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The Senate
THE SENATE....Lots of very, very close senate races this cycle. Alaskans, almost unbelievably, appear to have returned convicted felon Ted Stevens to office, but only by a few thousand votes. I guess that could still change, though. Swillmeister Saxby Chambliss seems to have won reelection in Georgia by 100,000 votes or so. Oregon is still too close to call, but incumbent Gordon Smith is currently ahead by about 15,000 votes.
And then there's Minnesota, where Al Franken and Norm Coleman are within a thousand votes of each other with nearly all votes counted. Via email, here is Franken's statement:
Let me be clear: Our goal is to ensure that every vote is properly counted.The process, dictated by our laws, will be orderly, fair, and will take place within a matter of days. We won't know for a little while who won this race, but at the end of the day, we will know that the voice of the electorate was clearly heard.
There is reason to believe that the recount could change the vote tallies significantly.
Our office and the Obama campaign have received reports of irregularities at various precincts around the state. For instance, some polling places in Minneapolis ran out of registration materials. Our team has been working on those issues for several hours already, and they will continue to do so this morning as the recount process begins.
Let me be clear: This race is too close to call, and we do not yet know who won. We are lucky enough to live in a state with built-in protections to ensure that in close elections like these, the will of the people is accurately reflected in the outcome.
I guess it's going to take a few days to know whether Democrats picked up more than five seats. Keep your seat belts buckled.
UPDATE: This is actually a weird repeat of what happened in 2004. This year, all the Dem pickups have been in states where they won by big margins (seven points or more). Conversely, all the close races look like they're going to be won by Republicans, with the possible exception of Minnesota. The same thing happened four years ago, when Republicans won all the close senate races but one (Colorado). Weird. What's the deal with Dems and close senate contests?
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Deep Thought:
With Shays and Sununu gone, The North East has not a single Republican Senator....
Think about that.
Anti Intellecutalism has made the North East, (New Hampshire is my home state) is now the Democratic equivalent of the deep south for Republicans.
Close races are easier to steal. This has been another edition of....
Obama was already factored in so i was really invested in winning the close ones. Oregon, Minnesota, etc. Oregon is a good bet. The urban areas are still counting (Gotta love the chronically underfunded vote counting organization in Oregon -- first to vote, last to count). Hope there are a lot of provisional ballots in Minnesota.
Living on the west coast of California, the yes on 8 folks really took me off guard. I wasn't worried about this one at all. I guess I should have been paying more attention. "they're going to teach lesbianism in kindergarten" struck me as bizarre desperation.
They're gonna do a recount in the Coleman Franken race.
In any case its time to show Lieberman the door.
Republicans are better cheaters?
I wouldn't worry too much about Oregon. Smith is ahead now, but not by much, and less than half the votes in Multinomah County (Portland) have been tallied. Right now, Merkley's getting 66% of the vote.
I ran a quick spreadsheet, and if current trends in county totals hold up, Merkley will win 48-45.
Wasn't clear -- Merkley's getting 66% in Multinomah County.
don't forget 06 with Tester and Webb barely queaking through....
Also, Lane County, which includes Eugene, another population center, has only tallied 45% of the vote, and Merkley's winning 58% of the vote there, compared to 38% for Smith.
Like I said, unless something weird happens in Lane and Multinomah counties, Merkley should pull this out, winning by 2-3 points.
Does anyone know what will happen to Biden and Obama's Senate seats?
No one should be surprised Stevens won reelection, and they should not be surprised when the Democratic Senate does nothing about it.
What's up in Alaska?
Did that Begich guy run silent ads about setting driftwood on fire in the rain?
Is this some sort of transient psychological response to becoming a national political embarrassment?
Fear of one party rule, gay pride parades in Wasila, and a 40 dollar minimum wage?
There's a pretty simple answer:
All these races were 'close', but demographically, they should have been easy wins.
We lost all the close Senate races this year, because the only 'close' races were places where a Democrat shouldn't have had a chance.
2010 looks like another set of pickup oppurtunities too. :)
Looks like Georgia is heading for a runoff in December. Late vote counts in Atlanta reduced Chambis share to less than 50%
Morat - agreed. Based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senate_elections, I'd say the Dems will end up +2 or +3 after the 2010 election. We'll really know if the Democratic majority is here to stay with election day 2012, if the Dems hold the White House and start defending 20 Senate seats every 2 years.
Don't be too sure about Georgia -- the state GOP chair expects a recount: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/11/04/georgia_us_sen...
Does anyone know what will happen to Biden and Obama's Senate seats?
Dunno about Delaware (Bo Biden maybe?), but Obama's seat will almost certainly go to Lisa Madigan or Jesse Jackson, Jr. The two of them just have to figure out who wants to be governor and who wants to be senator. My guess is that Madigan will pick the former -- it's easier to make a splash as a young governor, and that's probably a nominally better spot to run for president some day.
Does anyone know what will happen to Biden and Obama's Senate seats?
Domino and I are voluteering to fill in. It is imperative that we be considered since there is a serious lack of nibblies in this house.
Morat - agreed. Based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senate_elections, I'd say the Dems will end up +2 or +3 after the 2010 election. We'll really know if the Democratic majority is here to stay with election day 2012, if the Dems hold the White House and start defending 20 Senate seats every 2 years.
Do you mean that the Democrats will gain an additional two or three seats, or lose whatever number of seats they end up in a few weeks to be down to 52 or 53? If it's the latter, why do you think that? I've heard this repeated many times, but always without explanation. What senators out of a list that includes names like Schumer, Leahy, Bayh, and Boxer, among many others, are up for grabs? If anything, based on how things went last night for the Democrats, I'd be more worried if I were the party having to defend Voinovich, McCain, Martinez, Burr, Gregg, and Bond.
With Shays and Sununu gone, The North East has not a single Republican Senator....
Uh, Shays is a (soon to be "former") House Representative. And what about Senators Collins (just reelected) and Snowe of Maine?
I think you meant was that Shays is/was the last Representative from New England.
When the 2006 numbers came in I thought it was nice Dems had won seats, but odd the win wasn't bigger. It looks the same this time. It's nice Obama won, but the size of his win doesn't seem to have increased Congressional gains as much as I thought it might.
What I suspect this means is that the cultural divide between Main Street Republicans & Democrats has grown so large that even in the face of a Bush administration this destructive they are loathe to vote for any Democrat. In fact they're still being told the Democrats are the Devil and they're believing it (at least in large numbers).
So, that means Dems could nibble away at the edges in Florida, Virginia, Montana, Colorado, Nevada and more in New Mexico. These were somewhat expected because of retiring senators and changing demographics out west. But, there were few big surprises (nothing like Texas flipping to Dem). Indiana being close is surprising but it neighbors Illinois and is fairly northern. The bigger one for me was North Carolina. I know some of those people and they're far from all rural hicks or big city metropolitan sophisticates. That they kicked out Dole and also elected a female Dem governor and (I think) went for Obama was pretty surprising. We hadn't seen any indication of that in '06.
How can Dems shrink the cultural divide between the Ds & Rs? Even if we risk losing Dems gains it would clearly be better for America if we didn't have a modern version of the "Yankee north" and "Dixie south" within our society.
Alaskans, almost unbelievably, appear to have returned convicted felon Ted Stevens to office...
This isn't surprising at all. Alaska is still pretty conservative, so, a lot of Alaskan voters no doubt figured reelecting Stevens means they can ultimately send a Republican to the Senate (ie., Stevens's eventual replacement). I don't remember whether it's Palin who gets to appoint somebody to fill a vacancy (assuming the Senate throws Stevens out) or whether there's a special election, but either case allows Alaskans to choose a Republican.
What's the deal with Dems and close senate contests?
These guys aren't any better at stealing elections than Al gore?
Oregon is going to the Dems. The outstanding results are almost entirely from the Portland area (Multnomah County) and Eugene (Lane County), and the margin has been narrowing as those results sloooowwwly trickle in.
ok, this is how the recorded vote in the 2004 alaska senate race changed from the day after the election to the final count:
49.3 to 48.6 Murkowski
45.0 to 45.5 Knowles
the early call on Alaska is ridiculous
Dems need all the Senate seats they can get. In 2012 they will be defending 22 while there are only 9 Republicans up for reelection. There will be lots of Dems up for reelection in red states and some popular oldtimer Dems not seeking reelection. I would guess at least a loss of 5 seats unless the first Obama administration is a stunning success.