The new tally:
438 of 438 Precincts Reporting
| Candidate |
Votes |
Percent |
| Lisa Murkowski |
51,358 |
49.22% |
| Joe Miller |
52,988 |
50.78% |
More updates as we get 'em.
11:50pm: Y'know, I get a lot of spam from the DSCC. It's been well over an hour since Murkowski has conceded, and the DSCC has yet to put out a statement on the results. Quite the operation they're running there.
11:33pm: It didn't occur to me to mention this, but Murkowski also said she'd be "going home" to Alaska at the end of her term -- so it's pretty clear that she won't be attempting a write-in campaign.
11:21pm: One final ballot update for the night -- Miller added 628 votes and Murkowski added 467, bringing the gap to 1,630 for Miller. Which wasn't far off from where we started the day at!
10:28pm: Murkowski just walked away from the podium without endorsing Joe Miller. Game on!
10:21pm: Murkowski just conceded to Miller.
9:41pm: Murkowski will hold a press conference in twenty minutes.
9:40pm: Being generous, let's say there are 7000 valid GOP votes left to be counted. Murkowski would need 61% of them to win. She's done.
9:18pm: Murkowski is basically toast at this point, as she just couldn't get the juice she needed from Anchorage or the Southeast. 15,700 votes were counted today, and a number of Kenai absentees will be added to the total later in the evening. Murkowski would have to win an absurd amount of the uncounted GOP ballots (which has to be, what, 7K or so at most?) to pull this out. Not happening.
9:04pm: Miller adds 1,062 votes to Murkowski's 803 in the latest update. Miller's lead has shot up to 1,469 votes.
8:24pm: So that last batch of votes came from Southeast Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks -- 3,000 more votes from these areas are expected tonight, but it's starting to look pretty grim for Murkowski.
8:08pm: And we're back! Since we last checked in, Miller added 1,057 votes and Murkowski took 1,139. The gap is now 1,210 votes.
7:20pm: SSP is taking a temporary break from the liveblog, but we'll be back shortly. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled on that DoE page!
7:08pm: We finally have a bit of movement -- Miller picks up 353 votes and Murkowski adds 355. 50,241 to 48,949 for Miller.
6:50pm: The ADN reports that the next round of ballots to report will come from Southeast Alaska and the Kenai peninsula -- about 5800 absentees and questioned ballots from areas where Murkowski is hoping to romp in. Following that, we'll get a look at about 2750 votes from Miller-friendly Fairbanks.
5:54pm: In the comments, trhawk notes that it looks like the absentees from Anchorage HDs 27-32 have already reported, and possibly were bundled into the Mat-Su valley results. Murkowski won those HDs by nearly 55% on e-day, and if their absentees were lumped in with the Mat-Su update, that would explain why Murkowski appeared have run so much stronger in those Miller-friendly areas. Meanwhile, the ADN reports that Anchorage is done for the day, although 3000 questioned ballots and a "small number" of absentees remain to be counted there. The next round of votes to be counted will come from Juneau, followed by Fairbanks later in the evening.
5:24pm: Another update -- Miller just added 322 votes, Murkowski 488.
5:19pm: From Shira Toeplitz:
There will be 1,273 fewer ballots processed today than planned. Election officials announced that a set of questioned ballots from four state House districts in the Mat-Su Valley area will be opened Friday instead of Tuesday. ...During last Tuesday's primary, the ballots in these four state House districts voted for Miller over Murkowski, 62 percent to 38 percent.
4:29pm: The Anchorage Daily News reports that the latest batch of absentees came from the Mat-Su valley, specifically House Districts 13 through 16. Crunching the numbers myself, on election day, Murkowski won 38% of the vote in those districts. Among the absentees, she's picking up nearly 48% of the vote -- a much bigger improvement than among the Anchorage absentees, but she still has a long way to go.
4:12pm: A bunch more votes just came in -- we're now at 49,566 for Miller and 48,106 for Murkowski. Miller added 1,515 votes and Murkowski added 1,380.
3:55pm: Mike Memoli tweets that Alaska DoE officials are expecting to count ballots until 10pm Eastern tonight.
3:36pm: Crunching the numbers using Jeffmd's spreadsheet, Murkowski won House Districts 17 through 26 on election day by 53% of the vote. She won 57% from this batch of absentees.
3:25pm: Good news for Jumbo Joe Miller:
It looks like 2,391 votes were counted in this first batch. They're from Districts 17 through 26, all Anchorage.
As noted below, Murkowski was expected to run strongly here. Miller-friendly areas will report later today.
3:16pm: It's not yet clear where this batch of votes came from, but ADN reported that the first batch of results was expected to come from the Anchorage area, where Murkowski ran strongly. More votes are expected from the Mat-Su and Fairbanks regions later today, which are more Miller-friendly.
3:10pm: We now have our first update (of several to come) today. Miller added 1,024 votes to his tally today, and Murkowski added 1,367. |
