Month: November 2018

Happy Thanksgiving! Great Star Flag.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

35-Star US Flag

It’s been awhile since I changed the flag outside and I decided to swap for today, in honor of the holiday. Specifically, we’re now flying a 35-Star American Flag with the stars in what is known as a great star configuration.

The 35-Star Flag became the official flag of the United States on 4 July 1863 when a star was added for West Virginia. It remained the official flag until 1865 when the 36th Star was added to represent Nevada.

The relevance to Thanksgiving Day? Although the holiday was celebrated at various times prior to 1863, the modern celebration dates back to 1863 when Abraham Lincoln called for a National day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. This was the national flag on that day.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of historical evidence for a 35-Star flag with a great star configuration, most show the stars in a rectangular array. Congress doesn’t typically specify the configuration of the stars, but there were 20, 26, 33, 34 and 36-Star Great Star variants. Great stars were popular and commonly flown on private ships in the early part of the 19th Century.

The closest historical flag that I can find to the version I’m flying was one of many mourning flags for Abraham Lincoln.  This one had an additional star in the center of the great star and a black border. According to loeser.com,

“It should be understood that these special flags are only examples because the engines were switched as the train was passed from railroad to railroad. There were at least five or more different engines used to pull the train on its journey, plus more pilot locomotives that ran the tracks ahead of the actual train to make sure the tracks were clear. Each railroad used their best and most powerful engines to move the funeral train slowly from station to station and they each decorated their engines differently with locally made flags…”

Other sources indicate that this flag was used for later periods of national mourning, including for President Kennedy in 1963.

References:

How would presidential elections change if electoral votes were allocated by congressional district ?

First published on Quora.

This is the system currently used in Maine and Nebraska. In Maine and Nebraska the statewide winner gets the two electoral votes (EVs) that correspond to the senators and then the remaining votes are determined by the winner of each congressional district.

The Electoral College already has a “small state bias” that skews for the time being in favor of the Republicans, since the smaller states tend to be more Republican than the country as a whole. I haven’t checked the numbers, but California has the same population as something like the smallest 20 states combined. That’s two EVs for the statewide win in California compared to forty for the statewide wins in these other states. It’s this bias that is responsible for the two “electoral inversions” we had in 2000 and 2016. That is to say, the two elections where the winner of the Electoral College did not match the winner of the popular vote.

Choosing the remaining EVs by congressional district would further skew things in the Republican direction. This is due to the extreme partisan gerrymander that took place after the 2010 election. To put this into perspective, the Democrats won the “national congressional vote” (NCV) in 2018 by something around 7 percentage points. This will give them a majority of between 14 and 19 seats when the remaining races are determined. By contrast, the Republicans won the 2014 NCV by 5.4 percent in 2014 and that gave them a majority of 30 seats. Worse, in 2012 the Democrats won the NCV by 1.2% but the Republicans maintained a majority in the House of 16 seats.

So, at least until the the congressional districts are redrawn in the wake of the 2020 Census, the current small state bias that favors republicans would be exacerbated. I don’t know if it would be impossible for a Democrat to win the presidency under such a system, but it would certainly be more difficult and there would be many instances where this system would elect the Republican even if the American people preferred the Democrat.

Still, it’s easy to imagine a worse system. During the run-up to the 2012 election, I recall Nebraska debating a return to a winner-take-all system so that President Obama could not win an EV from Nebraska like he did in 2008. At at about the same time the republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature debated switching to allocating EVs by congressional district to help Governor Romney. Imagine such a system implemented nationwide, with all the red states using winner-take-all and all the blue states allocating by congressional district or vice-versa. Such a system would virtually guarantee one-party control of the presidency.

References (all accessed 19 November 2018):

House Election Results: Democrats Take Control

RealClearPolitics – Election Other – 2014 Generic Congressional Vote

RealClearPolitics – Election Other – 2012 Generic Congressional Vote

114th United States Congress – Wikipedia

113th United States Congress – Ballotpedia

Live Blogging Election Night 2018

6:45 pm

So, I’m going to try to live-blog the results tonight; feel free to pause me or something if it gets to be too much.

We just got back from voting, and our polling place was the busiest I’ve ever seen it. Joanne got ballot #342 for our precinct. Since there’s four precincts at our polling place they’ve probably seen more than 1200 voters today. Enthusiasm seems high, to the point that they ran out of “I voted” stickers. That’s a good sign. I’m a little disappointed not to get a sticker, but I think I like the fact that they ran out better.

One of the things that I’ve been pondering is the political atmosphere and it struck me today that my congressman has been behaving like his position is hanging by a thread. He’s being too venomous toward his opponent for my liking. It’s odd. 538 gives him a 4 in 5 chance of retaining his seat, but that isn’t what his demeanor says. It’s possible that he’s just kind of a jackass, but maybe there something more there.

Speaking of 538, Nate Silver tells us that the data looks good for the democrats across a wide variety of districts; it’s possible that the there’s more good news for them in districts that they aren’t polling.

So, here’s my best guess for this evening.

Democrats moderately out perform expectations.

Democrats take back the house and beat the average by a small amount. It looks like the median projection is D+38 seats, I’m going to guess D+40 or 41.

Republican’s gain one in the Senate. I don’t think Heitkamp is going to pull it out in North Dakota. The “outperforming” gets people like O’Rourke uncomfortably close to victory, but not quite there. That said a swing of three seats in either direction wouldn’t surprise me. In the last few days, the Republicans’ odds in the Senate have dropped from 6 in 7 to 4 in 5. If that’s a lagging indicator, the D’s might do better than I think.

This feels like a year, like 1980 or 2006 when all the last minute swing goes in one direction. It will be interesting see how this one plays out.

7:15 pm

First amusing thing to run across this evening.

Final Texas Senate Race Polls Show That Donald Trump’s Campaigning May Have Actually Hurt Ted Cruz

7:50 pm

First Democratic pick-up of the evening in VA-10.

Numbers in Florida are looking closer to 2012 than 2016 with Gilliam and Nelson leading. But there lots of vote to to come in still.

8:01 pm

Florida 27 is the Second Democratic pick up of the night. That might be my old CD.

8:24 pm

With 90% of the vote in, it looks like the Republicans are just barely in the lead for FL Governor and Senator. Where is the vote still out? That’s going to make all the difference. The Democrats’ early lead came from quick returns in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.  30% of precincts still to come in Broward, 25% in Miami-Dade.  Palm Beach is almost all in.

9:13 pm

They called the Indiana Senate race for Braun, the Republican. That’s a Republican pick-up. Blackburn, the Republican wins in Tennessee. Tennessee was one of the few potential pick-ups for Democrats. I think the Senate is out of reach for the Democrats at this point.

9:20 pm

There’s fewer than 100 votes separating O’Rourke and Cruz.

9:36 pm

Now O’Rourke is ahead in Texas by about 0.4%.

9:40 pm

Jared Polis is the first openly gay man to be elected Governor of a state, namely Colorado.

9:56 pm

The New York Times estimates the probability that the Democrats will win the House is 95%. MSNBC estimates the probability that the Democrats win is 80%.

Meanwhile 538 has the Democrats’ chances at 7 in 10. Still looking strong.

10:03 pm.

The Democrats just picked up a House seat in Kansas. The Democrats are doing surprisingly well in Kansas. The Democrat, Laura Kelly, wins the Governorship.
Meanwhile Cruz has retaken the lead in Texas.
The good news for Democrats is starting to roll in.
Meanwhile, the races in Florida are looking red.
Mitt Romney is going to the Senate from Utah.

10:05 pm

Staten Island is a conservative area in NYC. The Democrats pick up a seat there.

10:12 pm

Heitkamp loses in ND. Net gain for the Republicans.

10:18 pm

The just called the Senate race in Texas for Cruz. That guarantees the Senate will stay in Republican hands. The Senate could look really bad for Democrats.

This is still the best night for Democrats in Texas in 30 years. And Beto’s run will have coat tails.

10:51 pm

Been busy, but this is interesting. The Maine 2nd may be the first Congressional District to be decided by instant run-off. More of that, Please.

11:01 pm

Gillum is conceding the Governor’s race in Florida. Expect to hear endless discussions about the Bradley effect.

11:05 pm

Here’s a bit of perspective. The Democrats have won more than twice as many Senate seats as the Republicans tonight. You wouldn’t know it to listen to the coverage.

11:26 pm

The democrats have a net gain of 23 seats, giving them a majority in the House of representatives.

11:35 pm

It looks like my Republican congressman has been reelected, although I have seen no election results.

12:16 am

It’s time to head off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll look into the thing that I really want to know about; state legislatures. Signing off.