Polemic®

18% of the recount is completed and Coleman’s lead dropped 41 votes from 215 to 174. If that exact pattern continues, Franken will pick up another 227. That would mean a win for Franken of 53 votes.

The Star Tribune says these might be more Democratic areas that reported today. However, it’s my understanding that undervotes lean Dem.

Also, I’m not sure if these recount totals reflect the challenged ballots or not.

Update: That total does not reflect challenged ballots. As of right now, Coleman leads by 136 votes. There are 823 challenged ballots, 409 by Coleman and 414 by Franken. That new net of 79 votes for Franken

This is a problem. Unless Franken ends up ahead by shows a slight slowdown of his gains, now projecting a 50 vote win instead of a 53 vote win. If that deceleration stays constant, his win would be 43 votes.

[I screwed this up. He needs to gain 216 votes. 46% are reporting. He needed to net 99 votes by now and has only netted 79. That means a *loss* of about 40 votes, but I have reason to guess what this rate means.]

Areas with no reports yet were for Coleman in the original count, by 232,121 to 182,472, or 56% to 44%. 

It’s worth pointing out that in places where Coleman dominated, Franken has still netted votes. In Dakota county, Coleman won 102,656 to 85,280 but Franken has netted 32 votes there! 

My guess at this point is that Franken needs to be up by over 100 before the late reporting red counties come in if he will hold on, but it hasn’t been shown that recount nets correlate with original votes. What’s more, at this rate, the winner will need to win by over 800 votes to avoid the mid-December review of challenged votes to be irrelevant. However, I’m guessing that as long as the number of challenges stay roughly the same, they aren’t likely to change more than 100 votes. 10, or even 20, I can see. 

In 2000, I was worried about Al Gore winning and being seen as illegitimate because he won in a recount. I don’t see Franken being seen any less legitimate than Bush if a Canvassing board decides his fate. I hope the Democrats don’t lose sight of that in the process, because the Republicans won’t.

Nationally, the best case scenario is that this shows a Franken lead enough to draw resources GOP resources out of Georgia. That could mean 58-40-1-1.

In a nutshell, it’s looking like a Franken lead heading to the Canvassing board.