The Senate Races

I guess the Coleman/Franken race in Minnesota is not over yet:

The Associated Press is uncalling the Minnesota Senate race.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman finished ahead of Democrat Al Franken early Wednesday in the final vote count, but his 571-vote margin falls within the state's mandatory recount law. That law requires a recount any time the margin between the top two candidates is less than one-half of one percent.

The AP called the race prematurely.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount won't begin until mid-November at the earliest and will probably stretch into December. It will involve local election officials from around the state.

And it looks like convicted criminal Ted Stevens may actually pull out a win in the Alaska Senate race. Bummer. The pre-election polls were really off on that one.

And speaking of the polls being off:

Republican U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith gained a lead overnight in the race against Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley.

Preliminary results show Smith, a two-term incumbent, up by 11,491 votes. Constitution Party candidate David Brownlow was getting 6 percent. Multnomah County results were updated this morning but are not complete.

Smith tells supporters the winner won't be known until Wednesday; Merkley tells his hopeful backers the outcome won't be known tonight.

Despite the closeness of the count, expert number crunchers said they expect Merkley to win, perhaps handily. Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts, appearing as an analyst on Fox News(12), outright called the race for Merkley, based primarily on how many votes remain uncounted in Democrat-rich Multnomah County.

Go Jeff!