Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
The favorite son advantage doesn’t seem to be worth much to Republicans at the moment: A majority of Minnesota voters don’t want to see their governor in the Oval Office, according to a new poll. A Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll released Wednesday showed that 53 percent of those surveyed would probably not vote for [...]
Pennsylvania is Reapportionment’s version of the Biggest Loser. If projections hold, Pennsylvania will lose Congressional seats for the ninth straight Census. Smart Politics: Several projections have been conducted by experts during the last few years – with Texas and Arizona universally considered to be the big winners of multiple seats, with the remaining gains coming [...]
According to two new surveys, the Tea Party movement is supported by 28% of Americans, half of its members are non-Republicans, and, aside from skewing slightly white and male, remarkably similar to the country as a whole demographically. A poll of registered voters by the Winston Group, The Hill reports, finds that the “national breakdown [...]
Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins saw this billboard as he “whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall.” He’s rather bemused at the reception his blog post on this has gotten: FoxNews asked me to be on today to talk about the billboard. I declined, noting I don’t [...]
Al Franken was presiding over a sleepy session of the Senate yesterday afternoon and took what AP calls “the unusual step” of denying unanimous consent to allow Joe Lieberman to finish his remarks. Franken was presiding over the Senate Thursday afternoon as Lieberman spoke about amendments he planned to offer to the bill. Lieberman asked [...]
In a 5-0 decision, the state’s highest court ordered that Al Franken be declared the winner. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that Democrat Al Franken won the U.S. Senate election and said he was entitled to an election certificate that would lead to him being seated in the Senate. “Affirmed,” wrote the Supreme Court, [...]
The news that Brett Favre is once again contemplating unretiring and is meeting with the Minnesota Vikings is only mildly interesting to me. Not only is the story essentially a re-run of last summer’s drama but, frankly, Favre is a mediocre QB at this point (albeit nonetheless an upgrade over Tavaris Jackson). One aspect I [...]
Yesterday’s ruling by a three-judge panel that “The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately” and that Al Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and “is therefore entitled to receive the certificate of election” should, but likely won’t, put an end [...]
The permanent campaign has now been joined by the endless election, thanks to a combination of more sophisticated campaigning and the normalization of legal challenges, Andy Barr writes for Politico. He notes that the Minnesota Senate recount is now into its sixth month and that there have been an inordinate number of very close races [...]
The odds are good that Minnesota will continue to have only one United States Senator for quite some time, Aaron Blake reports for The Hill. A three-judge panel has the result of the Minnesota Senate race in its hands, at least for the time being. But that doesn’t mean Minnesota will have a senator anytime [...]
President Obama is considering Republican Senator Judd Gregg for the Commerce Secretary post, Sam Stein reports for HuffPo. There is a strong possibility that Barack Obama will ask Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to serve as his Secretary of Commerce, Democratic Senate aides tell the Huffington Post. The move would fill a vacancy that has lingered [...]
As promised, the Senate has refused to seat Roland Burris. Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress. “Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state [...]
Norm Coleman is likely out of a job, despite his election contest not being settled. Coleman’s first term officially expires at noon on Saturday, and he is locked in one of the closest Senate races in history, with Democrat Al Franken clinging to a 49-vote lead out of nearly 3 million votes cast. Since he [...]
A ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court has all but officially made Al Franken the winner in the Senate recount. A state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday narrowed the options available for Sen. Norm Coleman to erase a slim lead held by DFLer Al Franken in the Minnesota election dispute, and Coleman’s campaign threatened a court [...]
Patrick Ruffini is tired of seeing Democrats win close elections that were apparently won by Republicans on Election Day. He contends, “we are inviting a crisis of confidence in our election system if it looks like the winner is dependent on the time we count ballots: usually a Republican on the day of the election [...]
Both Al Franken and Norm Coleman got good news yesterday, as the courts continued to make up rules well after the election. The Hill: A state Supreme Court ruling, which may exclude hundreds of ballots that Al Franken (D) had sought to include in the recount, could help Sen. Norm Coleman (R) in Minnesota’s contested [...]
The recount of the Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic comedian Al Franken has concluded, with Coleman still slightly ahead. Still up in the air, though, is the fate of 133 “missing” ballots (which are almost certainly an accounting error) and a passel of “challenged” ballots that will have to be [...]
The bizarre saga of the Minnesota recount took another bizarre twist yesterday, this time costing Al Franken 36 votes. What Maplewood giveth, Minneapolis taketh away. Elections officials in Minnesota’s largest city today discovered that one precinct came up 133 ballots short of election day totals, resulting in a net loss for Democratic challenger Al Franken [...]
Since the initial counting of ballots on Election Day, caches of new Al Franken ballots have been mysteriously discovered on a regular basis. Yesterday, a few more turned up. The U.S. Senate recount took two abrupt turns Tuesday, both boosting the prospects of DFLer Al Franken. Franken unexpectedly picked up 37 votes due to a [...]
Unless something drastic happens, Al Franken will lose his bid to overtake Norm Coleman’s narrow first-count win of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election through the recount. He’s considering other options, including asking the Democratically-dominated Senate to step in. The math’s not in his favor: To win his case before the state Canvassing Board, Franken must prevail [...]
If you were under the illusion that people in Palm Beach, Florida were unusually stupid or supporters of the Bush and Gore camps in 2000 were exceptionally mendacious, take a look at this Minnesota Public Radio collection of challenged ballots in the Coleman-Franken contest. In almost all cases, I’d say the intent of the voter [...]
Senator Ted Stevens, who looked to have narrowly won re-election to the Senate weeks after being convicted on felony corruption charges, has now apparently lost as absentee ballots are slowly counted. Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power [...]
We all thought convicted felon Ted Stevens had been narrowly reelected to the Senate, presumably as a placeholder to keep the seat in Republican hands. Not so fast! Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race. Begich, who was losing after election night, now [...]
At least two statewide Pennsylvania polls have shown that “Hardball” host Chris Matthews would be a serious contender if he chose to challenge Arlen Specter for the Senate in 2010 and Matthews has indicated that he has at least some interest in running, WaPo’s Chris Cillizza reports. Matthews would be an interesting candidate. His “Hardball” [...]
In the discussion on Obama’s apparent 365-173 Electoral College victory, Rodney Dill asks, “How close is this, historically? The popular vote difference seems like it was pretty big by modern standards, but usually that would result in an even more lopsided electoral vote.” It’s an interesting question. Dave Leip’s Atlas has the results for every [...]
Harry Reid, not unreasonably, is strongly considering stripping Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship after he campaigned vigorously for the Republican nominee for president. Reid, in a sternly worded statement after the 45-minute meeting, said no official decisions have been made. But an aide to the Nevada Democrat said Reid was leaning toward removing Lieberman as [...]
Minnesotan Ed Morrisey got an email from Team McCain informing him that the state is “a dead heat” based on a Survey USA poll. Ed then cites some research that Obama is actually dragging Al Franken’s numbers down in the state and muses, “If McCain wins Minnesota, that puts a major dent in Obama’s presidential [...]