Down the ballot: Chambliss wins
Posted: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:05 AM by Domenico Montanaro
GEORGIA: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) won reelection after defeating Jim Martin (D) in a run-off last night, 57%-43% (with 97% of precincts reporting). Turnout was just slightly more than half of what it was during the general election a month ago. “Chambliss’s double-digit victory dashed Democrats’ dreams of securing a filibuster-proof, 60-vote ‘super majority’ in the Senate and buoyed a Republican Party battered by staggering losses in the Nov. 4 general election,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. “… Republicans now will have at least 41 votes in the upper chamber, enough to stop major legislative initiatives by the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress. Only the senate race in Minnesota, where a recount is ongoing, still must be decided.”
Video: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reports that Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has won the Senate runoff race defeating Democrat Jim Martin.The
Washington Post says that “Martin appeared to suffer from a lower turnout among African Americans. Fewer than a quarter of people who cast ballots early in the runoff were black, compared with more than a third in the November vote. Black voters overwhelmingly favored Obama and Martin.”
Adds the New York Times: “A little more than two million people voted in the runoff, compared with 3.7 million on Nov. 4. In heavily black Clayton County, just south of Atlanta, Mr. Martin’s vote was less than half what it was in the earlier election. Only 9.2 percent of registered Georgians cast early votes in the runoff, compared with 36 percent in the general election.”
Politico: “GOP turnout in the party's metropolitan Atlanta suburban strongholds surged for Chambliss, while African-American turnout dropped off significantly from the levels attained in the November election."
MINNESOTA: Al Franken got some very good news yesterday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. “Franken unexpectedly picked up 37 votes due to a combined machine malfunction and human error on Election Day that left 171 Maplewood ballots safe, secure but uncounted until Tuesday's final day of recounting in Ramsey County. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office immediately asked county officials to explain what had happened, and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign said it sent its own experts to Ramsey County to review the situation and said it was ‘skeptical about [the ballots'] sudden appearance.’”
”By the end of Tuesday, with 93 percent of the total vote recounted, the Republican's lead stood at 303 votes with the state Canvassing Board set to finalize results Dec. 16. More than 6,000 ballots have been challenged by the two campaigns, with Coleman challenging 183 more than Franken. Two large metro counties, Scott and Wright, are among four counties scheduled to begin their recounts today.”
“The day's other news -- which Franken's campaign quickly described as a ‘breakthrough’ -- came when Ritchie's office asked local election officials to examine an estimated 12,000 rejected absentee ballots and determine whether their rejection fell under one of four reasons for rejection defined in state law. The Secretary of State's office asked that ballots that were rejected for something other than the four legal reasons be placed into a so-called ‘fifth category.’ The fifth category, Ritchie's office said, could also include absentee ballots rejected for reasons that were ‘not based on factual information.’ Ritchie's office, while stressing that the ballots be examined but not counted, asked that the task be completed by Dec. 18. The move appeared to give at least some new life to the Franken campaign's longstanding effort to add to the recount what it estimates are as many as 1,000 improperly rejected absentee ballots.”
