11.08.06
This is incredible
I shouldn’t have been so pessimistic. The Dems have gained at least thirty seats in the House and will have a comfortable majority. My old little league coach, Joe Donnelly, won his election by 8%. I’m happy. What has me ecstatic, though, is that the Dems are going to take the Senate, 51-49.
It looked like a lost cause earlier in the evening, when Harold Ford, Jr. was trailing big in Tennessee and George Webb was trailing by 30,000 votes in Virginia. Losing both of those races would have meant 50-50 at best. But then, with around 80% of the precincts reporting, Webb started closing the gap. Every time I hit Cmd-R, it would be slightly narrower. And then, suddenly, he was up by 3,000! That was the moment when I realized this could happen.
It’s all down to Montana and Virginia. Virginia official polls have Webb up by more than 8,000 votes, w/ 99.75% reporting. For some reason, CNN reported this as an 11,000 vote difference earlier in the night, when Webb was only up by 6,000. They just took 5,000 votes from Allen. Don’t know what was up with that. Depending on provisional ballots, there will probably be a recount, but I’d be shocked if it changed anything. Al Gore was only down 500 votes in Florida in 2000. Eight thousand is impossible.
In Montana, CNN is showing a 4,000 vote Tester lead with 84% of precincts reporting. I believe that almost all of the remaining 16% are from Yellowstone county, where Tester is leading by 1,273 votes. Whoever designed CNN’s county-by-county listings should be shot. Why can’t CNN show all the Montana counties on one page? And even worse, why can’t it show me just the counties which haven’t fully reported? In any event, the 84% number can’t go any higher until tomorrow morning, when Yellowstone county has a recount. Assuming no huge changes, Tester will win by 1% and the Democrats will take control of the Senate.
In non-political news, everyone should watch the Mercury Transit tomorrow morning. It lasts from 11:12 AM to 4:10 PM in Mountain View, so it should be visible on the east coast as well.