Alaska's Ted Stevens now trails Democratic opponent

[iamahaingttta]

Source: Reuters

Alaska's Ted Stevens now trails Democratic opponent

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican incumbent who was convicted of corruption two weeks ago, fell behind Democratic opponent and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in the latest vote tally in their neck-and-neck race.

After counting 60,000 absentee, provisional and early ballots on Wednesday, Begich grabbed an 814-vote lead over Stevens, the U.S. Senate's longest-serving Republican. Stevens had held a 3,257-vote lead after a count of regular ballots cast on Election Day.

There are nearly 40,000 uncounted ballots, with a large portion classified as provisional "questioned" ballots, said Gail Fenumiai, director of Alaska's Division of Elections.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4AC8E320081113

[hisownpetard]

1. It's raining out right now, but this is what I call just another beautiful day!

[marylanddem]

2. How many Dem Senators do we need before Liebershit can be

told to fuck himself?

[Uben]

3. Zero

He can go fuck himself anyway!

[amdezurik]

4. nah, he let Mcpalin do that for him...

[BlueManDude]

6. It's pretty clear they will never tell him to go fuck himself.

[damntexdem]

10. It goes the other way from that.

If the Dems were to pick up AL, GA, and MN, they would be at 60 -- with Lieberman. So he'd be in a stronger position than before. As it is, they figure they'll need him, whether they have 57, 58, 59, or 60 -- some GOPers might vote to end some filibusters, but the closer the Dems can get on their own, the less they will have to rely on declared GOPers.

[DUlover2909]

11. I think AL means Alabama, AK is Alaska.

:hi:

[L0oniX]

5. provisional "questioned" ballots??? hmmm... must be all dem voters.

:evilfrown:

[iamahaingttta]

7. That was my take on that...

"Questioned," my ass!

[fascisthunter]

8. .

[damntexdem]

9. Well, if the 40k are provisional, questioned ballots, better stop counting now.

;-)

Just following GOP logic here. LOL!

[OKNancy]

12. FYI.. thread from yesterday

in LBN on Greatest page
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3598683

[Bumblebee]

13. Alaska Senate Race just got updated

Source: Alaska Elections Office

Begich, Mark DEM 132196 47.41%
Bird, Bob AI 11315 4.06%
Gianoutsos, Ted NA 1140 0.41%
Haase, Fredrick D. LIB 2086 0.75%
Stevens, Ted REP 131382 47.12%
Write-in Votes 718 0.26%

Read more: http://soaelections.gci.net/data/results.htm

---

so it's a difference now of 814, if my math is correct

[defendandprotect]

14. Now the votes are making sense -- !!

[rpannier]

16. I have a friend here in Korea whose family is in Alaska

They're rpeublikkans, but they voted for Begich.

He said, "Many Alaskans who voted for stevens did so because they figured he'd quit or be kicked out and they could vote for their governor."

But recently some have been wondering, "What if he wins, refuses to resign and the Senate doesn't kick him out?"

That voters remorse is kicking in.

[zehnkatzen]

35. I kinda wish he'd be winning ...

... because nothing buoys the soul like watching the Republicans having to get embarrassed in public by having a Senator under a cloud expelled from the Senate.

But, naaaah ... it ain't worth it if means the Palindrome gets in instead.

Can't he be ejected then a Democrat put in there? Or maybe a a polar bear?

[SavageDem]

39. Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen.

If he won, then got expelled, then Governor Airhead (perhaps you've heard of her: Sarah Palin) gets to appoint a new senator. And the odds of her selecting a Dem are somewhere between zero and none. More likely she appoints a moronic apocalyptic witch-fearing neo-Nazi.

[Kolesar]

40. Todd Palin is available

First dude, Senator, ... whatever he can do to serve his proud state.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. It makes me wonder

if they had to cut a bunch of "hidden" ballots loose once they realized that people were watching. I know it's tinfoil but....

[Iggo]

24. I was thinking the same thing.

"Oh, look what we found! They were over here behind these boxes the whole time. Boy, are our faces red!"

[d_b]

27. hehe

Alaskans know :-D

[Cleita]

15. To the greatest page and a

:kick:

[MidwestTransplant]

18. Mabye you shoudl put the +814 in the subject. Save people the suspense!

[Bumblebee]

19. Plenty of other people did by now...

[Up2Late]

20. I heard today that something like 80,000 early and absentee ballots...

...had not been counted until now, funny how that just keeps happening in Republican controlled States.

[davidinalameda]

21. I don't see any conspiracy here

there are several thousand ballots outstanding here in California as well

[struggle4progress]

22. In Alaska, over 40% of the ballots are still outstanding

[zehnkatzen]

38. and when they get counted, they'll just be average!

:-)

[Yes We Did]

25. You mean several million... n/t

[snowbear]

26. No, not million.. We have less than 1 million people in the whole state..

According to Mudflats, the reddest areas of the state have all been tallied:

Begich Pulls Ahead of Stevens in Latest Vote Count!

As the final numbers were tallied this evening, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich pulled ahead of convicted felon and frontrunner, Republican incumbent Ted Stevens by 814 votes!

The word is that the Division of Elections decided not to keep releasing new numbers as they became available throughout the day, to save people’s nerves. It didn’t work. The lack of information between 3:30 and when the final numbers came in at 8:30, was nerve-wracking to say the least.

Alaska bloggers, journalists, and campaign workers have been chewing their nails down to the stubs. My activities for the evening consisted of pacing around and hitting ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds. There are a LOT of 30 second intervals between 3:30 and 8:30.

Tens of thousands of votes have yet to be counted before the vote is certified. But this batch gives us a clear indication of a trend. Begich increased his numbers by a relative 4000+ votes, and took traditionally conservative districts in Anchorage’s affluent “Hillside” area.

As we move forward, Alaska’s “reddest” areas have already been counted. Those outstanding districts are mainly rural and tend to go Democratic. Friday will see more than 20,000 “question ballots” (provisional ballots) counted, and the remaining absentee ballots are slated to be counted Monday.

So nothing is final yet, but the news is definitely good.

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

Keep it up Mayor Begich !!!


~ ~ ~

[d_b]

28. oh wow

if he took the hillside, then Stevens got owned in East/West Anchorage :bounce:

[alittlelark]

43. Post#8 was referring to CA, post # 12 was responding to it.

:-)

[xxqqqzme]

44. How old is Begich?

He looks young. The old guard is falling away.

[Tat]

29. Yeah, but they aren't going to help.

A lot of the uncounted AK votes were known to favor dems. They were questioned votes and absentees and other goodies that broke against Stevens. The California early vote was in favor of prop 8 and aren't going to push anything progressive over any thresholds. Those who followed the AK race expected (and still expect) some more democratic votes to come out of the woodwork (they don't count the Mayor of Anchorage's Anchorage vote until next week... I think they might have a few more votes for him in that pile too).

[Up2Late]

30. I said nothing about a conspiracy, I just find it curious...

...but since you mentioned it, I guess you could consider the withholding of these votes while at the same time, trying to manipulate public opinion thought the MSM "news" with stories about how "the Democrat" should concede since they are less than 5000 vote behind...etc, etc... Well then, maybe it is a conspiracy?

What do you thin Professor?

[struggle4progress]

23. With any luck, Begich is up 4000 on Friday

[Breeze54]

31. C'mon Begich!!! Make your father proud and the rest of the US of A !!!

:woohoo: Kick Stevens and (Palin) to the curb!! :woohoo:

Extremely close but... :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Arctic Dave]

32. Things are finally falling in place.

The earlier counts were way out of alignment.

Buh bye ted.

[Monk06]

33. Only in America could an 84 year old convicted felon be considered a contender.

America needs a mandatory 65 year old retirement
age for all politicians.

The young should be ruled by their own. It's only
fair since the old will not be around to be accountable.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. I'd limit that to only in Alaska

I can see now why Palin is considered a model for good government up there despite Troopergate. That was only a state investigation. Don Young is under investigation by the feds and he had no trouble getting re-elected cause that's standard fare for your typical politician up there. Stevens may be pushing it with his 7 felony convictions but it appears that may not be the threshold that gets you kicked out of office in Alaska. We'll see...

[Freddie Stubbs]

42. Don't forget Marion Barry in DC:

[rpannier]

36. I don't know about that

I've lived in Europe and in Asia for over 12 years:

Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Italy, Greece and Austria.

[LeftishBrit]

48. Dunno. Italy keeps electing Berlusconi...

who is 72 (all right, not 84) and up to his neck in scandals since forever; the only reasons why he's not (yet) a convicted felon are parliamentary immunity and that he essentially owns the media in Italy.

I disagree about young vs. old; obviously people should not continue in office when they're senile, but there have been some very good elderly politicians and some disastrous young politicians: Sarah Palin comes to mind as an example of the latter!

[machI]

37. 131382 Republicans will vote for a criminal

That kind of shows the mind set of a Republican

[specimenfred1984]

45. You see the jacket one was wearing, it read...

"@#%k the Fed, Vote for Ted". How bizarre is that, considering Ted is running for a Fed office? (R)s have completely lost all sanity, and that's not a comment, it's a fact.

[LiberalAndProud]

41. kick

:kick:

[DU GrovelBot]

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[VaYallaDawg]

47. Anchorage airport is named "Ted Stevens Airport."

Wonder what they'll do about that if that old crook actually ends up in the slammer?

[Lasher]

49. They'll rename it Saint Ronnie airport 2

You can never have too many things named after a bumbling idiot.

[VaYallaDawg]

50. That occurred to me too, last night on the way home.

I'm still stung from Gingrich and his posse of RWers renaming National Airport (which is what they wanted of course), and I staunchly refuse to use the RR designation when I refer to it (lotta good it will do me, but sometimes we have to take small satisfactions where we see them).

[Lasher]

51. Washington National Airport is what I still call it.

It was already named after one president and they changed it. So I guess Republicans can't complain when we change its name to Clinton National Airport and rename the USS Poppy Bush to the USS Obama.

Did you know there's a group whose goal is to have at least one thing in every state named after Saint Ronnie? After that they plan to go for something in every county of every state.