Senate: 60 is still possible

Posted: Friday, November 07, 2008 1:17 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: Congress

From NBC’s Doug Adams
The Democrats' road to 60 Senate seats isn't dead yet.

Yes, it's a long road, with a lot of twists and turns and "ifs," but it's still possible.

With the win in Oregon yesterday, they now have picked up six, and control 57 total seats.

In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman leads Al Franken by a scant 237 votes, and NBC’s John Yang reports that Democrats are hopeful Franken can make up that difference in a recount. If the Democrats can pull out a squeaker in Minnesota, they'd be sitting at 58.

In Alaska, the race isn't over yet either -- Democrat Mark Begich trails embattled Ted Stevens by 3,400 votes, but there are 55,000 absentee and provisional ballots that won't be counted until next week. So if the Dems pull that one out too, then they're at 59.

If both of those things happen, then it gets really interesting. That would leave the potential 60th seat as the Georgia runoff next month. Official word should come early next week, but that runoff would be scheduled for Dec. 2nd.

The conventional wisdom is that incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss would win any runoff, because African Americans likely won't turn out in the same numbers for a runoff. And national Republicans would be motivated to win this one after the stinging losses this week.

But if Georgia is the magical 60th seat for Democrats -- would that prompt Obama to invest time, attention and campaign resources to the Democratic effort?

That would change the equation. Should be fascinating.

EMAIL THIS

Comments

I think it was RFK Jr, not Patrick Kennedy, for EPA. At least that's MY hope. After 8 years of Bush/Cheney gutting the EPA, we need someone really strong to bring it back anywhere near to where it needs to be. When Bill Clinton turned over the reins to W, the EPA was in fine shape, and it hardly took any time at all for Bush & Cheney to create utter havoc. And now that they're the lame ducks, Bush & Cheney are STILL working to virtually dismantle it before Jan 20, 2009. All the environmental and wildlife groups are keeping up their vigil, so maybe the damage can be kept to a minimum.

Indie Woman in Denver (Sent Friday, November 07, 2008 2:31 PM)

Why is it such a bad thing for the dems to lead in the senate. When the Repubs lead not once did I see any of them stepping down and saying lets keep this 50/50. I say Bull Spit, Dems take your palce in the senate and do the best you can to represent your country. But always remember that you must reap what you sow, so plant the best harvestthat you can.

obamacratic (Sent Friday, November 07, 2008 2:33 PM)

Really hopeful that Franken will pull it out. You should have seen the horrible stuff coming out of the Norm(I'm going to run a positive campaign)Coleman.

Donna, I appreciate the mention on your blog earlier, I was "sotiredofignorance" but am now pretty sure there is a newdayDawning." Right back at you.

One more thing on Prop 8. The Constitution has an Equal Protection Clause, and the right wing keeps wanting to say that our gay brethren are somehow second class citizens. If they truly want to discriminate this way, they should also admit that taxes should not be collected from that group. You can't have this both ways. We are either all citizens entitled to the protections and obligations this country affords or we aren't. If they want to say some people aren't, quit making them pay for living here.

newdayDawning (Sent Friday, November 07, 2008 2:37 PM)

The Democrats will have a tough time cleaning up the Republicn mess unless they can overcome the rightwing's misuse of the filabuster. The problems handed to Obama and Congress are so huge that the small-minded party of cronyism, greed, corruption and war needs to just shut up and sit down. Republican, unregulated, fascistic dogma has broke the bank, ruined our country and turned the world against us. ENOUGH!

Ryan, Kalispell, Montana (Sent Friday, November 07, 2008 2:40 PM)

Filibusters are a political way of life. Even if the Democrats got the 60 seats (unlikely), filibusters would still be attempted. This country is too partisan to worry about the will of the people.

Joe Six Pack (Sent Friday, November 07, 2008 2:43 PM)

<< Previous

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.):

Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private) Remember me?

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=1663095