It's unclear if there's going to be a second wave of results for the day (according to the release schedule, this should be all for today), but if this is everything for today, then Begich is in really good shape. Today was the day for the counting from the Mat-Su Valley (home turf for Sarah Palin and the state's most conservative core).
Today the state expects to count all absentee and questioned ballots left from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and northern and western Alaska. Elections officials will also count most, if not all, Fairbanks ballots today. Tuesday is the ballot count for Anchorage and Southeast, where the majority of outstanding votes lie.
If Begich emerged from Mat-Su counting day with more rather than fewer votes, with areas like more Begich-friendly areas still on the table, then he's starting to look like he's in the clear. The question is starting to be whether he can get above the 0.5% threshold to avoid a state-paid recount.
UPDATE: It looks like a few more votes trickled in; at 11 pm Eastern, the lead is now 1,022 votes.
At Intrade right now, Al Franken is at 57.5 and Mark Begich is at 66.8.
While the trading volumes aren't that high, it appears the bettors think they have a really good chance win when the counting is finally completed. Nate Silver rates a Franken a "slight favorite" to win the recount (Franken is 206 votes behind).
Yesterday, I asked you to help Democrats Jim Martin and Mark Begich via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page as the Georgia Senate race heads toward a run-off against Shameless Saxby Chambliss and the Alaska Senate race heads toward a protracted vote count and possible legal battle against convicted felon Ted Stevens.
You responded with hundreds of dollars and we are so close to our goal on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page - please help Martin and Begich meet the goal this weekend:
Democrat
Current
Goal
Difference
Jim Martin
$3,385 $3,900
$4,000
$615 just $100
Mark Begich
$5,553 $5,820
$6,000
$447 just $180
Please make a contribution today via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and help Jim Martin and Mark Begich eject Saxby Chambliss and Ted Stevens from the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Senate candidate Mark Begich delivered the following comments at a news conference today in Anchorage:
"Let me say right up front that I have every reason to be optimistic about last night's election results. I've been in this position before - Alaskans know every vote counts.
As you know, we ended the evening last night within less than two percent of winning this race, a spread of about 3,330 votes over the more than 220,000 cast in the Senate race. Each new wave of results last night put us a little closer.
I'm confident that Alaskans, like the rest of the country, want a new direction in Washington, and ultimately that will be reflected in the results.
Let me congratulate Senator Stevens on a hard-fought race. He has 40 years of accomplishments for our state and I believe Alaskans remembered that last night.
But he is no position to declare victory.
Let me be clear, this race is far from over. A lot of the information about what happens now is still being determined. But this is what we do know.
The rest of the statement is available below the fold.
Ethan Berkowitz (D): 53 (50)
Don Young (R-inc): 44 (44)
(MoE: ±4%)
Ted Stevens and Don Young have a combined 75 years of congressional seniority, but it looks like Alaskans are poised to blow that up and start over. Most notably, Stevens' conviction accounted for a 20-point swing since the previous poll two weeks ago. But some of the spirit of cleaning-house seems to have even transferred over to Berkowitz, whose numbers jumped a little as well.
McCain still has a big advantage at the presidential level, 58-39, but this poll also sees Sarah Palin's favorables dropping back to somewhat earthbound levels (65-35) after two months of constant airing of her dirty laundry.
A few days ago when the senate race was a 1-2 point race, this thread may have been more relevant but now it looks like both Dems will win.
But, Alaska's polls close a full 2 hours after any other state in the country. So, a lot of Alaskans may go to the polls with one of the candidates, probably Obama, having already reached 270, and I was wondering if you guys thought this might effect turnout, and who this would benefit.
Ethan Berkowitz (D): 51 (51)
Don Young (R-inc): 43 (42)
(MoE: ±4.4%)
After the initial shock of Ted Stevens' indictment wore off (giving Mark Begich a huge boost), it seems like voters have been more and more willing to give Stevens some of the benefit of the doubt until a verdict is handed down, as the numbers in this race have drawn back to a tossup. With the case now in the hands of the jurors, it looks like we're likely to have a verdict (or a mistrial) before Election Day, so whatever happens in the jury box may well decide the election.
Things look a little more settled in the House race, where Ethan Berkowitz continues to lead Don Young by high double single-digits. One note for caution, though, while Berkowitz's favorables are as high as they've ever been in an Ivan Moore poll, the same is true of Young: Young's positive/negative rating is 44-47, also his best showing in an Ivan Moore poll... but Young's position in the head-to-head poll hasn't improved much. Maybe the good folks of Alaska are starting to fondly recall why they love their own little grizzled 1890s prospector, consarn it... but still plan to turn the page on him.
Perhaps most noteworthy in this poll is the presidential numbers, showing Obama climbing much closer to McCain at 53-42 (reverting closer to the pre-Palin numbers, down from as much as a 54-35 McCain lead during the GOP convention). Perhaps the novelty effect of an Alaskan on the ticket is starting to wear off.
Mark Begich (D): 47
Ted Stevens (R-inc): 43
(MoE: ±4.0%)
Ethan Berkowitz (D): 47
Don Young (R-inc): 41
(MoE: ±4.0%)
Fairleigh Dickinson has decided to expand its operations from New Jersey... to Alaska? Well, at any rate, it's at an opportune time, as they join the pack of pollsters seeing tightening races in Alaska in the post-Palin environment (and as the initial shock of Uncle Ted's indictment fades). In fact, these numbers quite closely resemble those announced by Ivan Moore earlier today (Begich up 48-46, Berkowitz up 49-44).
Ominously for the incumbents, Stevens pulls down only 67% support from Republicans, and Young is supported by only 50% of Republicans. Both races are also built on glaring gender gaps: for instance, Young is up by 10 among men, while Berkowitz is up by 22 among women.
Ethan Berkowitz (D): 49 (54)
Don Young (R-inc): 44 (37)
In other words: these races are far from over. Ivan Moore offers some candid thoughts on why neither Begich or Berkowitz have been able to put their races away:
My thinking is that Begich stayed too long on his cutesy advertising message: He started off in the car wash talking about minimum wage and congressional pay increases, then segued to a charming No Child Left Behind ad featuring his son Jacob. Nice ads, both of them, but the feel is wrong. They don't set him up as being strong, decisive and dominant, they don't give him weight and gravitas, they don't establish him in effective contrast to Stevens, and I think therein lies the fall in numbers. All this while Ted's growling about how he's never going to get taken alive.
Begich needs something strong, something that portrays him as someone who can go to DC and kick ass. He needs to rely less on attack ads from the DSCC, which I don't think are doing him any good, and more on convincing people that he's got the balls to do this job.
I'm inclined to agree with his note on the DSCC's ads being counter-productive in this race. Look, you won't find a bigger booster of the party committees in the blogosphere than us, but the DSCC injecting itself into this contest allows Ted Stevens to frame the race around "enemies of Alaska" trying to "take him down". This stuff does not play well in Alaska. Just ask the Club For Growth, who learned their lesson the hard way.
And here's Moore on Berkowitz:
Berkowitz, on the other hand, has a problem. In the last two months, his positive hasn't moved anywhere and his negative's gone up nearly ten points. That despite a bunch of pre-primary advertising and a solid win in the primary. He needs to catch fire and he's not going about it the right way to make it happen. So far, we've seen him doing the walking and talking thing on his ads, and having a little love-in on his deck with people hanging on his every word. But for goodness sakes, he's running against Don Young! Where's the feistiness, where's the strength, where's the toughness, where's the courage that he had in Juneau to stand up to the powerbrokers and the lobbyists and the corruption? It hasn't appeared yet, and as a result, the race has narrowed to just five points.
Berkowitz and Begich both have the same problem. Both these races set up perceptually as contests between a couple of intellectual, wishy-washy, weak-kneed, liberal Ds (and that's not me talking, I'm channeling voter thoughts out there) and a couple of tough, grizzled, possibly corrupt but otherwise experienced old warhorses who know how to get the job done. It's incumbent on the Ds to show that the perception of them is false, and that they can stand toe-to-toe with Stevens and Young. But time is running out.
