I am headed back West this morning (I am at a remarkable conference on community and data centers. More about that next week.)
To read more articles by Mark Trahant, go to: Marktrahant.substack.com.
A bit of news: Mary Peltola, Yup’ik, is on track to win the Alaska Senate seat. She has a small lead now and the uncounted ballots that remain favor her (significantly). The count still may go to Ranked Choice Voting but she should win on a second tally.
From Alaska Survey Research:
“AK SENATE UPDATE: There are still 70,000 votes yet to be counted. The vast majority are absentees and early votes. Peltola will win these VERY easily. The biggest vote count will happen 11/10. The outcome will become clear then.
“Peltola will likely win in Round 2, when Daniel J Sullivan is eliminated.”
Peltola will give the Democrats at least 55 seats and Mississippi remains contested so the number could climb again to 56 seats. And that’s before jockeying. (For example: What if Lisa Murkowski left the Republican Party, and shifted at least to an independent? That would give her — and Alaska — more of a say in the next Congress.)
We should expect legal challenges from Republicans in both Alaska and Mississippi. (Mississippi has no provisions for a recount, so that could be interesting.) But the whole narrative about “will Peltola be seated?” was buried election night.
Another election watch: Former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in one of the last undecided races in the House. He and Rep. Eli Crane, the Republican incumbent, continue to go back and forth as votes come in from different regions in the district.
From the Navajo Times:
“Republican incumbent Eli Crane led former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez by 966 votes Wednesday afternoon in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District race, a margin narrow enough to trigger an automatic recount if it holds through the official canvass.
“Unofficial results posted by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office at 3:15 p.m. showed Crane with 138,582 votes, or 49.28%, and Nez, a Democrat, with 137,616, or 48.94%. Libertarian Curtis Goodwin had 4,848 votes, or 1.72%.
“The lead changed during election night and early Wednesday. An earlier state update showed Nez ahead by 86 votes, 136,344 to 136,258.
“Between the two updates, Crane gained 2,324 votes and Nez gained 1,272. Most of those gains came from Yavapai County, where Crane’s total rose from 63,132 in its 4:31 a.m. report to 65,453 at 3:15 p.m. Nez’s total increased from 38,582 to 39,826.
“State law requires an automatic recount when the margin between the top two candidates is one-half of 1% or less of the votes cast for both. Based on Wednesday afternoon’s totals, that threshold was about 1,381 votes. Crane’s lead was about 0.35%.”
