CalvinBall wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:Poll watching today. Place has about 1900 RVs. We are over 450 votes as of 10 am.

At 800 right at 12:30. This feels insane.

jerseyhoya wrote:This is the 12th general election I've voted in and the number of Democrats I've voted for increased from 0 to 2

(Though for the on brand reason of the mayor and council chair spearheading the overturning of the tipped minimum wage initiative and there being no Republicans in the race)

jerseyhoya wrote:This is the 12th general election I've voted in and the number of Democrats I've voted for increased from 0 to 2

(Though for the on brand reason of the mayor and council chair spearheading the overturning of the tipped minimum wage initiative and there being no Republicans in the race)

Werthless wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:This is the 12th general election I've voted in and the number of Democrats I've voted for increased from 0 to 2

(Though for the on brand reason of the mayor and council chair spearheading the overturning of the tipped minimum wage initiative and there being no Republicans in the race)

My wife was complaining this morning... "Ugh, I have to research these candidates so I know who to vote for." Helpfully, I filled her in about Barletta, and I told her "He's the guy that put his town in financial distress by passing a bunch of English-only laws and getting sued. Unsurprisingly,Trump loves him, and now he's running for Senate." One fewer race to research!

Social safety net programs have a massive impact on the hardships experienced by low-income households, according to new research from the Urban Institute. Participation in three such programs—Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and public health care—reduced the number of hardships faced by vulnerable families with children by 48 percent between 1992 and 2011. The future of these programs swings on the midterm election.

Red-state ballot measures may be the clearest indication of how far the health-care debate has moved since the 2016 election. Voters in Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah will choose on November 6 whether to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Tight governors’ races in states such as Maine, where the outgoing GOP governor has blocked the state from implementing its expansion of Medicaid, could smooth the way toward an even greater embrace of public health care. In Montana, a ballot measure would let the people decide whether to preserve the recently enacted expansion.

Food assistance is also in play in this election. The next Congress will turn to passing the stalled farm bill early next year. Democrats oppose work requirements that the White House and Republicans in Congress want to impose for recipients of food aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Whether Democrats gain the House or the Senate or neither, the 116th Congress will decide the fate of the social safety net. The GOP is intent on shredding it: Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Bloomberg that spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid will be necessary to rein in a $779 billion federal budget deficit, which has jumped 77 percent since 2015 as a result of the GOP’s tax cuts.

jerseyhoya wrote:One thought for people looking at NJ-3 results...Ocean County, the GOP side of the district, is usually decent at counting votes and will update constantly throughout the night. They have a lovely election night website that shows which precincts have already been counted and which are outstanding. Burlington County, the Dem side of the district, is usually terrible at counting votes and has traditionally posted its results either all at once toward the end of the evening or in two waves (both toward the end of the evening) in an extremely unhelpful PDF format.

That's a long way of saying MacArthur being up a lot early doesn't mean he's going to win. And also if Burlington reports in two waves like usual if the missing votes are like Willingboro & Burlington or Medford & Shamong makes a big difference, and it'd be hard to tell what's missing.

Also somewhat related to the above, Medford has as far as I can tell has not voted for a Democrat for any office on any level since I've been able to vote. Would not be surprising if Kim wins Medford tonight - and depending on how other parts of the district are going he might have to (Trump won it by 4%, won the district by 5%).

Bill McNeal wrote:

Werthless wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:This is the 12th general election I've voted in and the number of Democrats I've voted for increased from 0 to 2

(Though for the on brand reason of the mayor and council chair spearheading the overturning of the tipped minimum wage initiative and there being no Republicans in the race)

My wife was complaining this morning... "Ugh, I have to research these candidates so I know who to vote for." Helpfully, I filled her in about Barletta, and I told her "He's the guy that put his town in financial distress by passing a bunch of English-only laws and getting sued. Unsurprisingly,Trump loves him, and now he's running for Senate." One fewer race to research!

Had exactly the same conversation with my wife Sunday night