MN Senate: Coleman's Lead Shrinks

The Minneapolis Star Tribune:

With about 46 percent of the 2.9 million ballots counted by Thursday evening, the gap between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and DFL challenger Al Franken continued to close. Coleman was leading by only 136 votes, a drop from his unofficial lead of 215 that was confirmed Tuesday by the state Canvassing Board.

Senator Begich

Anchorage Daily News:

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens lost his job to Mark Begich on Tuesday, putting an end to the era of "Uncle Ted" as the dominant force in Alaska politics.
Begich, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, widened his lead to 3,724 votes in Tuesday's count of absentee and questioned ballots. The lead is insurmountable, as the only votes left to count are approximately 2,500 ballots from overseas.

This brings the Dems to 58 seats in the Senate (including Lieberman and Sanders) with two races yet to be decided, Minnesota and Georgia.

Coleman, Allies Try to Discredit Results

Salon:

...In any case, the Coleman camp is clearly worried and has turned up the noisemakers to discredit both the canvass and the recount. Nearly every movement of a few votes into Franken's column has elicited shrieks of "fraud" from the incumbent's friends. In each case, those shrill complaints have been thoroughly discredited by independent observers.

On Fox News and on the Journal editorial page, much was made of 32 absentee ballots allegedly kept overnight in an election official's car and then counted the next day. Nothing of the kind occurred, as Coleman's own attorney later admitted after apparently inventing the story himself. But the purpose of the false tale was clear enough -- and those spreading it didn't mind smearing innocent people whose characters are superior to theirs...

Alaska Senate Update

Mark Begich (D) leads incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens by 1,022 votes. You can get the latest results here.

Vote Fluctuation in MN Not Unusual

Political Wire:

Despite the legal saber-rattling as the campaigns gear up for a recount in Minnesota, WCCO-TV notes the changing vote totals "may look suspicious" but "it's really not that unusual."

"The night that Sen. Norm Coleman defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale in the 2002 U.S. Senate race he piled up more than 1,062,000 votes. But when all the ballots were certified two weeks later, Coleman had 54,000 more votes... Between election night voting numbers, and two weeks later when the State Canvassing Board certified official results, Coleman gained 54,429 votes. Mondale's vote total also went up 63,192 votes, but not enough to beat Coleman."

"It's what happens in Minnesota elections. We just don't pay attention when the race isn't close."

Begich Leads by Three Votes!

Karen Tumulty reports that Mark Begich is leading Ted Stevens by 3 votes in the Senate race in Alaska. Latest results can be found here.

Update: Begich now leads by 814 votes. The state still needs to count at least 15,000 questioned ballots and an estimated 25,000 absentees.

Eight Races Still Undecided

Real Clear Politics:

Six congressional elections remain undecided more than a week after Election Day, including three House races (Alaska At-Large, California 4, Virginia 5) and three Senate races (Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota).

Alaska - Senate and House seats: The re-election races of embattled Republicans Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young could be decided today as the state counts some 90,000 early, absentee or questioned ballots, the Associated Press reports. Stevens holds a more than 3,200-vote lead over Mark Begich (D), and Young leads by some 17,000 votes against Ethan Berkowitz.

California - 4th District: With votes still being counted, Tom McClintock (R) now leads Charlie Brown (D) by 1,092 votes, and the race appears to be headed for a recount, the L.A. Times reports.

Georgia Senate: The presidential candidates are still engrossed in a tight race, though this one is for a Dec. 2 Senate seat runoff. Sen. John McCain will campaign in the state for Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) tomorrow, and President-elect Barack Obama is keeping open 25 campaign offices around the state and sending in staffers to assist Jim Martin (D), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Minnesota Senate: With just 206 votes still separating Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) as of this morning, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie will announce today who will be included in the Canvassing Board and where the actual vote recounting will take place, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Virginia 5th District: It's unclear how many late arriving ballots from overseas military personnel will turn up and whether it could be enough to make up the 745-vote lead Tom Perriello currently holds over Rep. Virgil Goode (R), Media General News Service reports. Perriello declared victory last week, though Goode has yet to concede.

In addition to the six races identified here, there are two House races (CD-2 and CD-4) in Louisiana that head for a runoff in December.

MN Senate: Lead Shrinks to 204

Norm Coleman's lead dwindles to 204 votes as the counties certify their results. Coleman's lead started out at about 750 votes. Once the certification happens, the manual recount will begin.


Image Source

Hope for Senate Dems in AK, MN

An AP analysis of returns in Minnesota shows that most of the "undervotes" are from counties won by Barack Obama.

"The finding could have implications for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, who are headed for a recount separated by the thinnest of margins — a couple of hundred votes, or about 0.01 percent.

About 25,000 ballots statewide carried votes for president but not for the Senate race. Although some voters might have intentionally bypassed the race, others might have mismarked their ballot, or optical scanning machines might have misread them.

...Three counties — Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis, which contain the population centers of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth — account for 10,540 votes in the dropoff between the presidential race and the Senate race. Each saw Obama win with 63 percent or more of the vote."

Nate Silver's analysis of Alaska's uncounted votes also provides some hope for Begich.

Although Ted Stevens currently holds a lead of approximately 3,200 votes in ballots counted to date in Alaska's senate contest, there is good reason to believe that the ballots yet to be counted -- the vast majority of which are early and absentee ballots -- will allow Mark Begich to mitigate his disadvantage with Stevens and quite possibly pull ahead of him.

The reasoning behind this is simple: some early ballots have been processed, and among those ballots Begich substantially leads Stevens. A tally of Alaska's 40 house districts as taken from Alaska's Division of Elections webpage suggests that Begich has won about 61% of the early ballots counted so far, as compared with 48% of ballots cast on Election Day itself.

News Briefs, 11/08/08

The Boston Globe lists the vacancies on the federal courts that await Obama.

Minnesota's senate race continues to get closer.

Nate Silver suggests that uncounted votes could push Begich past Stevens in Alaska.

Sen. Byrd will step down as Appropriations chair.

Same sex marriage supporters march in California and Utah. (Protests planned in other cities, including Cambridge, MA -- email me for details if you are interested.)

Netroots darling Darcy Burner concedes to Dave Reichert in WA-08.

AP calls race for Kratovil (D) in Maryland's first district.

Senate Dems Pick Up Sixth Seat

With 92% of the votes counted, Jeff Merkley will win the Senate seat from Oregon. He leads Incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith by about 43,000 votes.

Four Senate Seats Not Yet Called

The Democrats picked up five seats in the Senate -- Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia. Four more remain too close to call.

The election in Georgia will most likely to head to a runoff.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday afternoon, Chambliss had 1,841,449 votes, or 49.9 percent of the total, while Martin had 1,727,625 votes, or 47 percent. Libertarian Allen Buckley had 126,328 votes, or 3 percent.

Secretary of State Karen Handel said the election results will not be officially certified until sometime next week.

Norm Coleman leads Al Franken by about 720 votes and will trigger a recount under state law.

According to the figures, posted on the secretary of state's Web site, Coleman received 1,211,616 votes, or 42 percent, and Franken garnered 1,210,895 votes, or 41.97 percent. The vote count kept changing slightly as more counties reported their results.

Recounts are triggered in Minnesota when the winning margin is less than half of 1 percent.

"One half of one percent is 15,000 votes," Aiken said. "We are looking at a couple hundred here."

Ted Stevens leads challenger Mark Begich by about 4,000 votes.

Still to be counted are roughly 40,000 absentee ballots, with more expected to arrive in the mail, as well as 9,000 uncounted early votes and thousands of questioned ballots. The state Elections Division has up to 15 days after the election to tally all the remaining ballots before finalizing the count.

If the lead holds, Stevens will shock the nation and be the first person ever re-elected to the U.S. Senate after being found guilty on criminal charges.

In Oregon, Merkley (D) trails Gordon Smith by about a 1,000 votes. Merkley's prospects look promising though as most of the outstanding results will be coming from Lane and Multnomah Counties. You can get the most recent vote tallies for the Oregon race here.

Races to watch: Alabama to New Mexico

Click on the image to enlarge. Print it out if you want to use it as a checklist.

Races to watch: New York to Wyoming

Click on the image to enlarge. Print it out if you want to use it as a checklist.

Wicker Pretending to Be a Democrat

The Marathon Blog points out that Roger Wicker is distributing sample ballots that lead voters to think that he is a Democrat. (This is a special election so the candidates' party affiliations do not appear on the ballot under Mississippi laws.)

Undaunted Dole Airs Second Ad

Undaunted by the barrage of criticism that her original ad garnered, Liddy Dole airs a second ad accusing Kay Hagan of ties to Godless Americans.

The Popular Bush

Yes, there is one.

The Hill:

First Lady Laura Bush, always a popular draw for Republicans, was in Mississippi on Thursday to stump for Sen. Roger Wicker (R), and on Monday she will do the same for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at a rally in Kentucky.

That the first lady is hitting the road while the president stays in Washington speaks volumes to this election season's dilemma: Republican candidates have to run away from the administration and its policies while still looking for help in races that were considered runaways in once-reliably red states.

Dole "Should Be Ashamed of Herself"

GOP strategist Ed Rollins calls Elizabeth Dole's ad "despicable" and that she "should be ashamed of herself."



See this post to get more information on the original ad.

Battling Suits

Norm Coleman sues Al Franken for defamation.

A Texas businessman sues a wealthy Norm Coleman supporter for forcing him to make secret payments to Coleman's wife.

And we are not even talking about the other suits.

Modern "White Hands"

Elizabeth Dole's latest ad, where she suggests that her opponent is an atheist, is facing tough criticism from Hagan and leading North Carolina newspapers.

Dole’s ad has also come under scrutiny from local newspapers. The Charlotte Observer wrote in an editorial Thursday that it was the “modern-day version” of Sen. Jesse Helms’s (R-N.C.) “white hands” ad, which critics have condemned as a ploy to drum up racist fears about his 1990 Democratic opponent. The Greensboro News & Record wrote that Dole’s ad is “worse than dishonest” and called on her to pull it from the air.