Hey, guys. It’s primary night in Florida for several races and in Arizona for just a couple. You can check out the results as they come in at AOSHQDD.com (follow them on Twitter at @AOSHQDD), the Decision Desk of our pals at Ace of Spades. I/We will update this post throughout the evening until the races are called. This post is also an open thread.
(7 p.m. EST) As of right now, the half the polls are closing in Florida and we should start getting results soon.
(8 p.m. EST) The other half of Florida’s polls are closing. In the gubernatorial primaries, looks like it will be Rick Scott versus one of RedState’s supervillians, Charlie Crist.
(8:30 p.m. EST) I think one interesting thing to note is that turnout for both gubernatorial primaries wasn’t too far apart, in the grand scheme of things. As of right now, less than 100,000 votes difference between Democratic turnout and Republican turnout. But, I don’t think anyone really expected either of these two to lose their primaries, so we’re going straight into a tight race. The latest poll I can find on this race was released on Saturday by SurveyUSA, which had Scott up +3. The King of Oompa Loompas*, however, should not be counted out.
*The Democratic one. Charlie Crist. I was not referring to John Boehner (this time).
(8:50 p.m. EST) So, while the vote totals aren’t that far off, there is something else I was just made aware of – Rick Scott has almost as many votes as the entire turnout of the Democratic primary. 706,538 votes as of 8:54 p.m. EST and the Democratic vote totals at that time are 714,126.
(8 a.m. EST) Sorry about that. My Internet went down last night. Anyway, we have our Arizona winners, Tobin for AZ-01 and Ducey for AZ Gov. (R). One thing I wanted to touch on again, however, was the Florida governor primary. As mentioned above, things look good for Rick Scott, but never underestimate an orange, party-swapping dog when backed into a corner. That +3 I mentioned is not a guarantee for Scott. It is, however, a lead, and one that can be extended.
Tonight’s races (as covered by AOSHQDD) include:
Florida Attorney General (D): George Sheldon (Projected Winner as of 8:15 EST) vs. Perry E. Thurston
Florida Governor (R): Yinka Abosede Adeshina vs. Elizabeth Cuevas-Neunder vs. Rick Scott
Florida Governor (D): Charlie Crist vs. Nan H. Rich
Florida-18 (R): Carl J. Domino (Projected Winner as of 7:30 EST) vs. Beverly Hires vs. Brian Lara vs. Alan Schlesinger vs. Calvin D. Turnquest vs. Nick Wukuson
Florida-26 (R): Carlos Curbelo (Projected Winner as of 7:30 EST) vs. Ed MacDougall vs. Joe A. Martinez vs. David Rivero vs. Lorenzo Palomares Starbuck
Arizona Governor (R): Ken Bennett vs. Doug Ducey vs. Christine Jones vs. Frank Riggs vs. Scott Smith vs. Andrew P. Thomas vs. Mike Aloisi (write-in cand.)
Arizona-1 (R): Gary Kiehne vs. Adam Kwasman vs. Andy Tobin
As a special note, the AOSHQ Decision Desk currently has just over 130 volunteers, and their goal is to hit 400-500 to really make the operation run smoothly on big election nights. If you feel like volunteering a few hours on an election night, you can e-mail them at [email protected]. Brandon Finnigan (@conartcritic on Twitter) has done a stellar job organizing the group and they have done some splendid calling in the last several elections. They manage to stay ahead of the AP fairly often and call very early (but accurately) in several races based on the incoming trends. John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl on Twitter) did some great work making the website pretty, too.
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