Why AP called the Texas Senate race for Ted Cruz

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Why AP called the Texas Senate race for Ted Cruz

2024-11-06 15:07 Last Updated At：15:13

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press declared that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz successfully defended his seat against Democratic Rep. Colin Allred based on the incumbent’s competitive showing in the state’s large population centers, bolstered by his overwhelming leads in more conservative rural areas across the state.

Cruz’s victory, which the AP declared at 11:39 p.m. ET, blocked a possible path in which Democrats might have retained control of the Senate by offsetting possible losses by vulnerable Democratic incumbents in other parts of the country.

The AP only declares a winner once it can determine that a trailing candidate can’t close the gap and overtake the vote leader.

CANDIDATES: Cruz (R) vs. Allred (D) vs. Ted Brown (Libertarian)

WINNER: Cruz (R)

POLL CLOSING TIME: 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, depending on the part of the state

ABOUT THE RACE:

Facing their most difficult Senate map in years, Democrats looked to the Cruz-Allred matchup as one of their only chances to possibly defeat a Republican incumbent and offset an expected loss in West Virginia and highly vulnerable seats in Montana, Ohio and elsewhere. Cruz first won this seat by a 16-point margin in 2012, when he ran to replace 20-year Republican incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison. He faced a much tougher contest in 2018, when then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke gained national attention for coming within 3 percentage points of defeating Cruz.

Allred, a former NFL linebacker and civil rights attorney, represents the Dallas-area 32nd Congressional District. He defeated 11-term Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions in 2018. Sessions returned to Congress in 2021.

Allred has slightly outspent Cruz for the cycle, with each spending about $77 million on the race as of mid-October. Cruz entered the final stretch of the campaign with a $9.6 million to $2.5 million cash advantage.

Texas was once a heavily Democratic state, but Republicans have dominated statewide politics since the 1990s. A Democrat hasn’t held a U.S. Senate seat in more than 30 years. In more recent elections, Democratic candidates tend to perform best in the population centers of Dallas, Harris (Houston), Travis (Austin), Bexar (San Antonio) and El Paso counties, as well as along the southernmost border with Mexico. Republicans won by large margins across most of the state, as well as the more competitive counties surrounding Dallas and Houston.

WHY AP CALLED THE RACE:

At the time the AP called the race, Cruz led Allred in the statewide vote by more than 10 points with about 76% of the vote counted from almost every county. The incumbent posted big leads in traditionally Republican areas in the east and in the plains regions that make up much of the state. But he also stayed competitive with Allred in both the Democratic population centers of the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas.

Cruz was outperforming Trump's 2020 share of the vote in those areas and narrowed the Democrats' traditional advantage there. He was trailing Allred by about 4 percentage points in the area, while Trump trailed Democrat Joe Biden in those areas by between 8 and 9 percentage points in 2020.

Allred also underperformed in almost all of the state's most populous counties compared to O’Rourke in his 2018 run against Cruz. He was slightly trailing O’Rourke's performance in Harris (home of Houston), Dallas, Travis (home of Austin) and Bexar (home of San Antonio) counties but was far behind in O'Rourke's home county of El Paso by 15 percentage points.

Allred was running competitively in Fort Worth-based Tarrant County, which is one of the most competitive of the state's large counties. Trump won Tarrant comfortably over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but both O'Rourke and Biden carried it narrowly in 2018 and 2020. At the time AP called the race, Allred was trailing Cruz in Tarrant but by 2 a.m. ET was ahead by a razor-thin margin.

In order to overtake Cruz's statewide lead, Allred would have needed to win the remaining untabulated ballots by more than 30 percentage points over Cruz, but he was not performing at near that level in the areas where the most outstanding votes remained.

Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Democrats oust two House Republicans in New York, clawing back GOP gains

2024-11-06 15:07 Last Updated At：15:11

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Democrats in New York unseated two first-term Republican incumbents in the U.S. House on Tuesday, one in the Hudson Valley and the other in Syracuse, rolling back GOP gains in districts across the state.

New Yorkers were expected to play an outsized role Tuesday in determining control of the U.S. House as Republicans clung to suburban seats they won two years ago by seizing on fears of crime, and Democrats tried to claw them back by warning that a right-wing Congress might ban abortion.

Democrat Josh Riley beat Rep. Marc Molinaro, a freshman incumbent who was trying to hold a district that stretches from the Massachusetts border to the Finger Lakes region.

Riley, an lawyer from Ithaca, campaigned on his support for abortion rights and called for stronger border controls to counter Republican criticisms of federal immigration policy. Before he ran for office, Riley had once been a policy analyst at U.S. Department of Labor and formerly served as general counsel to former U.S. Sen. Al Franken.

In a central New York district that includes Syracuse, Democratic state Sen. John Mannion defeated Republican Rep. Brandon Williams. Williams was considered one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents this year because state Democratic leaders redrew his district to make it very favorable to their party.

Democrats maintained control of a critical seat in the Hudson Valley, with U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan fending off Republican challenger Alison Esposito. Even as he celebrated his victory, Ryan, an Army veteran, acknowledged in a speech to supporters that the early election returns had left many Democrats in the room on edge.

“I know everybody is anxious right now, I’m anxious right now," he said, "but to a certain degree all you can control is what’s in your community.”

Democrats had hoped to pick off a handful of Republican incumbents in congressional races on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley, as well as the central New York district Mannion won.

The slew of competitive elections underscore the hidden political complexity of New York, which is associated with Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but has also given rise to Republican stars like U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference. Jeffries, Ocasio-Cortez and Stefanik all held on to their seats Tuesday.

On Long Island, Republican U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito was in a tough rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen, a former town supervisor he defeated in 2022. The Associated Press had not declared a winner in the race as of early Wednesday morning, but Gillen claimed victory, saying in a statement that voters had chosen “common sense over chaos and corruption.”

Further out on Long Island, Republicans held on to a House seat that’s been under the party’s control for a decade. U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota defeated Democrat John Avlon, a former host and political analyst for CNN.

On both sides, the strategy has been to play to moderate suburban voters while casting opponents as extremists.

In 2022, Republicans in New York City's suburbs thrived with campaigns that portrayed the nearby city as having become lawless during the pandemic. Crime rates have dropped significantly since then, but Republicans have kept pressing crime as an issue while also trying to capitalize on suburban unease about immigration policy and an influx of international migrants.

Democrats moved to mount a stronger defense to voters’ concerns about crime and immigration. They also hammered Republicans on abortion — a tactic that didn't produce anticipated wins for the party two years ago in a state where abortion rights are not generally seen as under threat.

Republican gains on Long Island were eroded last year when former U.S. Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress after he was revealed to have fabricated his life story and defrauded campaign donors.

Santos was replaced in a special election by Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, who had previously represented the district for three terms before stepping down to challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022.

Suozzi won reelection Tuesday in a race against Republican Mike LiPetri, a former state lawmaker, a victory possibly aided by tweaks made to the district’s boundaries earlier this year that trimmed out a more conservative section of Long Island.

In the suburbs north of New York City, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler was leading former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who previously represented part of the district before its boundaries were redrawn for the 2022 election. Lawler declared victory in the race, although the AP had not declared a winner as of early Wednesday morning.

The contest received extra attention in early October when The New York Times obtained a photo of Lawler wearing blackface in 2006 at a college Halloween party where he dressed as Michael Jackson. Lawler said the outfit was intended to be an homage to a childhood idol.

Lawler appeared to embrace the controversy when he declared victory late Tuesday, saying “Folks, tonight the Hudson Valley told Mondaire Jones to ‘Beat It!’” after taking the stage while Jackson’s hit song played, and even throwing in a theatrical high kick.

In the one New York congressional race not involving an incumbent, Democrat George Latimer defeated Republican Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser. Latimer had beaten U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic primary in June, making Bowman the first member of the progressive band of liberals known as the “Squad” to lose a reelection bid.