Wednesday
Nov052008
Live Blog: The Not-Quite-Final State of Play
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 11:06 
Only slight change in the final read-out for President: McCain takes Montana, Obama is called victor in Indiana (by Fox but not CNN). Missouri and North Carolina still open --- McCain leads in former, Obama in latter. And a possible footnote: 1 of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes (it is the only state to allocate electoral votes at-large and by district) is still in play.
In the Senate, consolation news for the Republicans, a bit of a letdown for me. Looks like Al Franken loses Minnesota by about 4,000 votes and --- incredibly --- Alaska is returning Felon Ted Stevens to Washington. Gordon Smith also clings on to a small lead, and thus his seat, in Oregon. Georgia should have been called for the Republicans --- Saxby Chambliss is up 50-46 --- but there seems to be a query as to why the overall vote is much lower than expected.
Reader Comments (2)
As of 1300 London time, Al Franken is only about 670 votes below Norm Coleman, with 99% of the precints reporting. With it that close we should probably have recount of the ballots. So we may still get Stuart Smalley in the Senate!
The early returns suggested that Mitch McConnell was in trouble but he looks very safe now. Would that have been too much to hope for? It would have been a major scalp for the Dems to claim