Chambliss: No Supermajority for the Dems

While the Minnesota race remains too close to call, a very close and contentious election has come to a close in Georgia. As many of you likely know, the Senate race in Georgia went to a runoff between incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat challenger Jim Martin because neither candidate captured over 50 percent of the vote on November 4th. According to MSNBC (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/03/1696852.aspx), voter turn-out was down significantly, especially among African American voters. Overall turnout was down by nearly half; a quarter of voters in the run-off were black (as compared to one-third on November 4th). Chambliss won by a considerable amount with 57% of the vote.

The implications of this outcome are tremendous. It guarantees that Democrats cannot hold a supermajority capable of overriding a filibuster (60 votes are needed). This may prove to be an important barrier for Obama and a democratic congress to push their agenda through. It also reduces the stakes in the Minnesota run-off because that outcome can no longer swing control of the Senate.

The overhanging specter of the supermajority became an important tool for Chambliss's campaign leading up to the run-off election. He was able to successfully cast himself as the 'key firewall' that could hold off an impenetrable supermajority by the Democrats (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHW-ZJ03DLcUGUM9z9p2nkbRAG-QD94R6TMO0). He and other high-profile GOP figures (such as Sarah Palin) were able to use this threat to whip up support and mobilize a strong conservative turn-out.

MN still to close to call

Most of the votes have been recounted in the Coleman/Franken race and we still are not sure who will win.
The following are outstanding variables: do we trust the Franken camps numbers or the MN secretary of state numbers? The Franken camp has him behind 50 votes as of this morning. The official MN numbers are bigger, the difference is that they count every challenged ballot as a no vote and the Franken people assume that all challenged ballots will eventually be counted. There is reason to prefer this assumption since most challenges by both sides are frivolous and the legitimate ones will probably balance each other out.
Second: 171 votes were discovered today. The precinct that found them apparently has a voting machine malfunction on election day that caused the votes to be overlooked. However, the Coleman campaign is challenging these ballots, suggesting that the numbers for voting in the precinct don't add up with the addition of these ballots. These ballots would net 37 more votes for Franken.
For those counting at home, this means Franken could be 13 votes away from officially blurring the line between politics and political satire.
Also breaking Franken's way, it looks like the state is willing to consider counting the rejected absentee ballots. Franken people think these ballots could represent a net gain of 25-100 votes for the Democrat.
Here is a decent article on the subject:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/35382149.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
and a good blog post (with updates on Georgia too)
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

A Final Update: Maine's US Senate race one month later

Incumbent Republican Susan Collins, once seen as the most vulnerable member of the U.S. Senate in 2008, ended up beating her opponent Democrat Tom Allen by twenty-two points (61-39 %) . Surprisingly, when Maine Democrats won both House seats by very large margins, Collins won every county except one, took the state's bluest cities for the first time in her career, and became the only Republican elected to federal office in New England during this cycle. How did she do it? Most pundits claim that Collins' "message of bipartisanship and independence trumped her opponent's attempt to link her to President Bush's policies on Iraq, the economy, health care and energy." Thus, Collins succeeded in distancing herself from Bush. The Senator's election is said to be important news for the state, since the moderate "women from Maine" - including senior Senator Olympia Snowe - can prevent a Republican fillabuster and help the Obama administration usher in a series of reforms. In short, as some predict, look for Maine's senators to be picking up positions as chairs of Congress's most important committees.

All this raises a few questions: 1) Did any other Republican Senator succeed by following Collins; bipartisan message? 2) Is this the strategy Republicans need to adopt in the next election? Should they be composed of a party of mavericks?