2020 POST-ELECTION REPORT Executive Summary ⇒ Presidential Race: Too Close to Call ⇒ Republicans Likely Hold Senate: GA, ME, MI, NC: Undecided ⇒ Democrats Keep House: new division: approx. 226D (possible net loss of 7) ⇒ Governor’s results: R’s +1: new division: 27R-23D ⇒ GA Special Senate Election Headed to January 5 Runoff ⇒ Networks Incorrectly Projected Democrats to Gain in House Last night’s national election, as predicted, looks to be headed to political overtime. The presidential race won’t be decided for more than a day, and possibly not until all ballots are received and counted in Pennsylvania. The state’s post-election ballot reception deadline is Friday, November 6th, at 5:00 pm. It appears that former Vice President Joe Biden (D) has the inside track to unseat the President, but Mr. Trump still has a narrow path to victory. It is likely that the Republicans have held the Senate majority despite what appears to be a close loss at the top of the ticket. Defending 13 of the most vulnerable 16 Senate seats, the GOP may break even. Converting Alabama and leading in Michigan offsets the loss of seats in Arizona and Colorado. Four races remain undecided. Republicans had a much better night in the House than expected. With 43 races still uncalled, a reasonable projection suggests the Democrats will return to the House with a majority margin approximately seven seats less than in the current Congress. This would make the new majority 226D-209R, and certainly put House control front and center for the 2022 election cycle. In the 11 Governor’s races, we saw one state flip from Democrat to Republican, the open Montana race that completed a Republican sweep of the top four statewide offices. At-Large Rep. Greg Gianforte (R) was elected the state’s new Governor replacing term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock (D) who lost the Senate race to incumbent Steve Daines (R). Polling and predictions generally proved unreliable. Once more, the big leads projected for the Democratic presidential nominee in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin did not materialize, while cumulative polling projections did correctly forecast Arizona and potentially Georgia. For the fourth consecutive major statewide race in Florida, the overwhelming number of pollsters failed to correctly project the winner. It appears the cumulative polling community is potentially wrong in several Senate races including North Carolina, Maine, and the Michigan margin even if Sen. Gary Peters (D) rebounds to win. They also consistently under-estimated Georgia Sen. David Perdue’s electoral strength. The media projection early in the evening of Democrats gaining seats in the House also proved incorrect. Presidential Race President Trump losing Arizona may have cost him the election. It was one of his five core states, and a must win. He is now forced to claim two of the three outstanding Great Lakes states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Mr. Trump has a tenuous lead in Michigan, has dropped behind in Wisconsin by a small number of votes, and holds a relatively substantial lead of almost 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. All of the states, however, have large numbers of votes remaining to be counted. The President also has tenuous leads with ballots to count in North Carolina and Georgia. His chances appear good to hold NC, but he could fall behind in Georgia when all of the votes are counted. Losing either of these states will cost him the election. Based upon the 2016 electoral map, President Trump can give up 36 electoral votes and still win the election. This means, he can only lose one of the remaining five states (not including Alaska because Mr. Trump has a substantial lead there and should clinch the state) in order to win the election. The national popular vote count shows the President trailing Mr. Biden by just over 2 million votes, or less than two full percentage points, a much smaller margin than pollsters routinely predicted. The popular vote spread will likely expand in Mr. Biden’s favor when California, in particular, fully reports. Should President Trump lose, it will likely because of two major factors. First, COVID proved disastrous to the incumbent’s political fortunes. It robbed him of his strongest issue for re-election: a roaring economy, which he had until the virus caused commerce to almost fully shut down for a period of months. Secondly, his handling of the issue likely caused a decline in the 65 year and older voting segment, a group that strongly backed him in 2016. Secondly, his failure to re-capture more of the female segment was also a hampering blow, and even an improvement among minority voters could not fully off-set the political damage. U.S. Senate Republicans appear to have held their Senate majority and did so with victories in what could prove to be 11 of their 13 top defense states. They defeated one Democratic incumbent, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, and are in position to oust Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, though the final count won’t be known there for some time. Currently, Sen. Peters trails challenger John James by over 118,000 votes, a margin of just about 2.6 percentage points. Approximately 85% of the state’s ballots have been tabulated. Democrats successfully defeated Sens. Martha McSally (R) and Cory Gardner (R) in Arizona and Colorado, respectively. A James victory would likely keep the Senate majority at 53R-47D. Otherwise, the Republicans would immediately drop one seat. Two others, Sens. David Perdue (R-GA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), could find themselves in political overtime. Both Georgia and Maine have majority victory laws, meaning all candidates must secure majority support before victory can be claimed. It is likely that both Sens. Perdue and Collins will finish first but exceeding 50% remains in question. In Georgia, not securing the majority figure would send the race into a January 5th runoff election with second place finalist Jon Ossoff (D). Maine requires a Ranked Choice Voting system that means the last place finishers’ ballots that ranked him first are found and then their second choice is added to the final total. This process continues until one candidate attains the majority plateau. If Perdue and Collins eventually win, the more substantial GOP majority will be secured. Individual Results and Synopsis Describes the competitive states in more detail: Alabama Tommy Tuberville (R) Defeats Sen. Doug Jones (D) – GOP Conversion Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) Re-elected Arizona Mark Kelly (D) Defeats Appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R) – Dem Conversion Colorado John Hickenlooper (D) Defeats Sen. Cory Gardner (R) – Dem Conversion Georgia-A Sen. David Perdue (R) Leading – Final Count May Force him to Runoff Election Georgia-B – Special Election – Runoff – January 5, 2021 Appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Democrat Raphael Warnock Advance to Runoff Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (R) Re-elected Kansas - Open Rep. Roger Marshall (R) Holds Open Seat for GOP Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) Re-elected Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) Leading – Looks to Finish First; May be Forced to Ranked Choice Voting Michigan Sen. Gary Peters (D) Trailing Challenger John James (R) – Large Number of Mail Ballots Remain Minnesota Sen Tina Smith (D) Re-elected Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R) Re-elected New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) Re-elected New Mexico - Open Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D) Holds Open Seat for Dems North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) Leads – Has Declared Victory, but Not Projected South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) Re-elected Tennessee - Open Ex-Ambassador Bill Hagerty (R) Holds Open Seat for GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) Re-elected Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) Re-elected Wyoming - Open Ex-Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R) Holds Open Seat for GOP The parties held seats in the following races: Tom Cotton (R-AR) Christopher Coons (D-DE) Jim Risch (R-ID) Dick Durbin (D-IL) Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Ed Markey (D-MA) Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) Ben Sasse (R-NE) Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) Cory Booker (D-NJ) Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Jeff Merkley (D-OR) Jack Reed (D-RI) Mike Rounds (R-SD) Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) U.S. House The House races provided the biggest surprise of the night, and even the media routinely projected a Democratic net gain of seats early in the evening. The opposite, however, occurred. At this point, it appears that eight seats have switched party representation, two going from Republican to Democrat (North Carolina redistricting), and six from Democrat to Republican. The GOP candidates held 14 vulnerable House seats in the face of strong Democratic opposition, while seven Democrats won close races of their own. Another 43 contests have not been officially called. Of the 43, Republicans lead in 29 and Democrats, 14. One additional seat, LA-5, is headed for a December 5th runoff election because no one reached the 50% mark. The seat is solidly Republican, and it is possible that two members of the GOP advance to the runoff. Should the leading party candidate eventually win their particular seat, Republicans could gain an additional 11 seats, but such is unlikely to happen. A more realistic number will be a net gain of approximately 7 seats for the GOP. Such an outcome would cut the Democratic majority from 233 seats to 226, and make the party division, 226D-209R. House Conversions – At This Writing Democrat to Republican: FL-26: Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R) defeats Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) FL-27: Journalist Maria Elvira Salazar (R) ousts Rep. Donna Shalala (D) MN-7: Ex-Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach defeats Rep. Collin Peterson (D) NM-2: Ex-St.