It will all be over tomorrow, folks. To a large extent, we sort of know what’s happening already. There are about 40,210 highly likely Election Day voters. The Republicans hold a substantial lead amongst them of 6,111 votes. There are 3,417 independent and third party voters who are likely to show up tomorrow. Two years ago, 47,015 people voted on Election Day. Tara Zrinski got 18,628 votes and lost them by a little bit over 7,500. I am predicting 48,392 Election Day voters tomorrow. Republicans will have a 6,729 vote advantage over Democrats. There will be just over 5,000 independent and third party voters. Tom Giovanni and the Republican ticket will win Election Day by a hair under 8,000. If you’re watching for anything, it’s whether we cross 49 or 50 thousand Election Day votes, and whether his margin is more than 8,000.

Two years ago, 25,421 people voted by mail. Democrats crushed the Republicans with these voters. Zrinski won this group by 13,331 and actually did a little worse than the statewide court numbers. Democratic numbers are a little down from that height though. 16,175 Democrats have returned their ballots, compared to 6,034 Republicans. That’s an edge of 10,141. There are 2,500 independent and third party votes in. Election Day independents probably break Republican and vote by mail independents tend to break Democratic. For argument’s sake, if that’s the case here, Democrats probably come out 10,600 votes up, and Zrinski wins by a little under 3,000 votes. Of course, that’s assuming more votes don’t come in. We’re at 24,709 in already, so it’s probably a bit crazy to think most of the remaining ballots come in. There are 9,150 of them still out there though, and Democrats hold an advantage of 3,020 amongst their registration. Republicans are definitely doing a bit better than 2023 amongst vote by mail voters, but they’d still be happy if less of these votes came in.

Tom Giovanni is probably not going to win tomorrow. The numbers are better for him than they were for John Cusick against Zrinski in 2023 though. Zrinski won the Controller race by 5,775 that year. She’s only going to get to that number if like 3 or 4 thousand more vote by mail ballots come in, or she crushes him with independents. As of right now, I expect turnout to be slightly higher than 2023, something in the neighborhood of 74,000, and I expect Zrinski to win by about 2,600 votes, which is just shy of 4%. So she gets about 51% and he gets about 47%. Is there a path for Giovanni though? Yes. First, I think he has to hope that less than 1,500 more vote by mail ballots come in. Second, he needs to crush it with Election Day independent voters and win the independent voters who voted by mail. Then he’ll need at least some portion of Democrats to come over and vote for him, beyond the usual. That’s a lot, and he and his party did not run a campaign that was advantageous for that. As usual, they followed the conventional wisdom that most of their voters will vote on Election Day. That’s great and all, but it isn’t worth a cup of coffee at Wawa if that’s not enough voters to win. They also messaged entirely at their base with a Charlie Kirk mailer, and weirdly put out signs asking “Where’s the money Lamont?,” as if a.) anyone knows what that means, b.) they actually wanted to drag the guy that crushed them the last two Executive races into the race, and c.) he was their opponent. The strategy was bizarre and made no sense. I think it will probably cost them a relatively close Executive race, a very close judge race, and any shot at the majority on County Council (they need to win 4 seats tomorrow). I think Democrats Dave Holland and Lori Vargo Heffner and Republican Sam Elias will win seats tomorrow night. I would predict the Democrats to win four for sure, but Democrats drop off much faster as we go down the ballot. I think Theresa Fadem and Jason Boulette will be in a very close race with Republicans John Goffredo and John Brown. My guess is Fadem and Goffredo hang on. For Zrinski to be able to govern, she will need two Democrats besides Vargo Heffner to win, so she needs Holland, Fadem, and Boulette to have good nights. If it’s a good night for Republicans and Giovanni over performs, they absolutely could get Elias, Goffredo, and Brown through. I just don’t think I see them getting four seats unless Giovanni wins.

UPDATE- Here are my turnout numbers, broken out several ways for you to ponder.