Looks like we're going into overtime.

[Lucian]

As of now, at 4:20 am, the results are as follows:

Minnesota Governor
Precincts Reporting: 4117 of 4136 (99%)

Candidate Votes %
Mark Dayton 917,070 42%
Tom Emmer 907,791 42%
Tom Horner 250,955 12%
Linda Eno 4,051 1%
Chris Wright 7,482 1%
Ken Pentel 6,160 1%
Farheen Hakeem 6,170 1%

From Kare 11's website: http://www.kare11.com/news/elections/races/results.aspx?raceid=1

Since Dayton is ahead only by half a percentage point, there'll be an automatic recount. I'm pretty sure after all is said and done, Dayton will come out on top. Thankfully.

[trotsky]

1. Dayton's got a good lead, and any recount is more likely to increase it.

Due to more undercounting in DFL-leaning precincts.

However with the state House and Senate now under Repuke control, there is no way Dayton will be able to accomplish a thing. Hopefully he takes a page out of the Pawlenty playbook and doesn't compromise with those bastards.

[eyepaddle]

4. The brutality will continue for the foreseeable future....

Now that the Rs have the state legislature about the only thing Dayton will be able to do is hold status quo--and only that if he ie extremely savvy and determined.

What a bloodbath.

Both my state rep and senator lost so now I have gone from 2 Ds to 2 Rs. I am considering running against one of those assholes in the next available election cycle.

I'll let y'all know about it when ancd if I do that.

[glinda]

5. Who did you loose?

[progree]

2. Wow, Kare11 is sure math challenged

Here is how WCCO/CBS reports it -- the exact same vote amounts (e.g. 917,070, 907,791, etc) as the top post, but they round the percentages correctly. In ()'s are the percentages I calculated to a couple more places.

http://elections.cbslocal.com/cbs/wcco/20101102/race10.shtml
99% reporting, last update 410 am
I added the percentages in ()'s.
Mark Dayton (DFL) 917,070 44% (43.67%)
Tom Emmer (R) 907,791 43% (43.23%)
Tom Horner (IP) 250,955 12% (11.95%)
Chris Wright (I) 7,482 0% ( 0.36%)
Farheen Hakeem (G) 6,170 0% ( 0.29%)
Ken Pentel (I) 6,160 0% ( 0.29%)
Linda Eno (I) 4,051 0% ( 0.19%)
---------------------------------------------------
Total 2,099,679 <-I added this line

Hmm, Hakeem (Green) and Ken Pentel sure didn't get many votes for their saturation ad campaign on AM 950. With so few votes, it puts to rest any doubt that these ads were funded only, or mainly by their supporters / parties.

[MineralMan]

3. I'm confident that Dayton will prevail in the end.

That's too big a lead to just disappear.

[glinda]

6. Mark will be the only thing standing between the repubs and the health of the State.

I can just hear it now... "We give Dayton an F as Governor of MN. as he was unable to do anything". Blech*
They will redraw maps.

[trotsky]

9. That's what stings the most.

The Repukes will now get to carve up the state into new gerrymandered districts for Congress. I guarantee you they will lump Mpls/St.Paul together in one and then slice off the inner ring liberal suburbs to merge them into larger, conservative outer ring burbs. We will have one reliable Dem in our delegation. I am too mad to think about this any more.

[progree]

12. And they will push a photo ID requirement

Besides redrawing congressional districts, the next scariest thing is they will pass a photo ID requirement that will suppress the Democratic vote relative to a Republican vote by a couple percentage points at least (if I recall correctly reading some The Nation article back in 2004 or 2006 about photo ID requirements, and the fact that some Democratic-leaning demographics, particularly the poorest, are less likely to have a driver's license or other photo ID than Republican-leaning demographics). Hopefully it won't pass by a veto-proof majority, but you can never tell if some Blue Dog Dems will join the Repugs to bring "integrity" to the election system. (Assuming Dayton wins and that he will veto it or try to. If Emmer wins, then its a sure bet to become law).

A couple snips from a WCCO.com online story this morning (darn it, can't find the URL) :

"The party shift in the Legislature clears the way for bills long bottled up, such as racetrack gambling, a photo identification requirement at the polls and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage."

"The party that controls the Legislature will decide what to do on state taxes, determining how far the new governor gets with his agenda. Legislative majorities will confront a projected $6 billion deficit, address a push for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium and redraw political boundaries before the 2012 election."

[CatholicEdHead]

13. That should make the Archbishop happy

Since Pawlenty is staying on during the recount, these things may be signed by Pawlenty before Dayton is able to take office mid-Legislative term.

[mzmolly]

8. I hope so.

What a strange night in Minnesota.

[mzmolly]

7. I hoping for a decisive win and had no idea we were in danger of

becoming a minority in the local house and senate. I wish people understood how important voting in the midterms is.

[glinda]

16. Well here in lies the biggest problem. 90% of the public doesn't understand how

Government works and 90% of the message does not get out.

[Lucian]

10. I don't know about you guys, but I'm pissed right now.

How could my district vote back in Michele Bachmann? How could the state vote in Rs for the House and Senate? If Dayton does prevail in the end (which I'm sure he will), he won't be able to get a damn thing done, unless what someone said above, he pulls a Pawlenty and doesn't compromise.

[Spike from MN]

11. "How could the state vote in Rs for the House and Senate?"

I haven't looked at the map yet but I suspect most of the newly-minted legislators will be from rural areas. Of course, that will give Dayton an opportunity to play hardball. When the legislators demand spending cuts, Dayton should call a press conference and ask each and every one of the R's what cuts they will be calling for in their OWN districts. It's easy to demand cuts as long as none of the cuts affect YOUR area. If the people that voted R want cuts, I say let's give them to 'em. The districts that went Dem can be left out of it.

Sorry for the Dems that live in rural areas but that's the only way to get the point across. The areas that voted R need to suffer the consequences of their actions. If all the cuts come in Dem areas and spending stays the same or increases in the areas that went Republican, that hardly gets the point across. Let's give them the spending cuts they're demanding and see how that works out for them.

Lucian, sorry you're stuck with Bachmann. Rest assured, you're probably every bit as proud to have her as a Rep as I am to have Klobuchar as a Sen. And least there's an entertainment factor that comes with Bachmann. With Klobuchar, all we get are boring photo-ops.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. YES!

If budget cuts are needed, publicly ask the Republican reps what to cut from THEIR districts, a "you go first" approach.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. I'd like to add that, judging from the comments I see on the Strib website,

when Republicanites talk about "budget cuts," they imagine defunding all those dark-skinned people in the Twin Cities, whom they imagine to be 100% on welfare as well as gang members (if African-American), illegal (if Latino), or terrorists (if Somali). They see a member of any of these groups, and they KNOW that the African-American is in a gang, the Latino is illegal, and the Somali is a terrorist.

If the budget cuts include no road repairs in Cornfield County, the Republicanites won't be so supportive.

[Spike from MN]

35. Yeah, I've run across people like that.

A good way to handle someone that's whining about "illegals" is to agree with them:

You: "Yeah, I know what you mean. They just came over here and took over our country."

Racist bastard: "Exactly. We need to round them all up and kick them out."

You: "Oh, wouldn't that be great! What tribe did you say you are with again?"


That shuts them the hell up REAL fast. The look on their face is priceless.


No road repairs, no snow removal, close down smaller schools and combine 3 or 4 into 1...suddenly their votes might not look so good to them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. No school bus service

No high school sports

No state department of agriculture

[Spike from MN]

34. Exactly.

People are all for cutting "wasteful" government spending, but only as long as it doesn't affect them. Funny how that works.

Well, the people have spoken and I say we give them the cuts they asked for. All $6B of them. Budget problem solved.

Be careful what you vote for. You just might get it.

[geardaddy]

14. Good-bye healthcare (MCHA)

I feel sick...

[Lucian]

19. That's what I was thinking.

:(

[Echotrail]

15. Emmer should conceed in the interest of saving taxpayer $$

There is no way he'll pick up 9,000 votes. Nine hundred is always possible but not 9,000.

[Lucian]

18. I agree.

[FiveGoodMen]

21. But he won't.

Just like with Coleman, the party faithful will get more riled up by the hour as their boy keeps claiming that he's sure he really one.

Their leaders will be sure to use it that way.

[FiveGoodMen]

24. "really won" geez!

[mzmolly]

28. No worries.

I always spell phonetically here. Not sure why? ;)

[glinda]

29. He said he has the help of the Republicons to win this one. Yuppers.

[trotsky]

30. Wouldn't matter even if he did.

A recount is mandated by state law.

[mzmolly]

20. Final results

Dayton 919234
Emmer 910380

difference = 8854 or 0.42%

Yep, we're headed for a recount.

http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20101102/ElecRslts.asp?M=S&Races=0331

[raven42]

22. This election has finally made me come to terms

with the fact that MN. is no longer a reliably progressive state. I live in Bachmann's district and fully expected her to win--although not by such a large margin. But I never thought the state legislature would swing to the republicans. And at the worst possible time with redistricting coming up. It's hard to feel positive about the political future of this state. At least states like Massachusetts have remained strongly in the Democratic column. Too bad that Minnesota has evolved (or devolved) into just another Midwestern swing state.

[mzmolly]

26. I agree.

Very frightening.

[Eric J in MN]

25. Canvassing may still change that.

SoS Mark Ritchie said that on November 24, the results will be finalized & we'll know if a recount is required.

[mzmolly]

27. Thanks for the info. I hope to goodness we will win with a large enough margin

to prevent another recount. UGH.

[DFLforever]

31. Maybe the messed up counting in Hennepin will

result in a few more votes there for Mark.

[trotsky]

32. That is really our only hope at this point.

Otherwise I fully expect the Republicans to draw this out. We'll look back at the Franken-Coleman battle as minor.

[geardaddy]

33. Fat boy Sutton

Made some crack about if it goes to a recount "we'll make sure we don't get rolled again."

What a piece of human garbage.

[Spike from MN]

36. That's an insult

to decent, self-respecting garbage everywhere. Besides, I'm not entirely sure that Sutton is human.

Yeah, they got rolled alright. Well, as long as you call losing fair and square "getting rolled." That Mark Ritchie is such a putz:

In 2008 Secretary Ritchie was named the Most Valuable State Official in the United States by The Nation magazine and Politician of the Year by Politics in Minnesota, the state's leading non-partisan public affairs news service. In 2009, he received the Election Verification Network's national recognition award for his non-partisan leadership throughout the 2008 US Senate race recount.

http://www.midwestruralassembly.org/index.php?q=node/63

Ritchie also supported Nader in 2000:

In 2000 during the presidential election, Ritchie was one of 52 farm and rural activists who formed "Family Farmers’ National Alliance for Nader/LaDuke" to support the presidential campaign of Ralph Nader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ritchie

Yeah, that damn Ritchie is nothing but a partisan hack, I tell ya. Poor Emmer doesn't stand a chance of getting a fair deal with this guy.

If we have to have a recount, I hope it goes quick. Ritchie said that after the 2008 recount, they took a good look at the problems they had to deal with and passed legislation that streamlined the process so this recount should go a lot quicker. Of course, Emmer will no doubt drag it out in court for as long as he possibly can. I dread the thought of the bills that will be passed by a Republican legislature if Pawlenty is still the sitting Governor when they are sworn in.

[geardaddy]

37. My apologies to self-respecting garbage.

I hope it goes quickly too. No doubt Timmy will want to drag it out as well. Thank whoever you believe or don't believe in that the judges didn't change.

[Spike from MN]

39. I made it a point to vote for the judges even when there was no challenger.

I didn't want to take any chances in case a lot of people skipped over those and there was some write-in campaign that I hadn't heard about that would stick us with some nutjob for a judge. You just can't be too careful these days.