November 6, 2024
5:16 The Estes Valley Voice is going to attempt to “live blog” election results for Larimer County and Colorado on this link tonight. This is somewhat of an experiment, and we hope it works. Bear with us. Colorado polls close in 1:44 minutes. — Patti Brown
5:24 The Estes Valley Voice has partnered with the Associated Press for live updates on the presidential and Colorado U.S. House Races. You can click here to check out that page.
6:26 Polls have closed in New Jersey and early returns suggest that Garden State voters have elected Andy Kim to the U.S. Senate.
Kim, a Democratic U.S. representative, will be the first American of Korean descent to serve in the upper chamber of Congress.
The former Rhodes Scholar and State Department and National Security Official will be sworn in early January if his substantial lead in the ballot tally holds. — Hank Lacey
6:30 In terms of the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, this keeps the seat in the hands of the Democrats after the resignation of Bob Menendez in August. — Patti Brown
6:32 Democrat Kamala Harris has apparently won New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes. She has also seemingly carried Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland. Republican Donald Trump appears to have prevailed in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, and South Carolina. — Hank Lacey
6:37 Donald Trump has carried Florida’s Miami-Dade County, the first GOP presidential candidate to achieve that since 1988. The Sunshine State’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, won Miami-Dade in 2022. — Hank Lacey
6:39 The Associated Press has called Illinois for Kamala Harris. — Hank Lacey
6:41 Democratic U.S. senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts appear to be well on the way to reelection. Murphy leads his GOP opponent by a 2-1 margin in early returns, while Warren has a 3-1 lead. Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester, who would become Delaware’s first Black woman senator, has a 16-point lead over Republican Eric Hansen with more than 40% of votes tallied. Republican Jim Justice has been elected to represent West Virginia in the Senate. He will succeed Joe Manchin, a long-time Democrat who switched to unaffiliated status earlier this year. — Hank Lacey
6:45 Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and a former presidential candidate, is cruising to another term. The 83-year-old, who has been in Congress since 1991, has 65% of the vote with more than 45% counted. — Hank Lacey
6:49 Republican Rick Scott of Florida appears to have easily won another U.S. Senate term. The former governor leads Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by more than 1.3 million votes with about 90% of votes tallied. Scott carried heavily populated Miami-Dade County by about ten percentage points. — Hank Lacey
6:52 Kansas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1932. It is too early to tell whether that trend will hold tonight. With about 28% of the votes in the Sunflower State counted, Kamala Harris leads by about 23,000 votes out of about 388,000 counted so far. — Hank Lacey
6:58 North Carolina has apparently again elected a Democratic governor. Josh Stein, the attorney general, seems to have defeated Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson. Stein would succeed fellow Democrat Roy Cooper. — Hank Lacey
7:01 The Associated Press has called South Dakota for Donald Trump. That is not a surprising result, and they are almost certainly correct in their prediction, but it is a little bit odd to see it happen when the total votes counted so far are less than 1 percent. — Hank Lacey
7:04 The Associated Press has, unsurprisingly, also called both North Dakota and Wyoming for Republican Donald Trump. — Hank Lacey
7:07 Early returns in Pennsylvania and Michigan show Democrat Harris winning those “Blue Wall” states. But only 18% of the votes in the Keystone State and 10% in the Wolverine State have been counted. — Hank Lacey
7:09 Democratic hopes for a Harris victory depend on her and running mate Tim Walz carrying Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and holding on to other states that have tended in recent elections to go for the Democrat. — Hank Lacey
7:15 The Associated Press reported that Donald Trump has carried Ohio. With 53% of all votes counted, the Republican holds a lead of more than 275,000 votes out of about 3.1 million tallied so far. — Hank Lacey
7:18 Donald Trump looks to be in good shape in Georgia. With nearly three-fourths of the votes counted he leads the Peach State by six percentage points. The margin will probably get tighter as ballots from the Atlanta metro area are counted. — Hank Lacey
7:19 On the other hand, North Carolina seems so far to be a nail-biter. The candidates are separated by about one percentage point with half the votes counted. — Hank Lacey
7:21 Harris continues to maintain a four-point lead in Kansas with 40% of the vote in. — Hank Lacey
7:22 Republican Lauren Boebert holds the lead in the Fourth Congressional District, which largely encompasses the Eastern Plains as well as Douglas County. She has about 52% of the vote with more than half counted. Boebert has represented the Third Congressional District, on the Western Slope, for the past two Congresses. — Hank Lacey
7:25 Early returns suggest that Amendments G, H, and I are all on track to adoption. With about 20% of the votes in statewide, all three are passing with 70% or more of the votes. — Hank Lacey
7:26 Colorado voters seem to be in the mood to remove the state constitution’s obsolete ban on same-sex marriage, which was invalidated by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2015, and to approve a state constitutional right to abortion. Amendment J, the removal of the same-sex marriage ban, has 65% aye votes with 22% counted, while Amendment 79 has 62% approval. — Hank Lacey
7:28 Amendment 80, which would establish a right to school choice that extends to charter, private, and home schools, is so far not gaining favor among the state’s voters. With nearly 25% of the votes counted, 54% of Coloradans are saying “no.” — Hank Lacey
7:30 Democrat Yadira Caraveo holds a 4,500-vote lead out of more than 200,000 counted in the Eighth Congressional District. About 61% of the ballots have been tallied. — Hank Lacey
7:32 Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse is well on the way to reelection. He leads his Republican opponent by 20 percentage points with 12% of votes counted. — Hank Lacey
7:35 Florida law requires that state constitutional amendments receive at least 60% of the votes in favor in order to be adopted. A majority of Sunshine State voters expressed support at the polls for amendments that would legalize marijuana and protect abortion rights, but not 60%. So both failed. — Hank Lacey
7:38 The Associated Press has called New York for Kamala Harris and Texas for Donald Trump. — Hank Lacey
7:39 About a third of the votes in Colorado have been counted. The Democratic ticket of Harris and Walz lead Trump and Vance, 55%-43%. — Hank Lacey
7:40 We are on track to see the outcome of the Electoral College vote turn on the preference of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, just as happened in 2016. Harris leads in early vote tallies in all three of those states, but it’s only about 125,00 votes that separate them with about a third counted in the Keystone State. And it’s too early to predict how the final results will look in Michigan or in the Badger State. — Hank Lacey
7:42 Democratic dreams of carrying Kansas, if there ever were any, are probably not going to come true. With nearly half the votes there counted, Trump has taken a 1.2 percentage point lead. — Hank Lacey
7:43 Harris is still leading in Missouri, though, with nearly a quarter of the votes cast having been counted. But the rural parts of the Show Me State have not reported many results yet, so it’s hard to believe that her lead will persist. — Hank Lacey
7:46 Election results for Colorado’s General Assembly will determine whether Democrats can achieve a “supermajority” in the state senate. They already have one in the state house. If they gain the first and keep the second, the Democrats can strengthen their hand in dealing with one of their own in the governor’s office. Jared Polis has vetoed a number of bills favored by legislative Democrats. — Hank Lacey
7:50 State senate races to watch are in districts 5, 6, 12, 13, and 16.
District 5, on the Western Slope, is centered on Garfield County. The incumbent Republican is not seeking reelection, leaving the GOP’s Marc Catlin, a state representative from Montrose, to face Democrat Cole Buerger of Glenwood Springs.
In District 6, incumbent Republican Cleave Simpson of Alamosa faces Democrat Vivian Smotherman of Durango.
The District 12 race features Rep. Marc Snyder, D-Manitou Springs, and Republican Stan Vanderwerf, while District 16 showcases Democrat Chris Kolker of Centennial and Republican city council member Robyn Carnes.
District 13’s contenders to replace Democratic Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson, a former Republican, are Democrat Matt Johnston of Brighton and Republican Scott Bright of Platteville. — Hank Lacey
7:57 The count is beginning for the Estes Park Junior Election at the home of Judi and Kent Smith. Students from grades K-12 have voted since 2016 in the town’s Junior Election. — Patti Brown
8:01 No surprises in U.S. Senate races in Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, where Republicans have held those seats. — Hank Lacey
8:02 In Texas, two-term U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is apparently headed to another six-year stint in the Capitol. The firebrand conservative is holding off Democrat Colin Allred, a former NFL player and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, by an eight-percentage point margin with nearly two-thirds of votes counted. — Hank Lacey
8:05 Democrats have reason to worry about Ohio. Incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, a stalwart liberal, is losing to wealthy Republican auto dealer Bernie Moreno. With nearly 70% of votes counted, Moreno leads by more than 200,000 votes out of about four million tallied.
If Democrats lose the Ohio seat held by Brown, the odds of them retaining control in the U.S. Senate sharply decline, as they already lost the seat in West Virginia and are in a tough battle to reelect Montana Democrat Jon Tester.
Keep an eye on New Mexico, too, where the daughter of the late longtime Republican Sen. Pete Domenici is challenging incumbent Democrat Martin Heinrich. Albuquerque and environs tend to vote Democrat, so Domenici is likely the underdog, but she leads in early vote tallies.
Pennsylvania is also going to be a close call, with incumbent Sen. Bob Casey barely holding off Republican Dave McCormick so far.
In Wisconsin, the incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin is losing to Republican Eric Hovde. But only about 40% of the vote has been counted and that does not include all of Milwaukee and its suburbs or Madison. — Hank Lacey
8:13 The Associated Press has called Colorado for the Harris-Walz ticket. — Hank Lacey
8:14 Missouri has gone to Trump and Vance, 53%-46%, with about 40% of the votes counted. The Associated Press has called it. — Hank Lacey
8:16 Harris leads Trump by about 0.8 percentage points in Arizona, with about half the votes counted. Winning the Grand Canyon State would certainly give the Democratic ticket a boost on the path to 270 electoral votes. As things stand now, Harris and Waltz have 109.
If they pick up Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawai’i, Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota, as is likely, the Democratic ticket will be at 241 electoral votes. Then the battle for Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada will be in the spotlight. — Hank Lacey
8:23 With about 73% of the votes in Larimer County counted, y President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz are leading Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance in the county, 59%-39%. — Hank Lacey
8:28 Republican Lauren Boebert is losing suburban Douglas County to Democrat Trisha Calvarese by about 1,500 votes. It’s too early to say whether that lead will hold and, even if it does, Boebert appears to be winning the district’s rural counties by large margins. — Hank Lacey
8:35 Democrats have held a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland after a tightly-contested race between Angela Alsobrooks, a county executive, and former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. — Hank Lacey
8:39 U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, has been reelected, according to the Associated Press. — Hank Lacey
8:40 Delaware voters have elected an openly transgender person to Congress, a national first. Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Democrat, will replace Sen.-elect Lisa Blunt Rochester as the only member of the House of Representatives from the Constitution State. — Hank Lacey
8:42 To few people’s surprise, the Associated Press has called Kansas for the Republican ticket. — Hank Lacey
8:43 Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has been reelected, according to the Associated Press. — Hank Lacey
8:44 The Associated Press has called Iowa for Trump and Vance. — Hank Lacey
8:46 Colorado voters have approved a state constitutional right to abortion. The Associated Press called the outcome in the last few minutes. — Hank Lacey
8:52 State Rep. Judy Amabile, who represents Estes Park in the General Assembly’s lower house, appears to have been elected to the state senate. — Hank Lacey
9:01 Democrat Lesley Smith holds a nearly 2-1 lead over Republican Steve Ferrante in the race to succeed Amabile in the state House of Representatives with nearly 70% of votes counted. — Hank Lacey
9:03 The Associated Press has called California and Washington for Harris and Walz. — Hank Lacey
9:07 If trends hold, Colorado voters will have rejected both Proposition 127, which would ban trophy hunting and trapping of cougars, bobcats, and lynx, and Proposition 131, which would establish a top-four open primary and a ranked general election voting system. Both major political parties have been aggressively hostile to Proposition 131, fearing enactment could reduce their influence over primary elections and incentivize candidates to more often and more intently build cross-party coalitions of voters to win elections. — Hank Lacey
9:18 Boebert has been elected to represent CD4 in Congress. The AP called it at 9:18.
Patterson was elected in CD7, DeGette in CD1, Neguse in Estes Park’s own CD2. — Hank Lacey
9:41 AP calls North Carolina for Trump. — Patti Brown
9:45 Trump is leading in the Electoral College 227 to 153. — Patti Brown
9:50 As of 8:23 p.m., and in the State Representative – District 49 race, Republican Steve Ferrante is leading Democrat Lesley Smith 8,755 votes to 8,048. — Patti Brown
9:52 in the race for District Attorney in the 8th Judicial District, incumbent candidate Gordon McLaughlin, a Democrat, is leading Independent challenger Dawn Downs, 79,992 votes to 72,989. — Patti Brown
9:54 Larimer County Commissioner District 3 incumbent candidate Jody Shadduck-McNally, a Democrat, is leading Republican challenger Ben “Uncle Benny” Aste, 91,769 votes to 71,168. — Patti Brown
9:58 The Larimer County Ballot Issue 1A, which would increase sales and use tax to fund transportation projects in the county, is passing by a small margin right now, 82,397 votes for and 81,684 votes against. — Patti Brown
10:02 Proposition 129, which would create a new professional category for veterinary care, is on pace to pass, with 1,156,980 “yes” votes to 1,050,681 “no” votes. — Patti Brown
10:20 Proposition 131, which would authorize a top-four open primary and ranked voting in general elections, is set to fail, 1,240,578 to 992,198, with 63% of the votes counted. — Patti Brown
10:27 Colorado Amendment 79, which would establish a state constitutional right to abortion, is projected to pass with 65% of the votes counted. The vote totals thus far are 1,417,429 (62%) “yes ” to 888,407 (39%) “no.” — Patti Brown
10:33 Colorado Amendment J, which would repeal a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, is on target to win with 65% of votes counted, 1,459,832 “yes” to 831,727 “no.” — Patti Brown
11:00 The Harris-Walz campaign has sent its supporters home from the location of it’s planned victory party at Howard University in Washington. Harris will not address the nation tonight. Trump is leading with 230 Electoral College votes to 210. — Patti Brown
11:00 No updated results have been posted for Larimer County since 8:23 p.m. — Patti Brown
11:01 The Estes Valley Voice will pick up in the morning with the latest results. — Patti Brown
November 9, 2024
5:53 pm Democrats have lost three seats in the U.S. Senate – in Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia – and may yet lose a fourth seat in Pennsylvania, where Republican Tom McCormick leads veteran Democratic legislator Bob Casey, 49.0%-48.4%, with 98.6% of ballots counted.
As of now the Senate looks likely to have a 54-46 GOP majority when the new Congress opens in January. — Hank Lacey
5:55 In the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority party for the next Congress is not yet known. Republicans, though, appear to have the upper hand. Of the 413 results that have been determined, the GOP has 212 seats and the Democrats have 201.
To gain a majority, a party must win 218 seats.
Most of the undetermined elections are in California and Arizona, though there is one seat in Oregon and one in Washington that have not yet been decided. — Hank Lacey
5:58 The only remaining state whose Electoral College vote has not yet been determined is Arizona. So far Donald Trump leads, 301-226, and with about 84% of the votes counted in the Grand Canyon State, he leads there by more than six percentage points. — Hank Lacey
6:00 Alaska voters appear to have approved a ballot measure that would repeal the Last Frontier’s two-year old experiment with a top-four open primary and ranked voting in general elections. Ballot Measure 2, which authorizes the repeal, has passed, 50.8%-49.2%. — Hank Lacey
6:04 According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have so far accumulated 74,531,600 votes nationwide, while Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have received 70,768,488 votes around the country. That is a 50.5%-47.9% edge in the popular vote.
The margin might indicate that it’s somewhat exaggerated to claim that the Republican ticket won a “landslide,” though with more than 300 electoral votes it is fair to say that the Trump-Vance win is in the same general league as the Obama-Biden ticket’s victory in 2012 and the Bush-Cheney ticket’s win in 2004. And, in fact, if the Trump-Vance popular vote lead holds up, this year will mark the first presidential election since 2004 in which a Republican candidate has won the national popular vote.
In 2020, the Trump-Mike Pence ticket won 74,223,975 votes. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris received more than 81 million votes, a record.
In 2016, the Trump-Vance ticket won 62,984,828 votes, while the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine won 65,853,514 votes. The 2016 presidential election was the second time this century that a winner of the Electoral College did not also win the popular vote. It also happened in 2000. — Hank Lacey
6:11 The fact that the Harris-Walz ticket received some 11 million fewer votes this year than did the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, and that the Trump campaign did not improve to any significant degree on its popular vote total from 2020, does raise the question of what happened to the Democratic coalition.
I think the outcomes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the two southwestern swing states – Arizona and Nevada – are likely to provide clues. Certainly both tickets campaigned extensively in all of the swing states, including Georgia and North Carolina. So it’s not a question of effort. I suppose it’s possible that, at least in Michigan, some Arab-American voters typically inclined to vote for the Democratic ticket did not do so. But they did apparently vote, as Democratic senators both in Michigan and in neighboring Wisconsin were reelected, though in close races. — Hank Lacey
6:15 Democrats have held their majorities in both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly, including their super-majority in the state’s House of Representatives, but did not obtain a super-majority in the state Senate. — Hank Lacey
6:17 Unofficial election results released yesterday by the Larimer County Recorder indicate that incumbent district attorney Gordon McLaughlin retained his post, defeating independent candidate Dawn Downs, 100,289 votes for McLaughlin to 97,792 votes for Downs. — Hank Lacey
6:19 All Colorado Supreme Court justices and Colorado Court of Appeals judges up for retention on this year’s general election ballot will stay in office. And so will the Larimer County District Court and Larimer County Court judges that faced the voters. — Hank Lacey
6:21 Larimer County Ballot Issue 1A, which would have raised the sales and use tax to pay for transportation improvements and maintenance, was defeated at the ballot box. 51.8% of the county electorate said “no,” according to election results released yesterday. — Hank Lacey
6:24 The outcome in Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, which is centered on Adams County, is not yet known. Incumbent Democrat Yadira Caraveo trails Republican Gabe Evans by less than 2,000 votes with about 17,000 ballots left to count. Those ballots are principally from the urban areas of Adams County that are included in the district. — Hank Lacey
10:34 The Associated Press has called Arizona for the Trump-Vance ticket, which has now swept all seven of the swing states in the 2024 general election. With 87% of the votes in the Grand Canyon State counted, Trump leads Harris, 53%-46%. — Hank Lacey
10:36 In the 10 states in which ballot measures that would expand access to abortion, seven succeeded. Other than Colorado, which will protect abortion access in its state constitution, Arizona, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York voters approved proposals to assure access to abortion.
In Nebraska voters approved a measure that would ban abortion during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, except in cases of medical emergency, incest, or sexual assault.
About 58% of Florida voters approved a measure that would enshrine abortion rights in that state’s constitution, but passage required 60% “yes” votes. — Hank Lacey
10:46 Denver voters rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the city sales tax to pay for affordable housing. The Mile High City electorate did approve a sales tax increase to assure funding for the city’s public hospital, Denver Health. — Hank Lacey
10:54 Denver Democratic Sen. James Coleman was chosen by his party, which has the majority in the state senate, to be the chamber’s next president. Coleman will replace Sen. Steve Fenberg of Boulder, who is term-limited. — Hank Lacey