Close Major Races Not Yet Decided/Recount
Possible
U.S. Senate, Washington State: Murray leading,
likely to win with margin
that would avoid recount.
U.S. Senate, Colorado: Bennet ahead
by about 7,000 votes with 87% of vote counted; automatic recount
triggered if margin
about 3,900 votes or less (the Denver Post has called
this for Bennett)
U.S. Senate, Alaska: "Write-in" is ahead
of Miller by over 13,000 votes. Though Miller has not yet
conceded, and there doubtless will be a fair number of votes
among the write-ins that election officials will not count for
Murkowski (because voter intent was unclear), this one looks
like it is beyond the margin of litigation (which is a good
thing too, because a close race depending upon voter intent on
write-ins could have been very ugly)
Governor, Minnesota: Poor Minnesota. It looks like we'll
have an automatic
recount, because the Dayton-Emmer contest is within a half
of a percentage point. From the Star Tribune story: "'It
looks like it's recount part II: And this time it's personal,'
said state Republican Party Chair Tony Sutton." Yes, it is a bad
horror movie meets "Groundhog Day."
In the end nationally, if things break in the Senate the way
they appear to be breaking it will be Democrats with 53 in the
Senate to 47 Republicans in the House. The NYT now has
Republicans +60 in the House, with 11 seats yet to be
determined. That makes my predictions
yesterday morning (Senate, 52-48; House, Republicans +65-70)
pretty close, and closer than the 54-55 Republican House gain predicted
by Nate Silver yesterday at the same time.)
UPDATE: Ned Foley flags
Connecticut
governor's race as a "yellow alert" state.