Senator Stevens Falls Behind in Alaska

The latest vote count puts Democrat Mark Begich ahead of Republican Senator Ted Stevens by 1022 votes. As the Anchorage Daily News reports Stevens is in “grave danger of losing reelection”. They go on to explain:

“More than 90 percent of the votes are now counted, and Friday’s count of absentee and questioned ballots could have been Stevens’ best chance to make a comeback.
That’s because it included all the ballots left from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, where Stevens has enjoyed his most unwavering support.
There are about 24,000 ballots left to be counted, coming from Anchorage, Southeast Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula. The state will tally them all Tuesday.”

As the Fix notes:

“Of the remaining votes, roughly 15,000 are in the Anchorage area (a swing area in the race) and another 8,000 are in the Juneau area, which should be Begich territory.
“The news continues to be positive,” Begich said in a statement released by the campaign tonight. “With the gap widening slightly in our favor today, I feel even more optimistic that when all the ballots are counted next week, we’ll see Alaskans came out to vote for new leadership in Washington, D.C.”

The Stevens/Begich race is one of three races still undecided for US Senate. In Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman leads Democrat Al Franken by 206 votes. A manual recount is to be done to determine the final results. In Georgia, Republican Saxby Chambless, the incumbent will have a runoff election on Dec. 2, 2008 with democrat Jim Martin.