into the polling places on election day.
I vote that way as does my mom, so there are two more votes for Harris that haven't been counted yet. Usually late absentees are more like election day votes while the early absentees are more conservative. I am cautiously optimistic about this race. I think that Kamala won because we got the Democratic turnout high enough to lift all our candidates. Last night I thought she had lost so her victory is a pleasant surprise.
[ Parent ]
Late absentees (0.00 / 0)
From what I read in two papers today, late absentees also include those received by mail after Friday.  Apparently, the election officials then shift attention to Tuesday's work.  
[ Parent ]
251,800 left to count in Orange County (0.00 / 0)
http://ocvote.org/live/totalst...

And Kamala got clobbered behind the Orange Curtain, where all of the GOTV resources of the Democratic Party, Move-on, OFA, and labor were focused on Loretta Sanchez' district, which has a pathetically small number of voters.

OC Progressive is Gus Ayer, former Fountain Valley Council member.  

[ Parent ]
Cooley vs Harris (0.00 / 0)
Harris's(45.9%) lead over Cooley(45.7%) has increased from 9030 to 12595, Which means 3,565 more votes for Harris, Yea!
[ Parent ]
The votes left to count here will largely be (0.00 / 0)
provisionals, though -- many of which won't count, and those that do count will be much more Democratic than the overall 2:1 Cooley advantage in the county.

No argument with your last paragraph, of course.

[ Parent ]
Napa County Vote by Mail (0.00 / 0)
Napa County has instituted VBM (Vote by Mail) to an ever increasing number of voters.  This morning, the County reported about 30,000 votes cast with 100% of Precincts reporting.  However, there were up to 18,000 VBM and absentee ballots yet to be counted.  As listed in their reports, Napa VBM and absentee ballots are lumped together, but really the vast majority are VBM.  Their website says these ballots are counted within 2 days before the election and up to 10 days after the election.  About 8,000 "absentee" ballots are included in the 30,000 votes already counted.  An election worker told me today that they had only gotten to sorting out the as yet uncounted ballots, so the final count does not appear imminent. This is a significant percentage of the County vote, and while small by State standards, it could bump an election one way or the other.  In the case of Kamala Harris, the Napa County vote counted so far favored her and the Democratic Party to a greater degree than the State average, so it is probable that Harris will get a little bump from Napa County's VBM when it is reported.  
[ Parent ]
have you heard anything (0.00 / 0)
about how many late absentees + provisionals remain uncounted?

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/vote-by... isn't working.

Uncounted Absentees (0.00 / 0)
In Alameda County, election official say there are tens of thousands to count.  Contra Costa County officials says they have 25,000 plus 12,000 provisional ballots.  
[ Parent ]
Excellent for Kamala (5.00 / 1)
Alameda County is running 66% for Harris.

Guess I still have San Francisco hippie values, although I'm an engineer
[ Parent ]
Not counting the win yet (4.50 / 2)
This has nothing to do with Kamala Harris or anything factual.  It is just my nature, after a lifetime of electoral disappointments, never to count the win until its official.  In 2000, I was parking my car as the radio announced that Al Gore won Florida.  I felt the election was over, we win!  So I didn't turn on the TV until I'd been home for a half hour or so.  You know the rest.  Those scars will never heal.

Side note:  Cooley ran a TV ad that saw like six thousand times listing all his reasons not to vote for Harris (death penalty, immigrants, etc.).  Every single thing in the ad made me like her more.  But I am a DFH.

Third parties. (0.00 / 0)
Per the count as of right now:

Kamala D. Harris (Dem)    3,302,221 45.9%
Steve Cooley (Rep)        3,293,191 45.8%
Peter Allen (Grn)           185,412  2.5%
Timothy J. Hannan (Lib)     180,395  2.5%
Diane Beall Templin (AI)    125,325  1.7%
Robert J. Evans (P&F)       117,125  1.6%

So out of 7,203,669 votes tallied so far, Harris is up by only 9,030 votes.

But the two right-wing candidates got 305,720 votes; and the two left-wing candidates got 302,537 votes.

This is where third party voting could've easily swung the election either way.  If a few more Greens had voted Democratic, we may not be sweating this out at all.  And if a few more AIP people had voted Republican, hello Attorney General Cooley.

Obviously, this isn't the final count, and the numbers will surely move around.  But it's where you definitely had enough third party votes to swing the election.


BTW, check out the Illinois Senate numbers:

Mark Kirk (Rep)         48.2%
Alexi Giannoulias (Dem) 46.3%
LeAlan Jones (Green)     3.2%
Mike Labno (Lib)         2.4%

one thing to keep in mind about 2012 (4.50 / 2)
in addition to whatever weirdness the commission redistricting ends up doing, is that there will be no spoilers in subsequent general election races, because of that top two primary thing that CA passed last election cycle.  
[ Parent ]
Karl Rove (0.00 / 0)
On the Lawrence O'Donnell show last night it was reported that Karl Rove tossed in one million at the last minute to run ads against Kamala Harris because he thinks she has a future.
He is right (4.50 / 2)
She does have a future.  Or, I should say, may have a future.  So many things can happen in politics.  
[ Parent ]
I thought Van Jones had a future (0.00 / 0)
Till he was politically assassinated.
[ Parent ]
Harris vs Cooley (5.00 / 2)
Well Harris(45.9%) is maintaining Her lead over Cooley(45.7%) with a difference of 17,015 votes between the two Candidates for AG. Hopefully in the end Kamala Harris will be California's next AG.
It's now a (0.00 / 0)
difference of 12,004 votes.
[ Parent ]
7,682 votes now (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
Uh-oh, now Cooley leads by almost 18,000. (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
16,095 in favor of :GASP: Cooley! n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Please please please (0.00 / 0)
let these be OC votes and let there be more votes up north!

My blog

Twitter
[ Parent ]
I hear Ya, But... (0.00 / 0)
Here the divide has grown to 22,817 votes in Cooley's favor(yuck), It's a ways to November 30th or when the last ballot has been counted...
[ Parent ]
The gap is now 20,653 (0.00 / 0)
It's now down to 20,653 or 2164 less than before, So hopefully this smaller gap, Which is still in Cooley's favor, Will crossover into Kamala's favor soon.
[ Parent ]
Cripes -- and Orange County alone (0.00 / 0)
gave Cooley a margin of 221,000.  This is awful if it stands.
[ Parent ]
The News said... (5.00 / 1)
That there are about 2,000,000 more ballots to be counted, So It's going to be a bit until We know Who has won for sure, Right now Cooley has increased His lead to 22967. It may yet swing back to Kamala and I hope It does.
[ Parent ]
It gets worse (0.00 / 0)
The gap is now 24,276 in Cooley's favor, Must be counting the OC ballots still.
[ Parent ]
Actually, I think she picked up a few hundred votes (0.00 / 0)
in OC from yesterday.  We had a lot of provisional ballots, as I understand it.
[ Parent ]
gap has started narrowing (0.00 / 0)
now it's just 19,189, with 2 million + votes still out, and a fair number of them in counties harris won. OC is almost done, san diego's still got 200,000+ to count..
[ Parent ]
It would (4.00 / 1)
be nice If Cooley was done getting votes, But We'll see. :D
[ Parent ]
the SOS site has no stats anymore (0.00 / 0)
Last time the race was online, The gap between Cooley and Harris, It was 40,958 in favor of Cooley, Now the SOS site has no stats anymore.
[ Parent ]
the CA SOS stats are back online now (0.00 / 0)
And Cooley's lead has increased to 51,439 over Kamala, The lead grew by 10,481 votes, There are an Estimated 1,710,335 uncounted ballots to count still, before all this is over. I'm still hoping Kamala will win of course.
[ Parent ]
Vote count (0.00 / 0)
Definitely a long way to go still. Looks like last night's boost to Cooley came from Riverside and Orange reporting. Any word on which counties the outstanding ballots are from?

The SOS website tells which counties have outstanding ballots, but not how many from each. Would help to know.

[ Parent ]
As yet unprocessed ballot report (0.00 / 0)
Here is the best report I could find from the SOS:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/election...

[ Parent ]
OMG (0.00 / 0)
Wow, That's a lot of ballots, I wonder can all of that be counted by the deadline?
[ Parent ]
site is back up (0.00 / 0)
Kamala Harris (Dem) 3,731,518
Steve Cooley (Rep) 3,782,957  
[ Parent ]
the Number of votes has changed (0.00 / 0)
Kamala Harris (Dem) 3,608,588
Steve Cooley (Rep) 3,644,785

The gap is now: 36,197 votes in favor of Cooley...

[ Parent ]
There are only (0.00 / 0)
1,287,033 Estimated Ballots are left to count.

The following Counties have had all their ballots counted.

Alpine
Colusa
Glenn
Kings
Lassen
Modoc
Mono
Plumas
Sierra
Trinity

[ Parent ]
Completed (0.00 / 0)
Small counties, but a lot of Red there.

A lot of counting to go, but even in the Red areas, most of the provisional ballots go to Harris. I'm feeling more and more confident that Harris will be the next AG.

[ Parent ]
So far (0.00 / 0)
It's a tight race @ 43,212 votes of difference. Come on Kamala, I know It kinda sounds like a horse race. 

Kamala D. Harris (Dem)	3,831,825	45.6%
Steve Cooley 	 (Rep)	3,875,037	46.1%

[ Parent ]
It's getting better, Finally (0.00 / 0)
The lead Cooley has had is now down to 43212 which is a reduction of -33657 from the last lead Cooley had over Kamala of 43,212, So things are looking up now for the moment.
[ Parent ]
big movement, all of a sudden (0.00 / 0)
cooley 3,895,569
harris 3,886,014

margin is down to 9,555 and falling. mcnerney picked up a bunch of votes too.

[ Parent ]
As fast as It's been (0.00 / 0)
moving in the correct direction, It's now jerked back a bit to a gap of 19,357 votes in favor of Cooley. 

Steve Cooley     (Rep)	3,975,095	45.9%
Kamala D. Harris (Dem)	3,955,738	45.7%

There are now 1,074,153 ballots left to count in the whole state.

[ Parent ]
Kamala Harris Claims Victory in Attorney General Race | 46 comments
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