13 House Races Yet To Be Officially Decided
Though the Democrats have conclusively gained control of the House with a pick up of at least 27 seats, 13 races have yet to be officially called by at least two major news sources. Here's why:
Update: CNN and NBC have both called GA-08 for Dem Rep. Jim Marshall and PA-06 for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach.
Update 2: In PA-08, GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick concedes.
* CT-02: Democrat Joe Courtney leads, but still too close to call, waiting for a recount. A Courtney victory would be another Dem pick up.* FL-13: GOPer Vern Buchanan declared victory in this race to succeed GOP Rep. Katherine Harris, but Dem Christine Jennings won't concede until a recount, which won't be completed until Nov. 18. Voting problems are suspected to have occurred in the district.
* GA-08:
Dem Rep. Jim Marshall leads GOPer Mac Collins by 2,048 votes — outside the 1% recount zone — but the race won't be certified until Friday.Called for Marshall.* OH-02: Dem Victoria Wulsin has refused to concede, but GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt leads by slim margin.
* PA-06:
The Philadelphia Inquirer has called it for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach, but no other official source has followed suit.Called for Gerlach.* PA-08:
Dem Patrick Murphy declared victory, but GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick refuses to concede. A Murphy victory would be another Dem pick up.Fitzpatrick concedes.
"TPM: It looks like Virginia will decide the senate. Karl Rove has turned races like this around before. You don't know the lengths they'll go to. Believe me, you're not being imaginative enough.
Check out Josh Green's article on Karl Rove from two years ago. Look what Rove pulled off in the disputed Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice race. Read it.
Get ready for the bogus headlines on Drudge. The rumors and innuendo. Live boys and dead girls. Like I said, your imagination will only get you maybe half the way there. Get ready."
I can't agree with this. This is not an isolated race, this is in the context of a national sweep of Democrats into office.
Nobdy's going to be taken by surprise by any vicious tactics on the part of Rove. Everyone on both sides is all laywered up and ready to go to the mattresses. Either the re-count will continue to show Webb with the lead or it won't.
But, the Republicans are being hoisted with their own laws now. States like Montana and Virginia made it difficult for the loser of a close race to ever over-turn it by a re-count. Instead of re-counts by hand, and actual tabulations, they are going to be re-counted by machine. See, Republicans never thought they'd be losing in these states. They thought if a race was close, the Republican would be ahead and the Democrat would be like Al Gore, desparately trying to find extra votes by means of a re-count. But, it's the reverse now and their own laws screw them!
Because machines give the same results every time! That's why the Republicans put that law in, instead of mandating re-counts by hand with an independent panel verifying each vote or something. A machine re-count should show the exact same totals it had before (Unless you let Diebold re-program them or something). The vote totals might be GIGO (i.e. Republican vote supression and fraud change the total), but garbage in equals garbage out. Whatever the result was is what it was. Their fraud wasn't enough!
So, unless there's been some error somewhere where Burns can find 8,000 votes he's not going to be able to win.
Of course, the Republicans in the Senate could just all vote to seat Allen - and given that our fascist federal courts have ruled that's o.k. they could get away with it theoretically, but as a practical matter unless they do the same thing with Conrad Burns it wouldn't work (Dems would have 50 votes to their 49 and would vote for Webb and win).
Not even Scalia can save them this time!
November 8, 2006 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, in NC-08, Larry Kissell picked up 122 votes overnight and now trails by 346. It's close. There are also quite a few provisional ballots.
November 8, 2006 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm really surprised at NM-01. I wouldn't concede if I were Madrid. Something doesn't sit right in my stomach. Wilson has a hell of an operation there, but I find it hard to believe that Wilson picked up pretty much every undecided voter in the end.
November 8, 2006 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
And many thanks for listing whether absentee ballots were being counted or not. Two things that annoyed me from the CNN coverage last night* were:
- Not being told about the absentee ballot counts,
- Not being told where the tallies not yet reported were from. They kept saying that they didn't know, but I saw that info on the SoS sites, so surely Wolf's minions could have gotten it as well.
*Other than Candy insisting the South was the battleground rather than EVERY OTHER region in the country...
November 8, 2006 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear God, Ciro Rodriguez runs another race this year? If I'm counting right, this will be his third, given that he also took a run at Cuellar in the primary for his old seat.
November 8, 2006 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT-02: Courtney, Simmons face recount in 2nd District
(Hartford-WTNH/AP, Nov. 8, 2006 Updated 2:11 PM) _ The Secretary of the State says an automatic recount has been triggered in the 2nd Congressional District race between Rep. Rob Simmons and Democrat Joe Courtney.
With 100% of precincts reporting, Courtney was leading Simmons by 167 votes.
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz says the race easily meets the standard for an automatic recount. Such a recount is triggered when the margin of victory is less than half of one percent and is no more than two-thousand votes.
It could take days to declare a winner.
In a statement released this morning Simmons expressed confidence he would be reelected. "Right now it's too close to call," Simmons said. "However with outstanding absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted, we are looking forward for a fair and accurate account."
Speaking to his supporters last night, Courtney made it clear the race was going to be close.
"We are winners, we are close," he said. "We have some more work to do tonight. We have got a little more time to make sure this is over, but I feel good. I am very optimistic that we got this done."
The outcome is a lot closer than the first Simmons Courtney race, which Courtney lost by about 18,000 votes.
November 8, 2006 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, maybe it's just me, but I really find this update confusing.
how many pickups are we looking at?
Is GA-08 and PA-06 included in the 27, or, as I think, they make it 29? Does Patrick Murphy make it 30 or was he in the 29,...or 27?
When I look at the rundown It looks like most are just status quo races with the incumbent from either party leading.
But CT-02 would be a pick-up and Dem Courtney declared victory.
The Dem is trailing in both TX-23 and WY to the GOP incumbents.
NM-01 would also be a pick-up but no info on who's ahead.
So to attempt to pull this together, the dems appear to have picked up 29 or 30 to include Murphy, and probably 30 or 31 to include Cortney (CT-02). Don't know about NM-01 that would be 31 or 32, and incubents in the rest winning regardless of party.
So at this point we are reasonably looking at a max pick-up of 32 seats.
November 9, 2006 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink