70% reporting

Saxby Chambliss 60.7%
Jim Martin 39.3%

Update [2008-12-2 19:30:11 by Todd Beeton]:While it's probably way too early to have enough data to determine trends, it is disturbing how consistently Chambliss appears to be over-performing his Nov. 4th vote percentages in every county for which some votes have been reported today. You can compare CNN's Nov. 4th map & Dec. 2nd map.

Update [2008-12-2 20:16:5 by Todd Beeton]:Nate says what I'm thinking:

I haven't found a single county with a significant percentage of the vote in where Chambliss isn't performing better than he did on November 4. This looks like a 14 point win for him or something.

Update [2008-12-2 20:27:8 by Todd Beeton]:It's worth noting that Martin stronghold Fulton County has not yet begun to report and DeKalb County has just begun to report. If Martin is going to catch up, this is where he'll do it.

Update [2008-12-2 20:55:34 by Todd Beeton]:Sean Quinn:

The gap is 250,000 votes with over 1,000,000 in. We know that Fulton County hasn't reported the heavy African-American precincts yet, but I'm also surprised the race hasn't been called yet.

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Polls in Georgia closed at 7pm Eastern.

Results will be coming in HERE.

Some last minute potentially good news from Sean Quinn on the ground:

We're hearing that there are lines in Athens (home of the University of Georgia) in Democratic counties. We also hear DeKalb has been doing particularly well. The staff here is dialing voters in the last-minute push.

Polls in Georgia close at 7PM Eastern and so far, as expected, turn out appears to be rather light.

Polling stations across Georgia reported low to moderate voter turnout. At the Atlanta Public Library on Ponce de Leon Ave., where more than 1,600 people voted in the general election, only 400 people had voted by noon today.

While conventional wisdom is that lower turnout favors Chambliss, there's just no way to really gauge whose supporters are coming out to vote today. As Matt Towery, CEO of Insider/Advantage, whose final poll showed Chambliss up 4, put it:

"The race will turn on whether the tradition of Republicans returning to the polls in greater numbers than Democrats in runoff elections will prevail, or whether the almost 1 million automated phone calls by Barack Obama to African-American and longtime Democratic voters will somehow motivate Democrats to return to the polls."

Martin's organizational advantage extends beyond robo-calls from the President-elect. The campaign's GOTV effort has way outstripped anything Chambliss has going for him.

Matt Canter, a spokesman for Mr. Martin, said the campaign had 3,200 people knocking on doors and 3,000 others making phone calls to likely Democratic voters.

Michelle Grasso, a spokeswoman for Mr. Chambliss, said the Republicans were relying largely on e-mail and telephone messages to remind voters of the election. The Chambliss campaign has sent two messages a day to supporters for the past four weeks and will continue to contact voters today, she said.

Sean Quinn has more:

Yesterday we learned that the Martin contact rate during GOTV has been impressively high, with up to 1,000 contacts for 1,500 attempts. According to that source, who knows numbers from working through previous Georgia Democratic voter files, this is just a stunning improvement. What those numbers imply is that the influx of organization will allow for the efficient channeling of volunteer dials and knocks. Where labor fills in, the campaign knows who and where the voters are. Unlike the Obama emphasis on early voting, the Martin campaign did not do a gigantic absentee push, instead opting for a big December 2 turnout.

As of last night, according to Martin spokesman Matt Canter, 2,500 volunteers had signed up for the online neighbor-to-neighbor phonebanking tool. Word is that this number has been smashed, beginning early this morning. In addition to and separate from the online phonebanking volunteers (from anywhere), 3,200 on-ground volunteers have deployed around the state for Runoff Day knocking and calling.

So, how many points is organization worth exactly and are Martin's contacts delivering votes more reliably than Chambliss's? We'll begin to get an idea when polls close in 45 minutes.

Update [2008-12-2 18:18:38 by Todd Beeton]:Per Breaking Blue, Senate Guru has a breakdown of the top Georgia counties to watch as results begin to pour in.

Jonathan reported last night that Florida CFO Alex Sink announced her attention to run for re-election rather than challenge Mel Martinez for his Senate seat. Now that Martinez has decided not to run again, however, Sink may be reconsidering.

From The St. Petersburg Times:

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez's abrupt decision to not seek re-election could have a titanic effect on Florida politics. Here's one of the first signs: Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who would be considered a formidable Democratic candidate, is reassessing.

Politico.com quoted an anonymous source Monday as saying Sink would seek re-election as CFO, rather than run for governor or Senate in 2010, and hours later, Martinez announced he won't run. The Florida Democratic Party was expected to issue a statement Tuesday confirming that but it didn't happen. Said Sink's spokeswoman, Tara Klimek: "I can tell you that she's not ready to talk about her future."

The reason the question of whether Sink is in or out is so crucial:

Sink beat Republican Tom Lee in the 2006 CFO race. She has 28 years of banking experience, is from the vital I-4 corridor, and is well-liked in the business community. A Sink candidacy would narrow the field of Democratic candidates in a hurry.

Throughout the Minnesota Senate recount, as the absurd number of challenged ballots by both campaigns continues to obscure the real recount tally, the Al Franken campaign has made a point of releasing their own count of the ballots -- taking into account the opinions of election observers -- on press briefing conference calls. Per TPM, at the start of business yesterday that tally had Coleman up by 73 votes; by the end of business yesterday, that lead had shrunk to 50.

We won't know the actual status of the challenged ballots until the canvassing board meets on Dec. 16th to address them, but it looks like they may be evaluating far fewer challenged ballots than the campaigns have challenged up to this point. According to Minnesota Public Radio:

Both campaigns say they intend to withdraw some of their challenges over the next two weeks. All the remaining challenged ballots then have to go before the State Canvassing Board on Dec. 16, which will have to review and rule on them one by one.

To give you a sense of just how many of the challenges are frivolous, out of 1,000 challenged ballots, MPR found that more than 2/3 of them showed clear voter intent.

But with just 8% of votes left to be counted, will Franken be able to overcome a deficit even as small as 50 votes? Nate Silver's model gives a slight advantage to Coleman.

Thanks to a couple of developments being reported today, however, things might just be shifting in Franken's favor.

First of all, almost 200 uncounted ballots have been found in a precinct that Al Franken won.

Recount officials in Ramsey County found 171 ballots today that weren't counted on election night.

The county's Elections Manager Joe Mansky says an optical scan vote counting machine broke down in Maplewood during the initial count.

It was replaced, but local election judges didn't run some of the ballots through the new machine.

Franken beat Coleman in Ramsey County on election night by 52-34.

In addition, TPM is reporting that there may be reason for Franken to be optimistic regarding the issue of the rejected absentee ballots he's been trying to get counted.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has sent out a letter to local election officials telling them to separate out the rejected absentee ballots according to what reasons were used to discard them. This could be a sign that his office is taking seriously the Franken camp's contention that roughly 1,000 absentee ballots may have been wrongly thrown out by clerical errors, and should be re-admitted -- or he's just diligently preparing for the inevitable litigation over this matter.

Which points to the reality that even once all votes are counted and recounted, this thing may not be close to over; this Senate race is likely to go to the courts or even to the US Senate.

After a recount, the candidates or any eligible voter can head to court to challenge how the election was conducted or the votes were tallied. The Minnesota law spelling out the contest raises the possibility of Senate involvement.

"I don't think there is any possibility it will be simply a recount," said Hamline University law professor Joseph Daly. "It is destined for the courthouse and ultimately it is destined for the United States Senate based on this law. There's too much at stake. There's too much vitriol." [...]

Within 20 days of the initial filing, a trial is held. The court decides who received the most votes and is entitled to the certificate of election. The court can study evidence of election irregularities, but it can't issue findings or conclusions.

Once all appeals are exhausted, either party can ask that the information be forwarded to the presiding Senate officer.

From there, it's up to the Senate to decide how to proceed.

"Ultimately the Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to determine the qualifications of its members," Ritchie said. "In the end, there is no appeal if the Senate makes the decision."

Let's give Al a helping hand as the recount drags ever onward by giving to his campaign at our Road To 60 ActBlue page.

Update [2008-12-2 16:12:27 by Todd Beeton]:The Star Tribune is confirming that Al Franken netted 37 votes from the 171 uncounted Ramsey County ballots.

Democrat Al Franken made a net gain of 37 votes from the ballots, as he got 91 of the total, to 54 for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and 26 for other candidates, including Dean Barkley of the Independence Party.

And as for the issue Team Coleman raised about more ballots than the number of voters in the precinct, sorry Norm, no luck. That's now been resolved.

Once those were counted, election officials found that there appeared to be 31 more ballots cast than the number of voters who signed in or voted by absentee ballot at Maplewood's Sixth Precinct, at the Hazelwood Fire Station. Shortly after, they said the explanation was that registration cards accompanying absentee ballots hadn't been recorded, as they should have been; when they were recorded, the number of voters and ballots matched.

In a race this close, this is a huge 1 day real vote gain. If Franken's 50-vote tally is correct, this now puts him within 13 votes of Coleman.

I've heard the rumor on liberal talk radio, read it online, and even heard it discussed in conversations. Today we know it's not going to happen. Via TPM:

We asked Bill Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna for a response to the speculation that Bill is eying a takeover of Hillary's Senate seat, now that she's set to become Obama's Secretary of State.

McKenna emailed over this:

"It's completely false. President Clinton is excited to expand the work of his foundation which has more than 1,000 staff and volunteers in 44 countries advancing projects on HIV/AIDS, climate change, sustainable economic development, and childhood obesity."

It's hard to count the barrel of reasons why WJC wouldn't fit well in the Senate. He's overqualified? His scope of expertise and interest is much broader than the smaller-scale state-level attention a good Senator provides?  He'd be bored? The concept of Clinton replacing Clinton as New York's junior Senator is certainly a Sorkin/West Wing-like fun idea, but that really doesn't make it a good one. President Clinton is a valuable asset to America's international goodwill. Let's let Governor Paterson appoint someone who makes sense.

Like Jon Stewart.

Yesterday The New York Times wrote up the Netroots Nation YES WE CAN Inauguration Party, co-hosted by MyDD and other lefty blogs.

Add the netroots to the list of those who will be partying at Barack Obama's inauguration next month.

Netroots Nation, an organization of progressive bloggers and activists who use technology to do political work -- not all of whom supported Mr. Obama -- sent out invitations Monday for a party in Arlington, Va., on Monday, Jan. 19, the day before Mr. Obama is sworn in.

"We blogged. We phone banked. We knocked on doors. We campaigned. We organized. We left it all on the road. And now, we celebrate!" says the invitation. The cost is $90 and more than 500 people are expected to attend.

The party, co-hosted by several progressive blogs, including Firedoglake, Fivethirtyeight and myDD, will be preceded by a panel discussion on the role of the netroots and technology during the Obama administration.

The party is going to be a great time. I know that I will be there, along with most of the MyDD blogging crew -- as well as a whole bevy of bloggers and other progressive activists. Will you be in DC the night before Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America? If so, we'd love to see you at the YES WE CAN party, so sign up today.

Republican Senator Martinez will not run for re-election. This now leaves the Florida Senate seat for 2010 wide open, maybe:

This is how Democrats win, not only in Florida, but everywhere:

Last week I noted that the Democratic Chief Financial Officer of Florida, the widely popular Alex Sink, was considering a bid to challenge the vulnerable freshman Republican Senator Mel Martinez. Alas, Sink has opted against a run.

One of the Democrats' leading candidates to challenge Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) in 2010 has decided to pass up the opportunity, according to a source familiar with her decision.

Florida's chief financial officer, Alex Sink, has decided to run for a second term as CFO and forego a run against Martinez. She made the decision over the Thanksgiving weekend.

While Sink would have been a formidable challenger for Martinez, she is far from the only Democrat with a shot of knocking off Martinez this coming cycle. Indeed, although she has a proven statewide appeal from her 2006 CFO victory not enjoyed by some of the other Democrats potentially eyeing the race -- most notably Congressmen Bob Wexler, Ron Klein and Allen Boyd -- those federal elected officials have the added advantage over Sink of coming in with federal campaign accounts, each with at least $1 million as of mid-October, the funds from which could be earmarked for a Senate bid. What's more, all three Congressmen poll even with or above Martinez in hypothetical heat-to-heads. So even though Sink's decision today clearly is not a positive development for Senate Democrats hoping to extend their majority, it's not clear to me that it's a terrible development, either.