Author Archives: Amanda

The next battle to count the votes: #AKSEN

Unless something really weird happens, it appears that GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s lead will hold  (See this dandy chart from Alexandra Gutierrez.) However, nobody has yet called the race, as they might in another place where the major networks use statisticians, which typically call races based on probably results. Because we don’t have those in Alaska, typically candidates do it themselves when a win is all but sure on Election Night. Sullivan didn’t do that. It’s unclear why, but it’s led to some interesting charges.  One thing’s clear, if and when the race is called in his favor, it’s not an auspicious way to start a term.  See below:

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Hoffman joins Senate Majority

Bethel Democratic state Sen. Lyman Hoffman joined the Republican Senate Majority and will have a seat on the Finance Committee. Eminently practical, Hoffman, who’s been in the Senate since 1990, has served in nearly every kind of majority configuration imaginable. It’s also probably worth noting that Hoffman endorsed GOP Senate candidate Dzn Sullivan in the last weeks of the campaign. From the release:

“Senator Hoffman’s rural representation and depth of experience working on budget and rural energy issues make him a very valuable addition to our group,” said incoming Senate President Kevin Meyer (R-Anchorage). Continue reading

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Walker is ‘optimistic.’ Sullivan’s campaign: ‘Dan has won this race’

From a Bill Walker release to supporters:

This race is not yet over, but we remain optimistic that we will maintain our lead as absentee votes are counted in regional centers.  We would not be on the cusp of victory without the diverse Alaskans who have stepped up to say they are ready for a change in leadership.

They’re also stepping up to get jobs, I’m told, none too soon:

From a Dan Sullivan campaign release to supporters:

Dan has won this race and he is the U.S. Senator-elect from the great state of Alaska.

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Inside/Outside morning news roundup for 11.6

  • Yesterday U.S. Senator Mark Begich’s campaign manager issued a written statement that explained Sen. Begich was waiting for all of the ballots to be counted before making a definitive statement about the race. Dan Sullivan’s campaign manager told the Fairbanks News Miner, “The math doesn’t look great for Mark Begich.” For Begich to become Alaska’s Comeback Kid, he would need a substantial percentage of the uncounted votes, bucking the trend so far seen.
  • Politico Magazine does not hold back on naming the worst predictors of the 2014-midterm elections. Don’t worry; this is not some boring piece with spreadsheets and graphs (though graphs are fun and shouldn’t be poo-pooed).  They have known political players named, what they said, when and to whom.  Favorite quote of the piece is DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on This Week: “I think we’re going to hold the Senate and the reason that we’re going to hold the Senate…is because we have a ground game that, I know [RNC Chairman] Reince [Priebus] would take ours over theirs any day of the week. …Rick Scott is going to go down to defeat on Tuesday.” One thing I’ve learned in the last months: candidates and parties who have top-line ground games don’t brag about them.
  • E & E News has a piece about that fate of the natural gasline in a Bill Walker administration. Rep. Mike Hawker is quoted, pessimistically saying that Walker might set the progress back five to 10 years. “Everything we’ve accomplished on gas pipeline development is at stake,” he said. Larry Persily takes a longer view and says that the companies aren’t going to walk away from the project.

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Pressure builds to call the Senate race

There are still as many as 50,000 uncounted ballots floating out there, but the trend isn’t looking good for Sen. Mark Begich. However, so far the Washington Examiner is the only media outlet that I know of that has called the race for Sullivan. It would be more reassuring, however, if it backed up the call with some hard numbers. Never fear, the ADN’s Nat Herz, is on the case:

The pressure to call the race is mounting: Continue reading

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Meet your new state Senate Majority

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:

  • Senate President: Kevin Meyer from Anchorage.
  • Majority Leader: John Coghill from North Pole.
  • Rules: Charlie Huggins from the Mat-Su.
  • Finance Co-Chairs: Anna Fairclough from Eagle River and Pete Kelly from Fairbanks.

Chairs: Continue reading

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Inside/Outside morning news roundup for 11.5

  • Election Night was insane! Lots of races and surprises.  Some cried. Some laughed. Many of us hardly slept. Apparently Democracy means that not everyone is happy and a lot of people are exhausted.
  • The Governor’s race is still uncertain with both campaigns taking the high ground by being cautiously optimistic. There are lots of places to read articles with varying degrees of analysis. The Juneau Empire, KTVA,
  • Anchorage Bowl and their 21 legislative seats covered by the Dispatch. The biggest surprises of the evening are the uncertain future of the Matt Claman/Anand Dubey and the Laurie Hummel/Gabriel LeDoux races.
  • Interior Alaska has the benefit of the Fairbanks News Miner that has broken down the different races for easy digestible bits. Want a general overview of Fairbanks area election results? They have you covered. Want to know about their state senate races?  Here you go!  What?  There are also individual articles about the surprise Adam Wool win and the Scott Kawasaki (Both of which were predicted here.)

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A nearly certain win for Sullivan. Governor’s race leaning Walker, but too close to call.

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.

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Election Day: 8:30 PM

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

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Senate races across the country called and in play

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

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Election Day parties

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:

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Election Day: 3:45 p.m.

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:

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