Alaska Senate Update: Begich Leads

In news that continues to give us faith that the people of Alaska may, by a small margin, yet choose not to reelect a convicted felon to represent them in the U.S. Senate, the Anchorage Daily News reports that most of the state's outstanding 80,000 ballots have been counted and that Democrat Mark Begich now maintains a solid lead over Republican incumbent Ted Stevens.

With 24,000 ballots left to count -- 16,000 questioned and absentee ballots from Anchorage and about 8,000 absentee ballots from the Southeast and the Kenai Peninsula -- Begich, the current Mayor of Anchorage, holds a lead of 1,022 votes as of Friday.

The Division of Elections will count the remaining ballots on Tuesday.

With so many of the remaining votes to come from Anchorage, where Begich is well-known and popular, there is little chance that Stevens will retain the Senate seat he has held for 40 years.

However, according to the Daily News, Begich is expecting there to be a full recount in December and has begun appealing to supporters for donations, saying that they need "to prepare for the onslaught of Republican lawyers we expect to come from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Campaign to fight on behalf of Senator Stevens."

Fair enough, I say. There's nothing wrong with a legitimate recount... But given that they are crooks and they would be representing one in Stevens, let's just make sure we don't let the RNC steal this one.