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AP Says Convicted Felon Senator Ted Stevens-R Has Lost Re-election

by Erik Larson | November 19, 2008 at 02:55 pm

47 views | 15 Recommendations | 4 comments

The Associated Press says Mark Begich has beaten convicted felon and incument Republican Senator Ted Stevens in the race for Alaska's Senate seat. Early November, it [appeared] that Stevens [was ahead]*- but then it was discovered that 90,000 ballots, mostly from Democrat areas, had not yet been counted.

Mark Begich, the Democratic Anchorage mayor, has defeated Sen. Ted Stevens in a closely contested, see-saw race for the United States Senate, according to Associated Press projections.

The Division of Elections has almost concluded an initial count of absentee, early in-person and questioned ballots Tuesday. That, coupled with the numbers culled from Election Day, gave Begich a 3,724-vote lead over Stevens, the 40-year Republican incumbent, with about 2,500 ballots left to count.

More Alaska election coverage on BradBlog.com

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amyjudd

at 15:19 on November 19th, 2008

Fairbanks

at 15:52 on November 19th, 2008

Early November, it was claimed that Stevens had won-

. . . No, it wasn't. The early and absentee ballots were yet to be counted.

Erik Larson

at 16:16 on November 19th, 2008

*This is what's so great about crowd-powered media like NowPublic.com; thanks Fairbanks, i have updated my article- after searching for a bit, I couldn't find where any major media had called the race for Stevens; it "appeared", in early November that he was ahead- until it was discovered that there were uncounted ballots. Nov 5, with over 99% of precincts reporting, the turnout numbers seemed suspiciously low to many observers; about the lowest turnout in AK's history, in an election with historic turnouts in the lower 49.

Fairbanks

at 10:16 on November 20th, 2008

That's true, the Div of Elections didn't comment on turnout right away but it did look like turnout did not quite come up to the last national election. But question, early, and absentee ballots finally kicked the number up so turnout was a little higher after all.