AK: Even though Uncle Ted (R) is a convicted felon, he leads 48%/47% over Mark Begich (D). Total votes so far are 106,351/102,998. There are ~40,000 absentee ballots yet to be counted. GA: Somehow, someway the incumbent Saxby Chambliss (R) fell below 50% at the last last last minute and there will be a runoff on December 2nd. It could get pretty vicious. The Dems said they will have activists from all over the country converging on GA. OR: Seems like all pre-election polling had Jeff Merkley (D) beating the incumbent, Gordon Smith (R) by several percentage points. But as of now, the vote is 625,994/615,745 (47%/47%) in favor of Smith. A 3rd party candidate has 75,266 votes. The expectation is that Merkley will win semi-comfortably because the vast majority of uncounted votes are from predominantly Dem counties. This page from the Oregonian supports that viewpoint. http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2008/11/senate.html MN: This is the most discussed of the 4 undecided races. All of the votes have been counted and Coleman came out on top by only 475 out of 2,860,190 total ballots. This is a 0.0166% margin of victory and a recount will start in a couple of weeks. It is expected to be well into December before the winner is determined. Last night, I thought GA was a win for the GOP which would rule out the over-discussed 60 seat majority for the Dems. I guess there remains a very slim chance they get it because, in theory, all 4 of these seats could go their way. Doubtful though. Comments and insights welcome.
tpm chimes in: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/ The Latest Senate Map: More Dem Gains Still Possible By Eric Kleefeld - November 5, 2008, 4:34PM So here's the latest on the Senate map: We already know the Dems have picked up a minimum of five seats, but there are still four races that could go either way, with one of them leaning in the Democratic direction. Here are the four outstanding races: • In Alaska, GOP incumbent Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens may have confounded the polls that showed him losing by a landslide -- he's now narrowly ahead 99% of the vote counted, and he is now saying it's almost impossible for his Dem opponent to win. Forget about the Bradley Effect -- we're dealing here with the Stevens Effect: An unwillingness of poll respondents to admit to a pollster that they're going to vote for the convicted felon. This one seems to be tilting towards the GOP. • In Georgia, GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss appears headed to a December runoff against Democrat Jim Martin. Chambliss came out ahead of Martin, but seems to be so tantalizingly short of his true goalpost of 50% plus one: With 96% reporting, Chambliss has 49.9%, Martin 46.7%, and the Libertarian candidate has 3.4%. Either Chambliss has reached the threshold to avoid a runoff, in which case he's re-elected outright, or he goes into a runoff where he would have to be rated as the initial favorite. • In the Minnesota Senate race, where GOP incumbent Norm Coleman has a lead of just a few hundred votes against Al Franken, this one is going to a recount. That process itself could take several weeks, so we may not get a true verdict on this race until some time in December. This one is a real tossup, and there is a precedent for Senate recounts changing the initial outcome in a close race -- that exact thing happened in a key Senate race in 2000, in Washington State. • In the current vote count in Oregon, where all balloting is done by mail, incumbent GOP Sen. Gordon Smith has a very narrow lead over Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley. However, Oregonian columnist Jeff Mapes points out that many of the outstanding votes are from the Portland and Eugene areas, which are expected to heavily favor Merkley. It might take another few days to get this thing counted, but the conventional wisdom in the Oregon press seems to be that Merkley will eventually pull ahead. Of the four races listed here, this one presents the most optimistic outlook for the Democrats. In the highly unlikely scenario that the Democrats were to sweep all four of these races, they would then reach that magic number of 60 Senate seats, counting Joe Lieberman. But don't expect that to happen.
It will be interesting. Chambliss underperformed compared to McCain while Martin was even with Obama. I would expect Obama generates a bunch of money and sends all the top staff to GA for the runoff... and maybe even campaigns there, though I doubt it. Money and staff and enthusiasm could be enough to overcome a depressed Republican electorate.
One of my friends' dad was a third-party candidate for Alaska's Senate. According to him, the race switched when Stevens was convicted. Basically, Alaska voted for a do-over. They didn't want Stevens, anymore, but when electing him meant that they could have a special election and possibly elect a Republican that they liked, they voted for him.
Wow, there is even more of chance for the 'Magic 60' than I thought although I doubt it is accomplished. It doesn't seem that substantial to me anyway, other than overriding filibusters, what good is 60 seats or better?
