You heard it here first. I hope for your sakes that most of you are in bed right now as I really should be. While CNN and MSNBC are blabbing on and on, they’ve failed to notice that the votes in Virginia and Missouri are not as close as they’re reporting. Based on the info directly from the secretary of state sites in these two states they’re both going to the dems.
I’m taking a bit of a leap in Montana, but I’m fairly confident it will go democratic. That makes it 51-49 Democrats.
So the media are still on the fence, but I’m calling it. When the next congress convenes, the Democrats will have the majority in both houses.
By the way, in 2000 I called Florida as too close to call while the networks were still saying that Bush had won. It’s amazing what you can figure out by actually looking at vote totals directly from the source.
Just as I posted this, NBC and CNN called Missouri for McCaskill. So we just wait for official results in VA and MT. By the way, the margin in Virginia is actually 8,000 according to the SoS office, not the 2,300 the media are still reporting.
Montana is clearly going Dem. Virginia is still too close to call, and will go through a recount, but I think Webb will end up winning.
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And if Webb does win, we have 49-2-49 and it’s all up to Joe… 😕
It is interesting that he could have that choice, though.
In Virginia, Webb leads by 6,859 votes with just 5 precincts left to report. There will probably be a recount, but the talking heads were saying last night that VA had a reccount in their AG race last year and the numbers only changed by 20 votes. So it sounds like the result will hold up.
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In Montana, Tester leads by 1,735 votes with only Meagher county left to report. I checked census data and Meagher county has about 1,577 adults 18 and over. In 2004, Meagher went heavily for Bush, but only 973 people voted and Bush’s margin was 451. Bottom line is that there just aren’t enough votes left for Burns to win, unless there are absentee votes, provisional votes, lost behind a copier votes, etc.
The Billings newspaper (which I read religiously …) now says that with one precinct left, Tester leads 198032 to 194904, a 3,128 margin. Don’t think that one precinct can change that, unless there are other ballots uncounted.
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Also, this margin exceeds the 1/2 of 1 percent needed for a recount, if my numbers are correct, about 400,000 voters makes it a .75 margin.
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Fingers crossed!
Not a lot of votes there. It looks like some absentee or provisionals have been counted. The vote totals have gone up without any additional precincts (as far as I can tell).
says that 866 of 867 precincts have been counted, check it out
I guess a few more people are trying to hit that site than on an average Wednesday. That’s consistent with what I’m seeing. Turns out Meagher county has one whole precinct. That’s the one we’re waiting for.
I had trouble at first too …
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MSNBC has AP calling it as breaking news, along with Rumsfeld’s possible departure