What's Happening with Conservatives and the GOP

1.  Additional election results are bad news for conservatives.  As late election results trickled in, conservatives lost a great Congressman and a candidate who would have been an excellent Congressman.

Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA), who has a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91%, was apparently defeated by Democrat Tom Perriello 158,712 to 157,967.  A recount is being conducted, but there is little hope for Goode.

And in Maryland, conservative State Senator Andy Harris, who had beaten liberal Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (lifetime ACU rating of 59%) in the Republican primary, lost to Democrat Frank Kratovil 171,497 to 169,494.  After Gilchrest lost the primary, he actively campaigned for Kratovil.

2.  Still undecided are two House races.   In California, conservative Republican State Senator Tom McClintock is seeking to succeed retiring Republican Congressman John Doolittle.  McClintock leads Democrat Charlie Brown 160,631 to 159,703 with about 40,000 absentee and provisional ballots not yet counted.

Even closer is a House race in Ohio to replace Republican Congresswoman Deborah Pryce.  Republican State Senator Steve Stivers leads Democratic County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy 129,852 to 129,703 with 27,306 provisional votes yet to be counted.

3.  30% of Alaska ballots still being counted.  As this is written, 90,635 absentee ballots were still being counted.  Some indications are that many of these may have been cast by Obama supporters, who were encouraged nationally to cast "absentee" ballots, even in states where early voting was not permitted.

The latest tabulation had Republican Senator Ted Stevens trailing Democratic Mayor Mark Begich 132,196 to 131,382.  Republican Congressman Don Young seems to now have an insurmountable lead over Democrat Ethan Berkowitz of 140,269 to 125,184.

4.  Republican Coleman may lose Minnesota Senate seat.  On paper, Republican Senator Norm Coleman defeated Democratic comedian Al Franken 1,211,565 to 1,211,359 with 437,389 going to former Senator Dean Barkley of the Independence Party.

The problem is there were about 25,000 votes cast for President but not for Senator.  Perhaps most of these intentionally skipped the Senate race.  But there is a good chance that others might have marked their ballot incorrectly so that the optical scanning system did not detect a vote.  About 18,000 of these ballots were in counties won by Obama.

A statewide recount will manually inspect each ballot to check for light or stray marks, which will take until mid-December.

Further complicating matters for Coleman is the possibility of Democratic fraud.  For instance, 32 absentee votes in one county were counted, despite the fact the ballots had not been kept in sealed boxes.

5.  December 2 runoff for Senate seat in Georgia.  While not all of the votes have been counted, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin, a former state representative, are both running as hard as they can.

John McCain, who carried Georgia 52% to 47%, has agreed to campaign for Chambliss, as has Mike Huckabee.  Obama has sent his key campaign staff to the state to assist Martin.

Georgia is not a solid conservative state. Jimmy Carter was elected Governor and carried the state for President twice by solid margins.  The current Governor, Sonny Perdue, is the first Republican elected since Reconstruction.  As of the 2000 census, 28.5% of the population was African American, the third highest percentage of any state. 

An extremely high turnout of African Americans in the runoff would probably elect Martin.  The unknown factor is whether they will do so without Obama on the ballot.