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November 03, 2015 06:51 PM UTC

Election Night Open Thread

  • 72 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

You may begin…

Jefferson County Election Results

♦ Colorado Election Results (via Secretary of State’s Office)

♦ Denver Post results page

—–
UPDATE #3: After getting off to a scary start, Proposition BB (Marijuana taxes) has rebounded:

Proposition BB
YES: 510,953 (66.51%)
NO: 257,264 (33.49%)

—–
UPDATE #2: The closest race of the night might be in Lakewood, where the race for the next Mayor is neck-and-neck:

Adam Paul: 17,217 (50.09%)
Ramey Johnson: 17,153 (49.91%)

—–
UPDATE #1: First batch of numbers are out in Jefferson County, and the recall is well on its way to becoming a runaway winner…

Jefferson County School District Open Seats:

District 3
Ali Lasell: 74,749 (57.95%)
Kim Johnson: 54,245 (42.05%)

District 4
Amanda Stevens: 85,037 (67%)
Tori Merritts: 42,324 (33%)

 

Recall Election
District 1 (Julie Williams)
YES: 96,160 (64.4%)
NO: 53,178 (35.6%)

District 2 (John Newkirk)
YES: 94,871 (63.8%)
NO: 53,841 (36.2%)

District 5 (Ken Witt)
YES: 95,509 (64.38%)
NO: 52,848 (35.6%)

Comments

72 thoughts on “Election Night Open Thread

    1. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Kn7ct-4x9Uk&quot; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

       

      "We are not a political agenda, and we're not a profit margin; we are students that need to be educated."

      Yes, thanks to this board, by trying to wipe out the memory of Civil Protest, got 9th to 12th graders informed about what a 'walk out' is… and all of them will be influential voters for
      DECADES

       

  1. Will Superintendent Minimee be tendering his resignation in the morning? Will he want to continue working under this pack of Godless Bolsheviks who want to teach children about slavery, genocide of Native-Americans and US wars of aggression, and science like evolution and man-made climate change?

  2. I wonder if Julie's drubbing will cause brother-in-law Timmy to reconsider his Senate race. This cannot be a good omen for Laura Waters Woods either.

    1. I'll take a stab.

      As Moderatus said to me just a short time ago, "None of this would have been possible without the brave stand taken in opposition to the board by Julie Williams' own son.  He didn't just lead the recall parade, he led us to the promised land."

  3. Thompson School District might be an even more interesting race, as the board moved more aggressively to bust the union and is currently in court over their failure to negotiate in good faith.  Right now, the non-"reform" candidates are doing well.

  4. It's not 38% reporting – it's 38% of total eligible Jeffco electorate has turned in ballots. (I misstated it in first post).

    So with these numbers  – 96,000 pro-recall votes out of 155,000 total turned-in ballots – I'm thinking that this is OVAH!!!!

    Congrats to all my Jeffco buddies who worked their tails off for this victory. Students, parents, and teachers nationwide thank you.

  5. The DougCo school board challengers are ahead about 60/40 too.  The board won't flip, but it looks like it may now be 4-3 instead of 7-kids.

    Looks like Jon Caldara and AFP shit the bed.

  6. Congrats Jeffco Polsters. You live there and you were so rIght. Recall by a mile. Great to see. Looks like the tide that brought all these rightie wackos in is turning now that people see what they're really about. Not wiser budgeting. It's about shoving their agenda down your throat. Hurray for Jeffco  voters! Either that or those teachers union "thugs" are a whole lot tougher than most teachers they look. wink

  7. Went to the viewing party for the Jeffco recall with my 11 year old daughter. It was so amazing! Tears, smiles, hugs and community all around.

    As a parent of a child who has 6.5 more years of Jeffco schools ahead of her, THANK YOU JEFFCO!

    1. I would say that Jeffco Republicans are shitting their pants about now.  It's an off year election but still a big fuck you to the ideologues.  Everyone who worked to oust the idiots are going to feel empowered after this smack down.  Will be a very different vibe around the county.

    2. I say "no", for the most part. The recall election was run on the actions of the majority without really mentioning their partisan affiliation – though it was pretty clear what that affiliation was.

      I am guessing that it *has* done two things that will affect future elections… First, it's given the kids at JeffCo a sense of what it means to be politically active, and why you might want to do that. That can only be a Good Thing in bringing out future young voters who are engaged with the system. Second, it's raised awareness of the consequences of elections generally; that might help future off-year election turnout somewhat.

    3. I hope the recall reflects a rejection of the tea parties (and AFP, II, etc.), but I don't think so. This is  probably an example of politics being local. The majority got elected because they opposed 66. They got recalled because they are horrible at their jobs. They were heavy handed, rude, disrespectful, and, at times, down right nutty. I truly believe people want competent, non-partisanship in school boards. I am not confident they feel the same way about Congress.

  8. Around the country, it's a mixed bag.

    Dems lost the KY governorship to TPer Matt Bevin, who isn't even liked by his own party. Dems lost some other statewide posts, but kept the AGs office and SoS, arguably the two most important statewide slots outside of governor. Bevin will have 4 years to attempt to dismantle Kynect, KY's highly successful Medicaid expansion program.

    PA Democrats are celebrating tonight, though. In PA, the state's Supreme Court is elected on a multiple choice slate. Dems won all three available seats. This is a bigger deal than you might think: the PA Supreme Court gets to appoint the tie-breaking member of the state's redistricting committee, and since PA is heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP, a Dem majority redistricting committee will almost certainly result in a Dem-leaning Congressional delegation and more Dem-friendly state legislature boundaries.

    Chris Christie is probably having a bit of a sad tonight, as the NJ legislature is growing even more Democratic.

    VA Dems are disappointed, too; they failed to pick up the one seat they needed in the VA Senate to give them some say in the state's government for the next few years.

    In election initiatives, Ohio has passed a watered-down redistricting commission referendum that only affects state legislative reapportionment – and gives the majority a bit of an "out" if they don't agree to a bipartisan plan. After two failures of stronger initiatives, the bipartisan compromise was perhaps a good first attempt – and one that reform activists can build on between now and 2021. Maine passed some changes to its public campaign funding and reporting laws to adjust for post-Citizens United challenges.

    1. The other major loss for Democrats is the rejection of HERO in Houston, TX. HERO was the city's broad non-discrimination law. Apparently the threat of sexual predators claiming to be transsexual so they could gain access to the lady's room was just too great…

      1. My problem with HERO has little to do with risk of sexual predators.  I will assume, for argument's sake, that only TGs who legitimately believe they have switched gender will use public accomdations, including showers in locker rooms, under HERO 17-51.

        If a business rejects the Planet Fitness approach under HERO 17-51 & 17-55 they, and their employees/agents would be potentially criminally liable.

        I am sorry but that is deeply problematic.  Regardless of the lack of a desire of a TG to be a sexual predator, the fact remains that many people do not view their transition as being an effective switch of their gender.  And if you, as a result, seek to prevent them from showering with people of their new claimed gender without the consent of such people, you would have been in jeopardy of generating a CRIMINAL record for yourself.

        Rejecting this approach wasn't an expression of animus.  It was an expression that biological realities have consequences where privacy rights are concerned.

        1. Garble, garble, mumble, haters-gonna-hate and need to, it's good for the planet lawyers, garble, mumble, goobledy-gook.

          EF at his finest.  Degrees of genitals like degrees of rape, hey, there, Fladenolator?

            1. Free the Boobs!  (I know you appear to not be incarcerated Mr. Barrister, but I was referring to the breasts of adult women–and even elementary schoolgirls–being treated differently in kind than those of adult males–or elementary schoolboys–despite the preponderance of manboobs, particularly in states such as Texas; or the indistinguishable differences among breasts of the pre-pubescent). Insofar as manboobs–some quite a bit larger and more noticeable than female-boobs–are free to offend those within eyeshot, but female boobs have been deemed an impropriety, even when serving their god-given mammalian purpose.  Blah Blah Blah et. seq. 

              1. Manboobs!

                I'm visualizing that episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer and George Costanza's father are going to market the "manzier" for men looking for support.

        2. 1. It's not the job of the law to keep people from feeling uncomfortable with close association with someone "different" than themselves. The 1st amendment covers freedom of association, and that works both ways. Most health clubs and swim pools have enough room to change privately.  If someone comes in with whom I'm uncomfortable, I have the choice to cover up and change elsewhere. I don't need a Constitutional amendment to guarantee my right to privacy.

          2. There's no data or evidence that transitioning TGs are sexual predators, or that they engage in problematic behavior. It's all hypothetical, and so much scarier that way.

          3. Same biological gender showering/ changing is no guarantee of protection from being ogled or hit on. Or have you forgotten all the "Don't drop the soap" jokes?

            1. Obviously none. As someone who actually knows something about transgenderism, I can guarantee that transpeople, especially m-f, are far more concerned with their own safety and privacy in a men's restroom than they are with invading the privacy or personal space of women in a ladies' room.

          1. Look, if Planet Fitness wants to be Planet Fitness, that is their choice (so long as they disclose it to people whose privacy rights will potentially be encumbered).

            On the other hand, if Gold's Gym or Curves choose to take a different approach from planet fitness they should not be subjected to criminal liability.  Yet that is precisely what HERO created a risk of.  See HERO 17-51 and 17-55.

                1. Speedos offend me and I believe I have a right to privacy which is violated by middle aged men in Speedos, or Texans of any age generally.  People are free to swing it in public, but NOT when it hits my face!  Basic social contract theory!  We have given, as a society, our flaccid approval to not offend those whom may be offended by what we have collectively deemed is offensive per our agreed upon norms and mores, and the fact that the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old and anyone that shows the wrong appendage in the improper place is making Cotton Mather angry and the witches of Salem delight! See, for instance, Mather v. Satan's Playthings (1684). 

                   

    2. Yeah media is calling it a great day for Republicans. But we've long been something of a bellweather state, a sign of things to come. I remember when Dems first started making a comeback here during an election that was a Republican tsunami elsewhere. This time, we rejected reactionary conservative extremism in two of our biggest school districts. The anti-government fever broke at least to the extent of a sensible recognition for the need to the roads passable in Colorado Springs, some good measures passed, the voters of Jeffco even supported their libraries for a change. All with the support of ever growing, both here and nationally, numbers of indie voters. One can hope . 

  9. (My turn)

    As my dear and very good friend, Moderatus, has noted so many times here, "The across-the-board defeat of all of these pretend, wanna-be conservatives tonight, only goes to show that the Colorado electorate is completely fed up with Housian/Coffmanesque/Lambornguini/Buckish RINOs.   We're going to need to capture a Olympic-sized baptismal full of that genuine, sanctified Klingenschmitt spirit if our Republican Party doesn't want to go down to utter humiliation to you socialists in 2016!!!!  Gessler in a landslide, baby!!!!"

  10. This is the triumph of the unaffiliated voters. When we check out the actual statewide ballot turn-in numbers, Republicans actually outperformed Democrats by about 2% in most counties in Colorado….which is typical for an off-year election.

    Republicans had a good ground game… They did mobilize their people to vote, and to turn in ballots. But it was the unaffiliated and independent voters who made the difference, in the Jeffco recall election, in voting for Prop BB, in voting to fix the roads with a 2C tax increase in the Springs.

    Republicans just had the wrong message. The conservative, Americans for Prosperity-sponsored message of more charter schools for the few who could afford them, simply did not resonate with most voters. Most voters wanted public schools that prepared their kids to take AP exams in Jeffco, that didn't allow their gay kids to be bullied, that didn't undercut their teacher salaries and drive the good teachers out of the district.

    In the Springs, voters didn't buy the message that fixing the streets would lead to socialism and ruination.  There is apparently a limit to how much nonsense people can swallow.

    So even though Julie Williams Facebook page now bemoans the "union thugs" who did her in, all that shows is that she still doesn't get it. She does not understand that it was parents and grandparents and business people and students who were not buying what she was selling in Jefferson County.

    Colorado Peak Politics calls for the GOP to be "disciplined and ruthless" in order to win in 2016. They certainly have the last part of that right – they are ruthless, and truthless. But they haven't figured out that people are not as stupid as they might wish. – and they haven’t found a message which resonates with skeptical, informed, independent voters.

    1. mama:  the underlying problem in the JeffCo school system has not gone away with the recall. The challenge to the new school board will be to find some middle ground between the anti-ordinary taxpayer attitudes of the liberal board & superintendent prior to 2013; and the far right foolishness of the just recalled board members.

      As a 20+ year resident & taxpayer in JeffCo who has never had kids in the school system, I want a board that treats people like me with respect and dignity, not as a far right cipher or a mark waiting to be fleeced. We'll wait and see.

      1. Actually I suspect ordinary tax payers very much include folks with kids in the schools but I doubt that your fears will be realized. I think this is the beginning of a batshit crazy corrective, not what you would consider a wild swing to the left, and it's not unique to Jeffco. See the Douglas School Board results. See an actual win for fixing streets and stuff in Colorado Springs. Please don't be too sad. angel

        Modster and AC are no doubt sad enough to raise the sadness quotient significantly all by themselves. Damn those Brown shirt teacher/thugs!

  11. "This is the triumph of the unaffiliated voters. When we check out the actual statewide ballot turn-in numbers, Republicans actually outperformed Democrats by about 2% in most counties in Colorado….which is typical for an off-year election."

    Excellent point.  The rejection of far right school board members in DougCo as well as JeffCo is really notable.  

    Haynes v. Speth for Denver School Board is now the closest race of the night.  As of 2:30 a.m. Speth leads by just 97 votes out of 95,431 counted, a mere 0.1% margin which will force an automatic recount.

  12. And one tiny happiness for me, Arapahoe County voted to increase library funding.  As Thomas Jefferson never said, an educated citizenry is vital. . . .

    1. We got library dollars in JeffCo as well, overshadowed by other issues here but a great thing as well.

      We had a great night in. Jeffco, unless you live in Lakewood and won't know who your mayor is for a while.

  13. From conversations I've had with my young adult nieces and nephews, the backlash is coming from them, as a result of being brought up by neo-conservative theocrats. New voters are rejecting their parents religion and their politics, as well. They see the hard-right religious and the "All for me and none for thee" Wall Streeters as mean, and their motto is "Mean people suck"

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