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.
The two remaining Senate seats in my chart are Georgia (December 2nd run-off) and Minnesota (recount starts next week). The three remaining House seats are the California 4th (still counting 35,000 provisional and absentee ballots), the Louisiana 4th (December 6th run-off) and the Ohio 15th (still counting 27,000 provisional ballots, pending lawsuit) I discuss the current state of each of those campaigns in the extended entry.
Georgia: Have you started linking to Saxby Chambliss yet? The more people who do, the higher it will appear in search engine rankings. If we can push it into the first ten results for Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, then it will result in a lot of excellent voter contacts. Everyone who encounters the site will be a voter looking for more information on Saxby Chambliss, and we can show them this great website made by an enterprising activist.
The best part about this ad is that it makes a partisan case against gridlock, rather than a bi-partisan one. In this ad, the presence of large numbers of Republicans in the Senate is the source of gridlock, rather than vague platitudes about "working with both sides." The former is a better argument, because it actually makes sense.
Minnesota: This one is moving onto the recount stage, which will begin next week. Franken's deficit has been reduced to 200 votes in the final pre-recount audit, according to The Uptake. Also, a new study has come out, suggesting that Franken will gain votes once Minnesota ballots with undervotes on the Senate campaign are examined. Franken is also expected to gain from the regular recounting, so this one is going to be very close. Expect the fight to come down to legal inspections of individual ballots, a process that will begin on December 16th. This will, in all likelihood, be the last campaign to be decided this year. There might even be a dispute at the Senate swearing in ceremony in the first week of January!
House Races
California 04: Democrat Charlie Brown currently trails Republican Tom McClintock by 691 votes. Approximately 35,000 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted in this campaign, plus a small but undetermined number of "regular" votes in two pro-McClintock counties and one toss-up county (source). Pending the remaining 35,000 votes, neither side has declared victory, and both will attend freshman orientation next week. Brown will have to do well among the absentees in order to win this. He should, just like all Democrats, do well among the provisionals. No word on when all of the votes will be counted here.
Ohio 15: Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy currently trails Republican Steve Stivers by 149 votes. 27,000 provisional ballots, almost all in Democratic-leaning Franklin county, remain to be counted. Stivers is challenging about 1,000 of those ballots in court, with a ruling due out on Monday:
A federal judge says he'll rule Monday on whether he has jurisdiction in a case involving a still-unresolved congressional race and provisional ballots.
U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley says he'll hear from both sides Monday if he decides he can hear the case.
If not, Marbley says he'll send the issue back to the Ohio Supreme Court where it was originally filed.
Kilroy currently leads by 5% in Franklin county, suggesting that she stands to gain about 1,250 votes from the provisional ballots even if the 1,000 Stivers is challenging are tossed. With her expected gains more than 1,000 votes larger than her current deficit, it seems quite likely that Mary Jo Kilroy will win this district.
Oh, and I should add than a 10% provisional ballot rate in this district is a travesty. Pathetic.
My current guess is that we win two of the three House seats, making for a total of D 259-176 R, exactly one seat under my projection. In the Senate, I don't feel like we are the favorite in either campaign, but we do have a good chance to win at least one of them. If we do, then we will have enough seats to pass The Employee Free Choice Act, providing card check law nationwide and an opportunity to transform the American workplace. We already have enough seats to pass really all of Obama's agenda.
In the national U.S. House popular vote, Democrats currently lead by 8.88%, making it the largest popular vote victory in either a national Presidential or Congressional campaign since 1984. That is a real accomplishment for Chris Van Hollen.
Oh yeah, and in the presidential campaign, Obama's popular vote lead has grown to 52.70%--46.00%. I look forward to the moment when McCain dips below 46%, although my hope for a 7.00% victory now seems highly unlikely. The only remaining state to be called, Missouri, will complete counting on Monday. McCain currently holds a 4,900 vote lead, and will probably hang on to win the state. The final electoral vote count should be Obama 365-173 McCain. Not bad!
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