Across the country, three Senate races and five races in the House are still undecided, here more than a week after the election. (In the presidential race, Missouri, although leaning towards John McCain, also has not been called.)
The two closest races for Congress are both in the Midwest — the Senate race in Minnesota and the House race for Ohio’s 15th district, a gerrymandered seat that includes 1/3 of liberal Columbus, some moderate suburbs and a good deal of very conservative farmland west of Columbus.
The House race in Ohio is unexpectedly close. An open seat, the Democrat in the race, Mary Jo Kilroy, very nearly upset the incumbent two years ago. Back for a second go-around, Kilroy is down by 146 votes to Republican Steve Stivers, a political novice.
Stivers: 130,282 votes (106,697 Franklin + 9363 Madison + 14222 Union)
Kilroy: 130,136 votes (118,645 Franklin + 5014 Madison + 6477 Union)
Still to be counted are 27,000 provisional ballots, which may or may not count (I read earlier that usually about half of these ballots are ruled invalid). But even stranger, there are 750 absentee ballots that were filled out incorrectly, missing a signature, Social Security number or a driver’s license number. The Democratic Secretary of State has the election board calling up these voters so that they can get a second chance to complete their forms! And the Republicans, so far, are not complaining about this.
In Minnesota, comedian Al Franken trails the incumbent Republican Norm Coleman by about 200 votes, out of 3 million cast. Coleman asked Franken to step aside so the healing could begin. Franken said, not so much, let’s have a recount. Gail Collins, ever-spirited, wrote about this continued election excitement in today’s column.
