Amidst all the other political news coming out on Wednesday, the 14-person Senate Majority announced its leadership lineup. Here’s what we know:
Leadership:
Chairs: Continue reading
With 97 percent of Alaska’s precincts counted, it appears that GOP Dan Sullivan beat Sen. Mark Begich in the most expensive race Alaska has seen and one of the most expensive ones in the country. As of 1:30 a.m., Sullivan had a 9,151-count lead. There are still 30,000 absentee ballots out. However, only about 18 percent of those are from registered Democrats, 32 percent are from Republicans and the rest from Independents, making a path for victory for Begich virtually impossible.
The governor’s race is more difficult to call. Independent candidate Bill Walker has a 2,935 vote count lead. However, given the partisan makeup of the votes still out, Parnell could still squeak out a win, though it’s going to be tough.
Two other House races are still too close to call and will also depend on ballots still out. Democrat Matt Claman, who I predicted would win the House race in West Anchorage against Republican Anand Dubey, is only 35 votes ahead. In Ketchikan Independent candidate Dan Ortiz is wining by a mere 19 votes against Republican Chere Klein.
If you’re interested in other races across the state, you can find updated results from the Division of Elections here. Or, you can just go to my predictions here.
I probably own my readers some color, but I’m too tired. For now, suffice it to say that the winners were happy and the losers weren’t. More tomorrow.
The GOP Senate is now a reality. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski will now chair the Energy Committee. How much of a majority will soon be mostly decided. Until then, here is what political pundits are having to say about decided races and what the future may have in store:
In Colorado and North Dakota, voters have rejected their state’s ballot measures to categorize fetuses as “human” and “child” in their criminal codes. Here is what Jennifer Dalven, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project told the Huffington Post about Colorado’s fetal personhood measure:
“For the third time, Colorado voters have said loud and clear: We don’t want extremists interfering in our personal and private decisions, and we won’t stand for attempts to ban abortion. This isn’t surprising: Voters in Mississippi, South Dakota, Florida and other states defeated attempts to curb access to safe, legal abortion. Time and time again, Americans have shown that they support a woman’s right to make the best decision for herself and her family.”
Confused about Louisiana’s “jungle primary system”? You’re not the only one. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia: Continue reading
Updated: Within the past few hours, the GOP has won more than enough to take the Senate. So although we don’t know who’s going to win in Alaska, one thing is for sure is that Sen. Lisa Murkowski will be chair of the Energy Committee.
Voting Issues
Georgia’s Voter website that is used to verify registration status, has crashed causing Civil Rights groups to become very vocal about this potential lawsuit.
Florida gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist’s campaign has filed an emergency motion with the circuit court to extend voting by 2 hours in Broward County due to several problems at polls across the county. Ugh Florida, you never cease to antagonize me.
Here’s what we know as of 9:14 p.m. AK time. I’ll be updated throughout the night. Continue reading
Harry Crawford’s campaign is going to the dogs, but in a good way!
I can sort of understand when people use the hashtag #AK for anything Arkansas related, but for a national media outlet…not so much. Get with it U.S. News.
Below are a list of Election Day parties. As it usually happens in Anchorage, you go to your party and then,when election results start coming in in earnest, you head to Egan Center, or Election Central and watch and rub shoulders with candidates and people of all parties. Enjoy:
Anything can happen, but the things appear to be looking good for GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan according to a Republican Party source. The big worry was Sen. Mark Begich’s vaunted ground game, particularly in rural Alaska, which, among other things, involves getting voters to the polls early. However, when they crunched the numbers, they found rural Alaska was actually under-performing by about 3 percent compared to the rest of the state when it came to early and absentee voting.
I was going to resist the Stubbs meme until I saw this:
Outside my voting precinct. #AKelect #Alaska pic.twitter.com/tsPQKLuo1V
— Devin Kelly (@devckelly) November 4, 2014
This is a little old, but I think still valuable information: As of Sunday, there were about 45,000 early and absentee votes counted. Partisan breakdown: R-32%. D-18%. Non-Partisan and Undeclared 46%.
Mark Begich is here for lunch at the Lucky Wishbone. #AKsen pic.twitter.com/XUPXwKdeUX — Nat Herz (@Nat_Herz) November 4, 2014
You know who we need to hear more from? Sarah Palin, of course. Here she is, urging us to vote for Walker/Mallott:
Begich was at the Atwood state office building greeting workers as they were coming to work this morning. Smart.
Good morning from Anchorage! Election Day has arrived in the Last Frontier #wpteamamerica #aksen pic.twitter.com/CMqwdP44ry
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) November 4, 2014
Polls opened at 7 a.m. At 8 a.m. Bill Walker and a team of sign wavers were at the corner of Minnesota and Northern Lights in Anchorage. GOP senate candidate Dan Sullivan was spotted waving signs at the corner of Northern Lights and the Seward Highway. Continue reading
The phones are almost done ringing, you won’t need a forklift to carry your mail from the mailbox to your house. Soon the political attack ads on radio and TV will be gone. It’s time to vote.
After months and months, which at times seemed like decades if not centuries, of following the campaigns, here’s my predictions–not what I wish would happen, but what I think will happen– for what they’re worth:
U.S. Senate – Alaska has never seen a race like this, and it’ll likely be a long time, if ever, until we see a repeat. More than $60 million has been spent, not a small amount of which has been paid to try to figure out who is going to win. And, still, nobody can say for sure. But I see the momentum and wind behind Dan Sullivan’s back. Prediction: Dan Sullivan will win.
U.S. House of Representatives – It seems that incumbent Rep. Don Young has tried to do as
much as possible to make this race close. His gaffes, insensitive remarks and behavior would doom any other politician almost anywhere. But there was a bigger mistake made: The Democratic Party and the DCCC didn’t invest in Democratic challenger Forrest Dunbar’s candidacy. Had they done so, this would be a very close race. Prediction: Don Young will win, but he won’t and shouldn’t enjoy the margins of past victories.
Governor – This is the toughest one of the race, so I’m going to hedge. Continue reading
The natural gas pipeline is one of the most important issues facing Alaska. You might not know it, because Gov. Sean Parnell and his people seem to want to keep most things to themselves, but Parnell oversaw a huge advancement in the gas line. Nothing’s for sure, but never before in the history of the state have all interests converged. Independent candidate Bill Walker has made building the line a hallmark of his campaign. Yet what’s happening now and what Walker’s plans are for the line, if he were elected, is one of the most under-reported stories of the campaign. As of now, the state and Trans-Canada have partnered to have a 25 percent interest in the line. Walker says that he wants the state to own at least 51 percent. What that really means is anybody’s guess. How much more will that cost? Where is the money going to come from? The contract that the state is working from now will certainly have to be re-written and re-negotiated, and passed through the Legislature. How long will that take? To what end? Given Parnell’s bungles, does the public even care? I haven’t had the time and the manpower to dig into too much of this since Walker announced, but I gave it a shot in a column on Sunday. And I got lots of responses, most of which I think deserve a wider audience.
Below are excerpts from a few of responses, some lightly edited:
Faithful reader “Jon K” responds to another comment about the $65 billion price-tag being over-inflated and about whether or not the producers are actually serious about building a line: Continue reading