Thanks for the in-trade numbers.  They all sound about right.  I agree that Georgia is going to be tought to turn for Martin.  The turnout will be much smaller and it will be tough to compete with Chambliss money-wise.  

How many of the early votes were made before Stevens was convicted?  

I do believe that this will end up being a Democratic win, but I am not going to bet the house on it.

While I would love to see Saxby Chambliss ousted, I doubt that an Obama visit will happen.  For 98% of the country, the election is over and Obama has stated he wants to reach across the aisle.  For him to appear partisan while he is trying to get everybody behind him is a tough task.  

Sending surrogates might help, perhaps even Biden, but I just can't see the President-elect interjecting himself in a state that he lost.  

Regarding the Minnesota election:  The votes have been cast.  Apparently the 32 Absentee Ballots were late arrivers that weren't opened on Election Day.  If it can't be proven that they have weren't tampered with, I don't believe they should be counted, either.

The adjustments in the numbers between Election Night and now is merely a "light of day" recanvass of the votes.  So far, the three largest errors uncovered have benefitted Franken.  Two were providing the wrong number of votes (both off by 100) when phoning in the results, and one was the failure of a small town to report their results on Election Day.  

I am waiting for a "transposition error"--for example calling in 15,303 when the actual vote total was 15,033.  It could happen for or against either candidate.  

Finally, the number of scanning errors is questionable.  I have heard numbers like .2%, which would be about 2900 ballots.  Also, the undervote is pegged at about 25,000.  Most, but not all, of those votes are probably where the Senate contest was left blank.  The campaign was highly negative and many people were turned off by both candidates, as evidenced by the 15% that Barkley received.

It is far to early for Franken to claim victory, but it is also too early for Coleman to claim re-election.  If the numbers don't change much in the rest of the official canvass, I would think that Franken's odds of gaining 222 votes is about 40%.  

Why Franken has "underperformed" and why no "traditional liberal" stepped up to challenge Coleman are connected.  The answer to both is MONEY.  

Coleman may be a lot of things, but he is not afraid to raise money.  Two years ago, after a Democratic wave, Coleman knew that he had to raise big money to win this election.  He did that.  This scared away many possible challengers who knew that they would have to raise an equivalent amount of cash to compete.

Franken jumped in.  He has East and West Coast connections to a lot of money and some celebrity.  He raised big money, but was also "defined" as a tax cheat, pornographer, a bully, an amateur, full of hate and a lot more.  Of course, there is a lot of stuff written by Franken to make those charges, heck some have a grain of truth.  

Coleman hammered Franken, who is an amateur politician, and took control of the race.  He had the money to portray himself as a moderate independent.  Franken fought back and caught a break when a lawsuit was filed in Texas that alleged that Coleman's friends were funneling money to Norm by way of Norm's wife--paying her for work she didn't do.

There are two people that have made this race relatively close.  One is Barack Obama who had sufficient coattails to lift Franken into a dead heat.  The other is W, who has tarnished the Republican brand to the point that Coleman didn't say "Republican" very often in his own commercials.

Delaware and Illinois will also be on the map for the Democrats to defend.  I expect a couple of retirements (Bunning, Grassley, perhaps Specter), but the Democrats will have their hands full trying to defend some seats, as well.

It is a great day, but I live in Minnesota and really feel like the party didn't finish the job.  Two House elections went to Republicans (Paulsen in the 3rd and Bachmann in the 6th) and Coleman may escape in the Senate election.  In all three of those national offices, the winner was well below 50%.  Because of Jesse Ventura's win of the governorship 10 years ago, his Independence Pary is considered a major party and votes for Independence candidates have cost Democrats the governorship last year, as well as perhaps a Senate seat this year.

On an unrelated note, if scandals and nepotism can't bring down Republicans in Alaska, nothing will.  If Stevens wins the seat, the Democrats in that state won't take it away in a Special Election.  Hopefully, the early and absentee votes put Begich over the top.  And what does it take to oust Don Young?  Apparently, dead girls or live boys.

It looks like Obama's final margin will be 6%.  The pollsters look like they nailed it pretty well.  The most representative state turned out to be Virginia--52% to 47%.

Now less than 700 votes.  The only two counties that I can see that haven't reported 100% are Cass and St. Louis.  I just don't know what is still out there.  

Here is a ray of hope for Franken.  Could it be perhaps part of blue Duluth and in Cass, perhaps a reservation?  If that were the case, Franken might cross the finish line ahead, but this is a silly wild-a-- guess.

Franken down by 1600 votes with virtually nothing remaining.  I live in Minnesota and I don't know if they have a provisional system or not (I don't think so).  There are a few votes to count yet and then there will be a recount, but Coleman appears to have a small advantage.  

BTW, why is Franken hated?  Well Coleman "defined" him as a tax-cheat pornographer carpetbagger.  And besides that, not funny.  Franken has books full of provocative words, and the politically correct and prudish constituency was outraged.  

None of this really matters when it comes to being a good senator.  If Franken does win, it shouldn't matter in the future.  I hope he wouldn't be in over his head.

Wouldn't it be sad to see the Repubs get 4 Senate seats in which they got less than 50%?  It could be.  At this point, Smith, Stevens, and Coleman are below 50% and Chambliss may end up there, as well when everything is done in Georgia.

And Young also leads in Alaska, by quite a bit.

Wow, what a race!  I've seen too many DFL leads evaporate in the dead of night.  It is nice to see Franken come back.  I hope he holds on.  

Seeing Norm leave the Senate would be priceless--especially since his "wife" will probably move to California.

Really four active Senate races left.  Chambliss' may drop <50%, causing a runoff.  In Alaska, Stevens leads by 3,000 with 2/3s of the vote counted.  Coleman leads by 1350 with 95% counted, and Smith leads by 500 with 45% counted.