To 62 primarily because of early voting. We make it easier to register, easier to vote by mail and, therefore, people turned out at a higher rate. But this turn out in this election showed that there is a huge enthusiasm gap, i think, about the candidates, especially for the democrats. It hurt them. It looks like its about 37 for the last 30 years, its 38. 8 . You know, the real election for the house of representatives and to a certain extent in the senate is the primary election in america. The turnout there is 18 . In some cases, its eight and who turns out in an 8 election . The real election, because if you win in the primary, there is no competition in general. The people on the far right or the far left. Turns americans off. The main thing is the main difference, though, in terms of turnout throughout the world, its 95 in australia because its required. You get fined 250 australian dollars if you do not vote. Sne rarely do that. We should have more people voting but we should have more people voting that know what they are voting about, also. Thats another aspect of this host wade from pleas antsview, tennessee, you get the last wofford on all of this. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to say to the professor, mentioned jeb bush, saying illegal people are coming over here for love. If you was the daughter and son in mexico and they wasnt living there illegally, would you go there and try to fight for the stay there or ask them to come home. During the height of our recirc we had more people leaving the United States than coming in believe it or not, going back to be it with their families. Jeb bushs comment is, its not only its not all about economics. Its about trying to get together with their families. Now, if you if part of your family is in guatemala and you have a dysfunctional government, there are gangs and threats, you dont go back to guatemala. You try to get your family here i think thats the point of jeb bush. The book is more complex than that, but that stuck with me because it is so different than the rest of the republican party. It will be a controversy in the primaries and with Republican Voters as he goes forward. We will look forward to your book coming out in march. Again, the title is . American gridlock. Its about the sources, characteristics and impact of polarization, not only in congress but with the media and, also, on state legislatures and with the voters, with interest groups, with the judiciary. Its not only just the hill thats polarized. Its happening throughout america. Thats an issue we didnt even talk about is which is what we see in states across the country and the increase of the republican majority in state houses. Its historic. James thurber, your final point . The number of republicans, state hoisz and governs is historic. This was a wave election, especially at the state and local level. Our guest is the director of american universitys center for congressional and president ial i was very disappointed with what i saw and heard. I think the guest were both weak and ineffectual and it seemed that the bulk were whiny man. One woman is beaten every 15 seconds by a husband or partner. That is one woman every 15 seconds. Is swepte alarmingly under the rug in this country probably because most of the perpetrators are male. The only way this will ever change is if men are willing to look at her own bad behavior and address it headon. I was listening to your commentator and one from the 2000nd something about on the henry reed desk henry reed desk. While each and every one of those bills have a repeal of what they call obamacare or Affordable Care act. Andvers your commentator that needs to bring up the point. I just heard comments from the late who called in and i watching your show right now. Rather than having democrats and , likeicans commenting democrats and republicans basically fight it out sounds like verbally on the show. I am up for that. Continue to tell us what you think. Call us at email us at or you can send us a tweet at join the cspan conversation. Maybe the American Enterprise institutes analyst look at the Election Results from the house and senate. In a discussion on the future of the u. S. Navy and later a look at the International Energy agencys role in toss concerning Irans Nuclear program. Irans nuclear program. Institutionprise held a talk on the midterm Election Results. Analysts reviewed the house and Senate Results and examine whether the gop take her for congress means for the future of the obama presidency. They discuss indications for potential candidates in 2016. This is 90 minutes. Good afternoon. Im a senior fellow here, and id like to welcome all of you and our cspan audience to this election watch. Id like to begin by thanking the aei conferences staff. They do an enormous amount of work to make sure these events run smoothly. And id also like to extend a special thanks to heather simms, our new assistant. Shes been with us for only a few months and shes had a baptism of fire in election issues. Let me begin by congratulating my fellow panelists. Weve been at the business of elections for a long time. Election watch began at aei in 1982. We do politics the oldfashioned way. Studying individual races and historical voting patterns. Were not into the the aggregation business. I listened yesterday to our session from two weeks ago. And although there were a few misses, the panelists generally made very solid calls in senate, house, and gubernatorial races. We said we expected big gop gains in state legislatures. And we learned this morning that republicans have the highest number of state legislative seats now in 100 years and democrats the lowest number since the civil war. Let me say a few words about the polls. While most of them predicted that the g. O. P. Would have a good night, many of the individual polls were wildly misleading. Mark blumenthal and ary levi said this morning the polls missed their mark nationwide by a mile. Public polls consistently understated republican candidates in almost every statewide race including a remarkably high number of misses. For instance, none of them predicted what happened in West Virginia where ed gillespie is still awaiting the output. Polling statewide is treacherous. Whether the business as we know it will be around in 2020 is not clear, but a lot of soul searching should be done and this is not a particularly introspective business. The exit polls had a good night and we can learn a great deal from them. Let me go over a few of the findings that struck me. We talked in the session before this one about the sour public mood. People dont trust this economic recovery and that was evident in so many of the questions on the exit poll ballot. Only 1 said the economy was in excellent shape while 70 said it was still in bad shape. Nearly half of voters expected their life for the next generation would be worse. Only 22 expected that it would be better. Democrats have been counting on what they call the rising minority electorate to propel them to victory. The share of the youth vote this time was down and republicans made gains among those who did vote. The share of the nonwhite vote slipped. Greg abbott in texas, like george w. Bush and rick perry did well with hispanics, capturing 44 of their vote. The gender gap was dwarfed by the marriage gap at 41 points. And an analyst said single women, another core Democratic Group, gave their party the smallest margin in exit polls going back to 1992. Women as a whole were more democratic than men but less so than in the past. Men were solidly republican. Republicans won the womens vote in southern contests in kansas, arkansas, texas, maine, mississippi, in both South Carolina races, West Virginia and women split their vote in iowa. Independents gave the g. O. P. A 12point margin. A third of voters said they supported the tea party. I looked closely at the Health Care Question on the exit poll ballot. Voters in 18 Senate Contests were asked to check a box indicating whether they thought the law did not go far enough, was about right and went too far. In only two states, oregon and maine did more than 30 say it didnt go far enough. In all of the other states, 45 or more said that the Health Care Law went too far. In 10 states more than 50 of voters said it went too far. The exit poll consortium asked whether most Illegal Immigrants in the u. S. Should be offered a chance to apply for legal status or deported to the country they came from. Only in arkansas did more people say that they should be deported than given legal status. Voters in 17 Senate Contests were asked if their state should legally recognize gay marriage. At the low end, 25 of louisiana said yes. At the high end, 70 of those in New Hampshire did. This was the issue that produced more diverse responses than any others. Voters in six Senate Contests were asked whether the use of marijuana should be made legal. Voters in two states said yes. Only a third of voters in texas said that ted cruz and separately rick perry would make a good president. 39 of arkansans said that Hillary Clinton would. 50 said Mike Huckabee would make a good president. 28 in louisiana said bobby jindal would. 40 in florida said jeb bush would. In wisconsin, 46 said that paul ryan would make a good president. Thats a quick summary of some of the exit poll data. We have a piece up on the website that goes into these issues in more detail. Now were going to turn to our panelists and were going to surprisingthe most to talk about house races. Michael, you said, if i remember correctly that at the beginning of the obama is estimation, the republicans in the house had 179 seats. Tell us where they are today. Yeah, the republicans had 179 seats at the beginning of the obama administration. They are up to, if you look at current leads, 25 1. Some of those leads may evaporate as california in particular takes a lodge time to count its votes. Theyve taken as long as five weeks. A week ago sunday, brazil tabulates its votes in five hours. And california which believes to be a more advanced state, takes five weeks. In any case, it appears republicans have won more than they won in 2012, more than the 242 they won in 2010 and almost certainly more than the 246 they won in 1946 so you have to go back to the 1928 cycle to find a time when republicans did better in house elections. Norm was covering that for cbs radio. [laughter] and thats there its part of this is baked into the cake by demographics. You know, in 2012, mitt ram any, romney, who many of you will remember, carried 226 house districts. Carried a majority of the house districts. Why is that . There are marginal favoring of republicans in the house seats in this cycle but the primary reason is demographic. Democratic voters, as ive been writing for the last couple of years, particularly heavily democratic voters, blacks, hispanics some but not all states and gentry liberals, i think we know who were talking look there. Were only two miles from georgetown, are heavily clustered in certain central cities from sympathetic suburbs, universities towns. Votes. T huge percentage Republican Voters are spread more evenly around the rest of the country. Romney carried 226 house districts for republicans. Unfortunately thats not the way we choose president s and in comparison, john kerry, who got a slightly higher percentage of the vote eight years before, kerry only won 80. So its a basic demographic thing, nonetheless, i think its interesting that republicans gained seats in this house cycle. Looking at the exit poll it looks like the overall vote was 5147 for republicans in terms of percentages. That may be off by a bit. Well wait on california, theyre out there on the beach or something not counting the votes, to see whats going on but thats their let me insert a word here about the polls. You mentioned the error mar individuals. I did a blog post for washington examiner. Com on this. I looked at the seriously contested senate races. I dont know if that holds in governor or house races, which there isnt usually a lot of polling. What i found was that in incumbent democrats, the polls were pretty much spot on to the number of votes they got. Interestingly, the two that increased were two female candidates, kay hagan and Jeanne Shaheen but basically the polls were pretty much spot on on democratic incumbents. Among republican incumbents, of which there were only two in seriously contested races, the polls were about eight points low for mitch mcconnell, about 10 points low for pat roberts. Those are both heavily republican states and we know that republicans in polling are more likely than democrats to express dissatisfaction with anywhere partys politicians, with their partys members in congress, but the rule that that suggests is that polling is pretty good at getting the party giving the percentage for the party that is doing badly in a wave election. Its not so good at projecting the party that is doing well from a wave election and yeah, this was a wave election, folks. Got its starts in polling with peter hart many, many years ago. Yes, that but it was after the 1928 cycle anyway. [laughter] my second point is that its interesting that the republicans lost two seats with incumbents that had particular problems. Florida, two, nebraska, two. They came close to losing another in West Virginia, two, where a candidate was an out of stater in a state that doesnt have many out of staters, West Virginia. But basically republicans gained or were ahead in 19 districts currently and for what looks to be a 17seat gain. A majority of these gains, and they came within 4 in another 10 district. A majority of these gains came with seats that democratic districting plans or very heavy democratic majorities. Arizona, california especially, where you had a supposedly nonpartisan redistricting commissions in both those states but the democrats successfully gained them. Illinois, where republicans gained one seat in heavily upscale north shore suburbs of chicago and gained another seat in the rather downscale, more bluecollar part of the state opposite the Mississippi River in st. Louis. Maryland, where theres one near gain. John delaney, the democrat had to pour a lot of money into that race at the last minute. And a new york state. And its one of the phenomena we see is that when a wave is working against a party, the house seats will be at risk in states where they redistricted. Because a lot of times you create 53 districts and when things are bad for your party youre down to 47 in those seats. We saw in the previous census cycle, republicans lost seats in states where anywhere redistricted in 2006, 2008. So redistricting doesnt lock in everything forever. When opinion is going against you, the tide can run out on those things. People who predict the republicans will inevitably hold the house until 2022, look at the returns for 2006 and 2008 before you make that prediction. Theyre doing well now. The number of split congressional districts voted for president in one party, congressman for another was 26 in the 2012 election, the lowest number since 1920. We had nine democratic congressmen representing districts carried by mitt romney. Republicans won six of those nine seats. So we dont have very much we have republicans captured a few democratic districts or are ahead of them in districts that were more than 55 for obama but very few. Although you have odd results like Louise Slaughter almost losing, been in the house for 30 years. Senior democrat in upstate new york. Let me look at a couple of demographic groups off the house exit poll. Millennials this group was theyre the wave of the future. The republicans missed their chance to pass a constitutional amendment barring the vote to anybody born after 1980. And [laughter] the democrats advantage is down to 5443, in points. In 2008, barack obama won 13 more among millennials than he won among voters generally. That differential margin was 9 in 2012. Its 7 in this election. Its you know, it becomes much less important in the thing obamas popular vote margin in 2008 almost entirely came from millennials. It was equivalent to 7 of the whole electorate. The democrats margin was a lowest turnout in the off year from Younger Voters as was typical, is about 1. 5 of the total electorate. That would be a little higher in a president ial year with the same measures of support but what it says to me is the millennials at this point, White Millennials voting republican on ballots are a mildly more than average Democratic Group rather than a wave of the future that will vote 21 democratic forever and make the republicans a permanent minority party. Theyre up for grabs by both parties. Asians. One of the most interesting things here, the asian folk came in at 5049. Not sure this is as of much national significance. It was 67 for obama. Remember that were talking about house races. Asians are clustered. A majority of people who come in as asians in the sense us census definition are in hawaii and california. You had a close republican nearly winning the hawaii first congressional district. Thats an asian majority district. That would inflate the asian nationwide percentage in a way that may not be indicative of anything outside of the particular individuals involved in that hawaii race. I noted also in california districts like california 27, the democratic nominee, no serious opposition, got 57 in a 63 obama district. One of the issues in california thats come up that affects asians is that the democratic super majorities in the legislature wanted to put on the ballot a proposition to repeal the ban on racial quota preferences in Higher Education in california that was voted in the 1990s. This was if you analyze the electorate in terms of whites and nonwhites as the very able analyst Ron Brownstein does you would expect nonwhites to have solidarity. Then the asian members with a lot of asian constituents started getting hundreds and thousands of phone calls. These people want their kids to go to u. C. Berkeley and ucla. They dont want the places they know that quotas of preference will work heavily against them. And that ballot proposition didnt get on the ballot. I would like to know the asian percentages in maryland and massachusetts with governorships no exit poll in maryland or massachusetts. I would like to know what the asian percentage was in the Close Senate Race in virginia. Again, we dont have numbers on that. Hispanics, we mentioned hispanics briefly. 6335 democratic nationwide, down from 71 from obama against mitt romney but theyre very different in different states. California, where there were no serious statewide contests except nonpartisan rails for summit of public instruction. 76 democratic, 69 in new york and those two states although to about 1 3 of voters registered in the country. Down in texas, john cornyn won hispanics. 4948. Greg abbott run for governor, 44 hispanics. That was a state where a lot of liberals hoped that the nonwhite vote was going to put them over the top. The hispanics there are not behaving like black voters in texas or other states. You see them getting 41 for david purdue in georgia. 52 for pat roberts in kansas and i did a little interpolation from the exit poll in colorado that suggested to me that mark udall, the Democratic Senators who lost carried his span i said hispanics by less than 10 . That figure is very dicey but what it does tell me that the democratic candidate was not winning by the numbers the exit polls showed in colorado. So thats the overall setup. Legislatures. The hispanic votes is up for grabs in a lot of places and it varies substantially by state and the attitude theyre in. Legislatures, as carlin said, the numbers are not entirely tabulated but its the highest republican number in 100 years. Democrats lowest number since the civil war. It appears that the last Democratic Legislature in what i call the 14 Southern States is the Kentucky House with a tie in, i believe, the West Virginia senate, but i think its interesting here. Democrats are disadvantaged in many states, including those carried twice by obama like florida, pennsylvania, ohio, by clustering. They win the gentry and black districts and lose almost everywhere else and that pattern continues to flow in the elections. By my count currently, democrats are in control with the governorship majority in both houses of the legislature in only seven of the 50 states. They started off the obama era in control of 27. Those states and basically those states amount to only 16 of the u. S. Population. 12 is in california. 6 are in other eastern otherwise you have hawaii, oregon, connecticut, delaware and rhode island and vermont. So the strength of the democratic coalition, the obama coalition, it elected and reelected president obama. The weakness we see on display last night. Thank you very much, michael. Before turning to our former colleague, john fournier, were live tweeting the event from our handle. Use the hashtag electionlaunch14. Jon, the governors races . Thank you. Id like to start out a bit just to show some contrast with the house races. Much of what michael said was correct, the republican wave was strong and it washed over especially red states and swing states, washing out democrats who were holding those seats. The governors wave was stronger than we thought and actually got into some very blue states. First, the senate. The seven most republican seats went to republicans. They were all held by democrats. Six very deep red states plus North Carolina and then two swing states, iowa and colorado. Looking at that, Susan Collins did win reelection. Shes in a state that president obama won by a significant amount but you have very few people left in the Senate Sitting in states that are not of their party. Susan collins and mark kirk in illinois are in very significantly democratic states. John tester, joe manchin and Heidi Heightkamp sit in significantly reinstates. Thats down a lot. In the house, michael mentioned that six of the nine democrats that held obama seats lost. The top four were really dramatically republican districts. That leaves Colin Peterson as the most republican seat that the democrats hold. Just by comparison, not so long ago, 1992, there were about 90 democrats who met that definition in very significantly republican states. There were probably 15 republicans who sat in very democratic districts. Did republicans do well in swing districts and red districts . Yes, they edged into some districts which are significantly democratic, maybe not quite as democratic as the jim mathison seats. But dan matthews, bruce brailley seats. Maybe jim costner waiting on a recount. The snyder district in illinois. Those are pretty democratic districts but we dont see the dramatic ability to hold seats that belong to another party. What we saw in the governors races were a little different. I think they were the most uncertain. There were a lot of significantly close races that were within the margin of error in the polling and i you would say, probably looked like because governorships were held much more by republicans that you werent likely to see many gains. Coming into the election we had 29 governorships that were republican. Nationwide, 21 for democrats and 22 of the republican seats were up for reelection as well as 14 democratic seats. The republicans gained a couple of seats here. We knew they were going to lose in pennsylvania. That was a case of a particularly unpopular republican governor. It looks like and maybe henry has been following the last Election Results in alaska but looks like in alaska the republican governor will lose to an independent but not of the ordinary sort. One who ran with a democrat on the ticket but also was endorsed by sarah palin. You can make of that what you want. But republicans did really quite well and the three states that they broke into with varying degrees of enterprise that are dramatically democratic. Of course they took the massachusetts governorship, the illinois governorship and probably the greatest surprise for all of us were showing some closing but the polls certainly werent showing this level under our nose. Several races in our backyard that we didnt watch as closely as we might have in maryland where the republican larry hogan is going to be the next governor. Those seats, just to give you a sense of where they stand. Massachusetts voted for barack obama by 23 points, maryland by 26 points and now held by republican governors. Governorships in general have the ability to define themselves more locally against the national trend. It can be more about personalities or state policies but i think there was a very significant push in both parties, partly because of weve seen unified government in a lot of states. Red states are trying redstate policies, blue states are trying bluestate policies and there was some big argument about this, especially on taxes. On the democratic side, certainly the tax issue was significant in maryland, massachusetts, and illinois. Didnt put the republican over the top in connecticut but certainly that issue was strong for republicans. And then on the flip side, democrats believed that they would find some way to pin overtax cutting on democrats in places like kansas. I would say in the North Carolina senate race, which was not a governors race but certainly tom tillis was pinned with the policies that hed been involved with and enacting when he was in the legislature and in wisconsin as well where both collective bargaining and taxes were there. All those states had on the ballot republican policies and republicans prevailing. A couple of other points, very large wins for two hispanic republican governors, in nevada and in new mexico, and again, as carlin mentioned, more consolidation of gains in state legislative races. Republicans gained both portions of the house in nevada. Arkansas got a larger majority and republicans will again have full control and really across a board, a number of these governors who are reelected are going to have stronger majorities in legislature. Wisconsin, michigan, ohio, kansas, texas, and the list goes on. And a number of democrats who are reelected will face divide legislatures because republicans have taken parts of the legislature or legislatures in colorado and minnesota. The last point about governors is to talk about governor ed gillespie. He, of course, did lose his senate race but many people have noted that he is well setup to run again. I think he would have been had he lost by five points or seven points. Running a good race, i think people felt he was one of the more policy oriented substantive candidates on the stump. But also, ed gillespie also a student of norm warrenstein and part of a fraternity which might run turned pan banner of the political spawn of norm. It includes Terry Mcauliffe and ed gillespie. With that, i will turn it to back jon, one or two other questions. John is the countrys leading expert on early and absentee and mail voting. Can you say just a little bit about what happened with mail voting in colorado . Maybe something in general about the turnout in the vermont governors race. Vermont governors race is going to stay in the democrats hands, but it is much closer than we anticipated. A little less than a 2 margin. Vermont has a strange practice or unique practice in america where if you do not get 50 of the vote, theres not a runoff, but the legislature decides. The Democratic Legislature in vermont will likely select shumlin again. All throughout new england, republicans did quite well in the governors race. They fell short in some places but did quite well. On early and absentee voting, we dont have all the numbers in. Ive always been someone who is cautious and i think that caution has been borne out by trying to overpredict about early results that come in. You saw a lot of prognostication. Partly those results are sort of selective. You select various times. Sometimes its true that a party really gets motivated to spend more of its resources on bringing voters to the polls. So im always skeptical about that. We dont know i dont know the final outcome of how much early and absentee voting there was this time. We think turnout is down, but id feel more comfortable to wait until the california numbers come in. It is likely to be lower broadly, but to give you an exact number, youve got to give us a couple more weeks for the late states to come in. Now well turn to henry olson, now at the ethics and Public Policy center, who is going to talk about what interested him most in the senate contest. So the senate didnt surprise me very much. I missed two senate races, as far as compared to my preelection prediction. One was kansas, which was simply an epic polling fail across the board. The other was North Carolina, which was pretty close and went down to the wire. Simply i did some bad math and underestimated a little bit of the republican wave. It was pretty clear going in that both in the state polls and the National Polls that this was going to be yet another election where senate seats were dependent, not independent variables, which is to say that people across the board were not really considering whether person x versus person y was better but whether r versus d was better. Nevertheless, there are some interesting things that i think we want to take a look at. And that relates in part to the polling fail question, and then i want to spend a little bit of time on, what does this mean for 2016 . With respect to the polling fail, my means for this, democrats, you know, kind of the old clint eastward western, the good, the bad and the ugly, that there were only a couple of races youd put in the good category and most in the ugly category. But from the republicans perspective, its the city mouse versus the country mouse. If you take a look at the final average on the polls, whether the r or the d, and the key senate states, and compared it to the actual margin, the polls actually werent that bad in a lot of states. New hampshire, the final r margin was in favor of shaheen by. 8. It actually was shaheen by 3. 2. In georgia, even though they underestimated the amount, the margin was pretty right. They had purdue winning by 3 . He won by 4. 9. In alaska, theyre still counting votes that are likely to tilt democratic. But the final margin was sullivan by 2. 4. Even virginia was not an epic polling fail. The final percentage for warner was 48. 5. As far as the polls prediction. The margin was 49. 2 for that. My guess is there were a lot of people who never heard of ed gillespie, who simply voted for the republican, because that would account for the wave and accuracy of the warner prediction. Where you find big errors are four states really. See if you can figure out what the difference is and why i might have put it in that category. Iowa, a 6. 2 difference. It was 2. 3 in the final poll. Ernst wins by 8. 5. Kansas, the final polls had orman up by one. Kentucky, mcconnell ahead by 7. 2. He ended up winning by 15. 5. Arkansas, where cotton was supposedly ahead by 7, he won by 17. City mouse versus country mouse. The states where you had the biggest polling errors also have incredibly small populations in what we would consider metropolitan areas. Take a look at colorado, where the polling fail was virtually none. It had gardner up by 2. 5. Right now, hes up by 2. 9. More democratic votes are still coming in, because even though theyre not californiaesque, theyre slow in democratic countings. 85 of the vote in colorado is cast in metropolitan areas. Contrast that with kansas, where less than 50 of the vote is cast in what we would consider to be metropolitan areas. And thats including topeka as a metropolitan area, considered to be a small area outside of kansas. Iowa, 50 of the vote, and that includes a lot of places that we would not consider, based on our experience, metropolitan areas, like butte or sioux city. You go even further. Arkansas, the total, its 50,000 votes or more, less than 30 of the vote is cast there. Kentucky, if you include cincinnati suburbs, its around 33 of the vote, 34 of the vote. Where there were significant rural populations, the pollsters completely failed. And that raises a question of whether or not the differential response is not r versus d but city versus country. Take New Hampshire. Thats both a more urban state 61. 5 of the votes were cast in the three areas considered to be part of manchester or boston metropolitan areas, but unlike every other state, the Rural Counties tend to be more democratic. The strength for the republicans is in the metro area. The strength for the democrats, in the Rural Counties. And that is a state where you saw the margin switch in favor of the democrats rather in favor of the republican. Id like to throw that out as a possible explanation for the polling fail. If you take a look, the swing was much greater for republicans in the nonmetro areas than the metro areas. Colorado ive divided into different areas. Youve got denver and boulder. And theres still more democratic votes coming in. But right now, gardner only gained over romney in 2012 by about 2 . If that had been extrapolated statewide, it would have been a 50 50 race. Outside of that, in the nondenver metro area, he gained over 3. 3 . Rural areas, even more. In ski bunny, colorado, on the other hand, there are seven counties, and if i told you the