Local races

I've been looking through the local races.

Two big issues were marijuana and minimum wages.

Arizona rejected legal pot, but California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts, all approved it.
Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, and Florida, either introduced or expanded medical marijuana.

In South Dakota, voters rejected lowering the minimum wage, while in Maine, Arizona, Washington, and Colorado, voters all increased the minimum wage.

There were a few other measures that caught my eye.
Alabama approved "right to work" laws, which limit the power of labour unions.
South Dakota rejected a non-partisan election commission.
Nevada approved expanding gun background checks.
And Oklahoma approved perhaps the most poorly worded option, Allow Any Execution Method. I don't expect any "executions by nuclear bomb" any time soon, as the measure specifically prevents the deaths from being "cruel or unusual" but the wording of this ballot measure could have been better.


One thing that was quite clear from the local races was the blue states got bluer while the red states got redder. This map is still a work in progress, but:

You'll also notice that this seems to be the definition of "blue state" and "red state"

Which highlights the problem Democrats face in the long term.



I'll be posting tomorrow about how this will impact things in Europe.