Part three of my continuing series on the five congressional campaigns with undecided outcomes--Georgia Senate, Minnesota Senate, California 4th, Louisiana 4th, and Ohio 15th--can be found in the extended entry. There are important updates on all five campaigns.
These numbers are a little bit different than the ones you might be seeing at most election results sites. The reason is that I am allocating the Alaska Senate race, Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, and Virginia's 5th congressional district all to Democrats. I don't consider the ongoing counting or runoffs in those districts to have any realistic chance to change the outcome.
And here are the updates:
California 4th: After another 900 votes were counted, Democrat Charlie Brown has pulled within 622 votes of Republican Tom McClintock. About 30,000 votes remain "unprocessed" and break down as follows:
El Dorado and Nevada Counties keep providing updates, but not Placer County, which is waiting until they finish to report. The assistant registrar there said that Placer County plans to complete their count by Thanksgiving.
Placer had the largest number of unprocessed votes (vote-by-mail, provisionals, damaged ballots and ballots diverted by scanning machines) on election night (20,949). McClintock edges Brown 50.7% to 49.3% there.
A report by the Sacramento Bee on Friday said that these three counties were about to start counting some 7000 provisionals, and that these have a 10% rejection rate.
Brown only has to win the remaining votes by about 2.5% in order to emerge victorious, so this is still a winnable campaign. Nevada county leans toward Brown by 15%, while El Dorado county currently gives McClintock a 2% edge. Expect a recount to take place after Thanksgiving in this district, as well.
Georgia Senate: Saxby Chambliss doesn't know what a recession is:
I like this ad from Jim Martin. The incorporation of local video footage and a pro-Obama message are very nice. It is healthy to see Democrats in Georgia using netroots techniques and not running away from their own party. Good stuff.
Louisiana 4th: Dick Cheney is fundraising for Republican candidate John Fleming. It sure would be nice to take down Bush-Cheney one last time. The DCCC has released an ad attacking Fleming's national sales tax plan:
This isn't going to be a campaign run around a lot of progressive ideas. Still, it is nice to see attacks on wingnut ideas like a national sales tax (sorry, Jerry Brown) become the focus of our paid media.
Minnesota Seante: Yet another study showing that an audit and recount will favor Franken has come out. However, the Franken campaign is seeking to delay the certification of the vote, which has the possibility of delaying the recount. Their argument is that a few hundred absentee ballots still haven't been counted. Their justifiable worry is that if Coleman is "certified" as the leader in the "official" vote count before an audit and recount begins, it will give Coleman legal leverage and an aura of credibility even if Franken pulls into the lead later on. This was one of Gore's problems during the 2000 recount, and during the Bush vs. Gore lawsuit in the Supreme Court, so it is worth being worried about. It is a good move by the Franken campaign.
Ohio 15th: There are 27,000 provisional ballots left to count in this campaign, where Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy trails by 149 votes. As I noted back on Saturday, almost all of those provisionals come from Franklin county, where Kilroy leads by 5%. These numbers give Kilroy an excellent chance to win this seat, and arguably make her the favorite.
However, Republican Steve Stivers has filed a lawsuit trying to toss 1,000 of those provisional ballots, and the rest of the provisionals can't be counted until the lawsuit is resolved. A federal judge was supposed to rule today on the 1,000 disputed ballots, but has punted his decision until Thursday:
A federal judge in Columbus says he'll decide by Thursday whether to allow disputed provisional ballots to be counted in a tight central Ohio congressional race.
This honestly feels like a delaying tactic from Stivers to prevent any of the provisional ballots to be counted. Kilroy is the favorite even if these 1,000 ballots are tossed, and it seems like Stivers is just trying to hold onto the lead as long as possible in order to give him the aura of victory. I don't think it will work, and I still expect Kilroy to win this seat.
Remember, we need one of the two Senate campaigns to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, and both in order to reach 60 Senate votes if Lieberman stays in the caucus. The House seats are pretty much gravy, but still important.
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