Down the ballot: McCain headed to GA
Posted: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:25 AM by Carrie Dann
Filed Under:
Congress, States
ALASKA: "A week after Election Day, about 30 percent of the Alaska votes that will decide the fate of convicted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens haven't been counted. The Alaska Division of Elections expects to count most of the roughly 90,000 early, absentee ballots or questioned ballots remaining on Wednesday. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, leads Democrat Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, by 3,257 votes."
GEORGIA: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that McCain “will campaign for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Chambliss’s campaign has confirmed… McCain’s Georgia visit will be one of his first public appearances since he lost the presidency to Obama on Nov. 4.”
Chambliss’ opponent, Jim Martin (D), will hold a press conference today to discuss McCain’s visit to the Peach State. While Saxby Chambliss has cast the run-off election as the first campaign of the 2010 election cycle, Jim Martin is focusing his campaign on who will work with our new president to help get the economy moving again,” the Martin campaign said in a release.
"Aides who worked in Barack Obama's presidential campaign are heading to Georgia to help Jim Martin in his hotly contested Senate runoff, two Democrats close to Martin's campaign said Tuesday," the AP reports. "The sources, speaking only on condition of anonymity on a matter of campaign strategy, said about 100 Obama field operatives will help with Martin's grass roots turnout in the three weeks left before a Dec. 2 runoff against incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. They stressed that the campaign is still staffed primarily with Georgia volunteers. The Obama ground troops are coming mostly from other Southern states." Martin himself confirmed the NBC's Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC yesterday that some Obama aides were heading to the state to help and that at least 25 offices in the state are continuing to be run by the Campaign for Change.
MINNESOTA: Secretary of State Mark Ritchie holds a press conference today in St. Paul, MN, where he will reveal additional details for the recount in the Coleman-Franken Senate race. Per a release, Ritchie “will release the names of the state canvassing board members who will seated for both the Nov. 18 meeting and the board meeting following the recount. He will also provide a preliminary list of recount locations, as well as dates and times when counting will occur in the counties and cities who have established their schedule.”
The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming! The Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Fritz Knaak, an attorney with Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign, said Tuesday that ‘perhaps 120 Coleman lawyers" may descend soon on each of the estimated 100 recount sites to be set up in each of the state's 87 counties and in large cities as the process gets underway next week. Spokeswoman Jess McIntosh said that DFLer Al Franken's campaign is also busy assembling a team of supporters, volunteers and lawyers with plans to cover every recount site.”
Also… Here's a CW-setter for the CA GOV race. A new Field poll about the 2010 race labels Feinstein and Whitman as the very early favorites for the Dem and GOP nominations.
