Deval Patrick won the governor's race for the state of Massachusetts. In doing so he became the first African-American governor of that state. CNN also said that he is only the 2nd African-American state governor in the history of the United States. Is that true?
MT-Sen, VA-Sen: Allen and Burns don't believe in recounts Both Allen and Burns will have the right to call for a recount, it seems. Yet given their prior public comments on recounts, we should expect them to pass. Burns press release, 11/28/2000: More Burns in the 11/30/2000 Great Falls Tribune: And Allen on the Today show 11/8/2000: I'm sure these former Senators will stand by their words, and not develop a double standard now. Right?
The numbers also pretty much coincide with the +/- figure of about 3% for most polls. Look at MT, spread 7 in exit polls and 1 in the voting (where the Dem was -3 relative to exit polls and the repub was +3--top end of the %margin of error). In other words, never feel totally comfortable (over 95%) from a single exit polls unless you got probably an 8 spread (e.g., 46-54, 45-53). Good lesson for political junkies like me.
I don't think so. I think the national Republican party will pull out all the stops in recounts in both states, they will determine control of the Senate. Politicians tend to apply double standards and tend to be hypocrites...
I heard that in Montana you have to be within 1/4 of a percentage point to get an automatic or at least a state funded recount. Is that correct? The margin there now is more like 3/4.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/senate/ Tester 198,032 49% Burns 194,904 48% 99% of precincts reporting Tester was ahead 1700 and now is ahead 3100. CNN online does not have a link up yet.
Yes, that is what has been reported. Burns can perform a self-financed voter recount. I suspect that he or the RNC has the dollars to do so.
Democrats Win House; Senate Now Tied Nov 8, 12:56 PM EST Democrats Win House; Senate Now Tied By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats won a cliffhanger race in Montana on Wednesday that brought them to the brink of control of the Senate, after Americans sick of scandal and weary of war ended the Republican majority in the House. With Democrats now assured of 50 Senate seats, the battle for outright control came down to Virginia, where the party's candidate, Jim Webb, held a small lead. For Republicans, it was an election that started out grim and got only grimmer with the new day. First, voters brought down the Republican House majority after 12 years in power, and gave Democrats a majority of governorships for the first time in just as long. Then Senate control began slipping away, the narrow GOP majority ground down to nothing, protected only by Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote if the contest ended at 50-50. Democrats hoped to shape a 51-49 majority with a Virginia victory for Webb, a former Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan. Webb led by fewer than 9,000 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast, and with the margin so small and so much on the line, GOP Sen. George Allen was not conceding. If a recount is held it could take weeks to be conducted by a panel of judges. Electoral officials were canvassing the unofficial results Wednesday, and both parties had teams ready to monitor and intervene in the event of a recount, anticipating the process could stretch into next month. In Montana, Democrat Jon Tester, an organic grain farmer who lost three fingers in a meat grinder, prevailed in a protracted contest with three-term Sen. Conrad Burns, who was weakened politically by his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Tester held a 3,128-vote lead over Burns with only one county left to count its votes. That county had fewer than 1,000 votes to report. An AP canvass of Montana counties estimated there were not enough provisional ballots still to be counted for Burns to overcome his deficit. That meant the election of 48 Democratic senators as well as two Democratic-voting independents - Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A succession of tainted Republicans lost seats as their leaders lost power, a stinging referendum on the ways of Washington. A large majority of voters surveyed across the country said their disgust with corruption influenced their choice. Setting a standard her party will be judged on in elections two years from now, speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi promised: "Democrats intend to lead the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history." The California Democrat was on the cusp of making history herself, as the first woman speaker. President Bush called her Wednesday morning to congratulate her. Democrats took 20 of 36 governorship races to give themselves a majority of top state jobs - 28 - for the first time in a dozen years. New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland and Arkansas went into the Democratic column. Republicans hung on to Florida's governorship, with Charlie Crist prevailing in a race to succeed Bush's brother Jeb, and Bob Corker won a closely watched Senate contest in Tennessee, denying Democrat Harold Ford Jr.'s bid to become the first black senator from the South in more than a century. But the night was one Republicans wished they could forget. For a two-term president who has led with Senate and House control for most of his time in office, easing the way for his tax cuts and war policy, it was an unaccustomed dose of defeat. The best face his spokesman could put on it was that some people saw it coming. It was not a "a slap-on-the-forehead kind of shock," Tony Snow said. Of the results, he said: "They have not gone the way he would have liked." Control of the Senate came down to two races once considered safely Republican until gaffes by the two GOP candidates. Burns, 71, first elected in 1988 as a folksy, backslapping outsider, came under siege as a top recipient of campaign contributions from Abramoff. He did himself no favors, either, when he confronted members of a wildfire-fighting team and accused them of doing a bad job. Allen, a former Virginia governor, struggled for months to get his campaign back on stride after he used the obscure racial slur "macaca" to introduce a man of Indian descent to an all-white rally. Across the country, voters expressed exasperation with the criminal convictions, the investigations and the recent sexual e-mail scandal that befell Congress over the past two years. In surveys conducted at polling places, three out of four voters said corruption and scandalous behavior in Congress made them more likely to vote Democratic. Also in the surveys, about six in 10 voters disapproved of the Iraq war and only a third believed it had improved long-term security in the United States. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., echoing Pelosi, said the election shows "we must change course in Iraq." More broadly, he said, Americans "have come to the conclusion, as we did some time ago, that a one-party town simply doesn't work." Without losing any seats of their own, Democrats captured 27 GOP-held seats and were leading for two more, assuring them of control 12 years after a Republican rout brought a new generation of conservatives into office. "Unprepared members were swallowed up by the sour national environment," New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the House GOP's election effort, said on CNN. He was re-elected. Democrats also defeated four Republican incumbents in the Senate - Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio, Jim Talent in Missouri and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island - who covered the spectrum from conservative to moderate. Indiana was particularly cruel to House Republicans. Reps. John Hostettler, Chris Chocola and Mike Sodrel all lost in a state where Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' unpopularity compounded the dissatisfaction with Bush. One of the biggest surprises of the night was Republican Rep. Jim Leach's defeat in Iowa after a career that spanned 30 years, losing to Dave Loebsack, a college professor making his first run for elective office. The two parties spent lavishly on television commercials in dozens of districts deemed competitive - but not that one. Scandal took an undeniable toll on the Republicans. Democrat Zack Space won the race to succeed Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to corruption this fall in the Abramoff scandal. Republican Rep. John Sweeney lost his seat in New York several days after reports that he had roughed up his wife - an allegation she denied. Republicans also lost the seat that Rep. Mark Foley had held. He resigned on Sept. 29 after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he had written to teenage pages. Rep. Don Sherwood lost despite apologizing to the voters for a long-term affair with a much younger woman; and Rep. Curt Weldon, also from Pennsylvania, was denied a new term after he became embroiled in a corruption investigation. The GOP also lost the Texas seat once held by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Surveys of voters suggested Democrats were winning the support of independents with almost 60 percent support, and middle-class voters were leaving Republicans behind. About six in 10 voters said the nation is on the wrong track and disapproved of the way Bush is handling his job. Voters in all groups were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans. Over half of the voters registered dissatisfaction with the way Republican leaders in Congress dealt with Foley. They voted overwhelming Democratic in House races, by a margin of 3-to-1. The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks. History worked against the GOP, too. Since World War II, the party in control of the White House has lost an average 31 House seats and six Senate seats in the second midterm election of a president's tenure in office. More than the party-run battle for control of Congress and the statehouses was at stake. South Dakota voters rejected the toughest abortion law in the land - a measure that would have outlawed the procedure under almost any circumstances. In a comeback unlike any other, Lieberman won a new term in Connecticut - dispatching Democrat Ned Lamont. Lieberman, a supporter of Bush's war policy, ran as an independent but will side with the Democrats in organizing the new Senate when he returns to Washington. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton coasted to a second Democratic term in New York, winning roughly 70 percent of the vote in a warm-up to a possible run for the White House in 2008. In Ohio, DeWine lost to Rep. Sherrod Brown, a liberal seven-term lawmaker. Chafee, the most liberal Republican in the Senate and an opponent of the war, fell to Sheldon Whitehouse, former state attorney general. Among the GOP losers, Hostettler, Santorum and DeWine all won their seats in the Republican landslide of 1994 - the year the GOP grabbed control of the House and Senate from the Democrats and launched the Republican revolution. "It's very hard to watch," lamented Dick Armey, who was House majority leader in those heady GOP days. Democrats piled up gains in the nation's statehouses. In Ohio, Rep. Ted Strickland defeated Republican Ken Blackwell with ease to become the state's first Democratic governor in 16 years. Deval Patrick triumphed over Republican Kerry Healey in Massachusetts, and will become the state's first black chief executive. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer won the New York governor's race in a landslide. Voters in Vermont made Sanders, an independent, the winner in a Senate race, succeeding retiring Sen. James Jeffords. Brooklyn-born with an accent to match, Sanders is a socialist who will side with Democrats, as he did reliably in the House. In Maryland, Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin captured an open Senate seat, defeating Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Looks like not one Dem incumbent will lose a Senate seat, House seat, or Governorship. That's unprecedented. No major losses... wow! Dems flipped the margin of Governors from 22-28 to 28-22. Dems made gains in a bunch of State Houses and now have a majority there. This is the first time in forever that a majority in the House does not depend on a majority from the Southern states. Dean's vision was great... compete everywhere and pin the Repubs in their Region... for they really are a Regional party and for the past few elections, we've let them skate and pick Dems off one-by-one elsewhere. Now, do some good governing, run a candidate in every race from dogcatcher to Senator, win a few more seats in the Midwest and West, pick a few off in the South and slowly strangle the Repubs from all sides. Keep in mind, that the Dems lost some very close races in some questionable districts. Next cycle, they'll be back and going against Repub opponents who are members of the minority party... I suspect some Repubs will retire to K Street or talk radio rather than to face another tough campaign against opponents who have built up their name recognition and spent the next two years building their organization... and all just to go back and be in the minority. Harold Ford got 48% in TN (TN!) even after being subjected to all kinds of racist crap. Not a win, but certainly something to build on. That this was all done with a monetary disadvantage, without the ability to push or promote any real agenda except via policy papers that nobody reads, and in the face of deliberate and sophisticated attempts at voter suppression and intimidation makes it all the sweeter. And for those Repubs saying this was really a conservative win, I agree. Americans want to conserve blood and treasure and not spend either foolishly. Americans want to conserve the preeminent middle class majority economy in the world. Americans want to fight terrorism efficiently. Most of all, Americans voted to conserve the Constitutional idea of checks and balances and reinvigorate the Legislative Branch as an equal to the Executive. However, if you think it was a victory for Conservatism, you're wrong. Look at who lost... Burns, Santorum, Allen... all at the forefront of Conservatism in the Senate. Pombo, Weldon, Hayworth, Chocola, Hostetler, Sweeney, and Taylor on the House side.... all proponents of the "Conservative" philosophy, such as it is. Sweeney even led the faux Republican riot to shut down the recount in FL. Good riddance. (And I didn't even mention Cruella, whose God told her she would win.) Now... the hard part begins. What to do for the next 15-17 months before the Presidential election eclipses everything? What will the Repubs try to do during their lame duck session? Oh well, I'll think about that tomorrow. Today, I'll savor Webb and a seven-fingered, crew cut farmer who gives Montana two Democratic Senators.
If there were a tie in the Senate, could some third party or independent in the Senate, say Lieberman, switch sides and flip the balance?
Right now the "tie" is with the two independents (Sanders and Lieberman) counted as Democrats. If Webb wins in Virginia, it is possible (although not very probable) that the Republicans can get Lieberman to pull a Jeffords.
There's no tie. Tester and Webb won. Lieberman could theoretically switch to make it a tie and Repubs will certainly throw a lot at him to try and make that happen. Even if it does, it is almost impossible to do anything of consequence in the Senate without 60 votes and the 50/50 alignment would mean Cheney casts the deciding vote, but there would also be equal representation on committees, so Repubs could not ram things through on a party-line vote. I hope Holy Joe stays with the Dems and I think he will... but again, the worst case scenario for Dems is a 50-50 tie with Cheney casting votes in reaction to House-passed measures, which could pay off greatly in the 2008 Presidential election.
i highly doubt that, look at the other statewide elections: senate kay bay won 61% lt gov dewhurst won 58% att gen abbott won 59% bell did far better than i expected, kinky did far worse... he simply had a terrible showing.
I doubt it. Jeffords was a crazy exception to the rule. Republicans hated the guy because he was more liberal than some democrats. He was voting with democrats on pretty much everything but caucusing with republicans and stayed with them out of the hope of getting a chairmanship. The Republicans were dumbasses and basically excluded him from a chairmanship and some pork barrel spending and he jumped ship. Seriously, the Republicans were treating him like garbage. They wouldn't invite him to party meetings and would exclude him from a lot of important internal party discussions and all of that resentment just built up and he finally jumped ship out of frustration. Lieberman on the other hand will get his committee chairmanship and he still votes with the democrats on something like 90% of issues. The only area he really splits on is national security. He's still a liberal on domestic policy issues and the like so the ideological connection with the Republicans isn't nearly as strong as Jeffords's was with the Democrats. Plus I'm sure the democrats learned from the Jeffords story and will probably do what they need to do to keep Joementum on board. On another note, there was a lot of talk of the possibility of Lincoln Chafee jumping across the aisle if he had won and there was a 50-50 split. In fact, I'd like to see him switch parties and run for something again. That guy was basically Jeffords part II except the Republicans weren't shoveling dirt all over him because they realized how badly they messed up with Jeffords. But Chaffee was ideologically a liberal. (for gay marriage, for abortion rights, against tax cuts, against the iraq war, big environmentalist, etc..) He could play the whole disillusioned Republican card and win a congressional seat or something like that.
