Updates on Undetermined US Senate, US House Contests

We are more than a week out past Election Day 2008, and a few races for seats in the US Senate and US House are still undecided. Here is a brief update on them.


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Alaska US Senate seat: The counting of absentee mail - in, and military ballots is underway, and results thus far have changed the lead from incumbent Ted Stevens to challenger Mark Begich. Stevens has lost his over 3300 vote lead and now trails by a margin of a mere few votes. Many more votes still remain to be tallied, but most analysts and observers feel Begich will only see his lead grow, leading to the defeat of the longest current sitting Republican member of the US Senate. In addition, Stevens' felony convictions will likely result in having him expelled from the remaining weeks of the current 110th Congress, perhaps as early as next week.
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Alaska at - large US House seat: Like Stevens, longtime GOP incumbent Don Young is seeing his once sizeable lead over challenger Ethan Berkowitz diminish, but just slightly A lead of approximately 17,000 votes has edged down to around 15,000. Young may just hold on to his seat after all.
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California Fourth Congressional District seat: This contest remains undecided still, as Republican Tom McClintock holds a 1283 vote edge over Democrat Charlie Brown. Many more provisional, mail - in, and absentee ballots remain to be counted, however.
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Minnesota US Senate seat: This tight contest has only gotten closer in the days following the vote in The Land of 10,000 Lakes. Republican one term incumbent Norm Coleman has but a 206 vote margin over Democratic challenger Al Franken. There will be a recount which will commence on Thursday 20 November to determine finally who wins this expensive and strongly antagonistic race.
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Ohio Fifteenth Congressional Districts seat: Republican Steve Stivers still has a 149 vote lead over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy as no counting of any provisional or absentee ballots has begun in this district.
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Virginia Fifth Congressional District seat: The counting of absentee and provisional ballots has begun and it has resulted in a reversal of the lead as Democratic challenger Tom Periello has a lead of 745 votes over six term incumbent Republican Virgil Goode. This is a reversal of 1391 votes since all of the regular voting precincts reported. If Periello's lead holds, or grows as is expected, this would be a pickup for Democrats in the US House and would also result in the delegation to the US House from The Old Dominion having a majority of Democrats by a 6 - 5 margin for the upcoming 111th Congress in the U S House of Representatives.
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The election to finally decide the seat in the US Senate from Georgia is Tuesday 2 December; and two congressional districts in Georgia will have elections on Saturday 6 December. As of now, Democrats are favored to win all three of these contests. The runoff contest in Georgia is already ugly.
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