A quick update on the remaining Senate races in Georgia and Minnesota. In Georgia, The Scorecard reports that African-American turnout in early voting is significantly down from what it was during the original vote.
And the Georgia Secretary of State’s office has a valuable breakdown of the voters in the runoff so far, including the all-important racial breakdown. Only 22.6 percent of early voters (14,482 out of 63,934) who cast ballots in the runoff so far are African-American.
That number will need to increase for Martin to have a chance at defeating Chambliss. African-Americans comprise much of the Democratic base in Georgia, and high turnout among blacks was critical in preventing Chambliss from winning 50 percent of the vote Election Day.
Martin needs high turnout from black voters again in order to win the runoff, where turning out the base is critical.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota the mandatory statewide recount has just begun. With around 15% of the ballots being recounted, unofficial results show Coleman with an early lead of around 14,000 votes. Place emphasis on the word early, because there is still plenty of counting to go. Thus far, only a few hundred ballots have been challenged by either campaign.
You can follow those results as they come in here.
Update: The Star Tribune has much more up-to-date results showing Coleman with a lead of only 160 votes with around 23% of the ballots counted.
