It was clear, by little after 1am GMT on the morning of 5th November, that the Republican Party had suffered a painful defeat at the hands of the Democrats. The party lost the Oval Office and watched scores of seats in the House of Representatives slip away. But they'd only, at that point, lost five Senate seats and it appeared as if they may have defied the pundits' expectations by holding onto several other 'at risk' seats.
However, early hopes that Oregon's Gordon Smith and Alaska's Ted Stevens (who would have been expelled from the Senate in January following his corruption conviction and replaced by a nominated Republican replacement) would hold their seats were quickly dashed.
Despite leading until nearly 90% of the vote had been counted Smith was overwhelmed by a surge of late-reporting results from Democrat strongholds while absentee ballots from the Democrat-leaning Anchorage area turned an election night majority of 3,000 for Stevens into a Democratic gain by 3,724 votes. That took the Democrats to fifty eight Senate seats - two away from the sixty seats at which they gain a "supermajority and the power to override filibusters and pass any bill they please".
Even now, eighteen days after election day, the fates of Republican incumbents Saxby Chambliss and Norm Coleman, remain undecided.
Chambliss's situation is the most frustrating, having actually already 'defeated' his Democratic opponent Jim Martin by a 49.9% to 46.7% margin on election day. Georgia electoral law, however, demands that in order to secure victory in any election a candidate must secure 50%+1. As a result of this Chambliss has been forced into a 'runoff' with Martin on December 2nd.
For the Republicans, the omens couldn't be worse.
Yes, Georgia is a conservative state which (narrowly) voted for John McCain this year - but the recent dynamics of runoff elections in southern states do not typically favour Republican candidates. In 2006, Henry Cuellar lost his December run-off (forced by late redistricting) to Ciro Rodriguez in a southern Texas congressional seat following disproportionately high black and Hispanic turnout in San Antonio when compared to the remainder of the district. Even in 2002, when President Bush and the Republicans were at the height of their popularity Suzanne Terrell failed to defeat incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu in conservative Louisiana following a massive Democratic get out of the vote effort in New Orleans. Like it or not, that's democracy.
We have two factors to consider. Firstly, the President-elect's approval rating stands at nearly 70% and is expected to make a last minute appearence for Martin. The Democratic brand is popular; the Republican brand stinks. Secondly, the heavily-black cities of Atlanta, Macon and Savannah will be ruthlessly and assiduously canvassed by the Martin campaign. Expect the turnout in Georgia's inner-city areas to massively outweigh that of rural Georgia.
That takes the Democrats to 59 seats.
Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, elected to the Senate in 2002, has been forced into a recount with TV funny-man Al Franken after initial tabulations found Coleman leading by a margin of less than 800 votes out of nearly three million cast. Each of those three million votes is now being painstakingly counted and scrutinised with a final result expected in the first week of December.
On the first day of counting alone the two camps collectively challenged 734 ballots, each of which will have to be individually reviewed by a five member state elections board before the final certification of results. Click here to view a selection of disputed ballots. The most up-to-date official figures show Coleman leading Franken by 136 votes after three days of counting yet the Franken camp has this afternoon issued a statement claiming the incumbent's lead is down to "double figures".
The 51% of the vote that has already been counted comes chiefly from Democratic strongholds giving rise to optimism to Coleman as the recount extends into his strongholds in the south and west of the state.
Both camps are furiously raising money for their "recount defence funds" and phalanxes are lurking in the lobbies of county courthouses waiting for the chance to challenge any cross, tick or dot that goes against their side.
Could the Land of 10,000 Lakes take the Democrats to sixty seats? Maybe.
One thing’s for sure, election 2008 is far from over.
