AP: Young retains US House seat in Alaska

[brooklynite]

Source: AP

NCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After the toughest fight of his long political career, Alaska voters have returned Republican incumbent Don Young to the U.S. House for his 19th term.

...snip...

The Associated Press declared Young the winner Wednesday, with Young getting 50 percent of the vote compared with Berkowitz's 45 percent.

Berkowitz campaign spokesman David Shurtleff said the Democrat was not ready to concede. He said Berkowitz was spending the evening at home with his family and would not comment until more votes are counted.

With 30,000 or more votes still to be counted, Shurtleff said the campaign recognized it was unlikely that Berkowitz could pull out a win, but held out for that possibility.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j_Jou0BRNSWPmplUuT8qwccyVvggD94DT0F80

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Sad, but I'll take the Senate seat as a consolation priza.

[Ian David]

1. If Repukes in Alaska will vote for a convicted felon, we really have an uphill battle. n/t

[Steerpike]

9. Don Young has not been tried.

He has not even been indicted. You are thinking of Ted Stevens. You guys need to get Ak's corrupt politicians straight.

Of course we are expecting the feds to indict Don, but as yet, that has not occured.

[AKing]

11. It will make a better headline if he's indicted after reelection

[sofa king]

15. ...Yet.

Don Young has already hit all of his major supporters for donations to a legal defense fund which as of yet serves no purpose. It is highly unlikely that the criminal investigation of Young will end with George Bush's departure.

[Steerpike]

16. Good kind sir, did you read my post?

I said, we all expect him to be indicted...

Does that statement have a different meaning than i think it does?

And, if you think all that money in his defense fund serves no purpose, you should talk to his lawyers.

[sofa king]

18. I did, and I'm backing you up.

I didn't hide much away in that post up there, except the "no purpose" line which was intended to be a joke.

Young is lawyered-up and waiting for the other shoe to drop. If he gets whacked, the next Representative from Alaska will have virtually no seniority, no major Committee seat, and that person's best allies in Congress will be the Democratic delegation from Hawaii, which will require major favors in return.

Losing Don Young and replacing him with anyone else (and I'm assuming that "anyone" is a Republican) makes life easier for us.

[Steerpike]

25. Sorry,

I'm trying not to be too thin skinned.

[Ian David]

17. It was Ted Stevens I was referring to. n/t

[jmowreader]

24. Do you have any NON-corrupt politicians?

It looks to me like you guys in Alaska would be better off if you'd just throw every elected official you have in jail, whether they're Republican or not, and start from scratch.

[frank4570]

13. And the D.C. democrats who elected a crack head mayor? NT

[struggle4progress]

21. DC didn't vote for mayor this year, and I'm unaware of any evidence Fenty uses crack

[Doctor_J]

2. Alaskans really love corrupt repukes

hopefully that won't become a national trend

[mwb970]

3. It looks like the national trend is exactly the opposite.

Alaska: out of the way, out of touch, out of its mind.

[ananda]

4. Alaskans really are a special brand of stupid.

nt

[BunkerHill24]

5. What 's wrong with Alaska????

[Wilms]

6. "The Associated Press declared Young the winner..."

There's something that just plain 'ol feels wrong about that statement.

But I haven't had coffee yet.

[Acadia Blue]

7. Alaska is like the northern tier of the old south.

[last_texas_dem]

8. Don Young's Way

Were any polls more out of whack this year than those of the AK Senate and House races? To me, this discrepancy proves that either A) there was shadiness going down in the AK elections process, or B) (as I said on an earlier thread) we have the Stevens/Young effect now to replace the Bradley effect- where voters tell pollsters they're going to vote for the "clean" candidate b/c they're ashamed to admit that they're planning to vote for the corrupt candidate.

Even if Begich ends up beating Stevens, it will be by a much closer margin than the polls indicated, and Young's race looks even more screwed up; IIRC, Berkowitz, according to polls, was slated to win by an even wider margin than Begich was.

[Steerpike]

10. There are 90,000 or so uncounted ballots as the election ended.

Questioned, Early and Absentee ballots are not counted till after the Election Proper by law. So a good 30 % of the vote had not been counted by the end of the election day.
They are being counted now and Mark Begich (D) has pulled ahead of Ted Stevens.
But, alas, Ethan Berkowitz could not close the deal against Don Young. So far nothing sleazy that I could detect. We should know the complete results by mid next week (Wednesday?). In the end I think Ethan was just not the strongest candidate we could have run.
And, for those of you that want to paint Alaska with a broad brush, we are not all conservatives. In fact Ak used to be a pretty liberal/libertarian place until the oil pipeline. During that time the oil companies brought in a whole bunch of southerners as roughnecks etc. Many wound up staying and permanently changing the complexion of Alaska.
But, take heart. The mayor of Anchorage is a Democrat (not a liberal). And so is the make up of the Assembly and the School Board.

[last_texas_dem]

12. Yeah, I haven't seen any solid evidence of shadiness either...

so the fact that Young won despite the polls indicating a loss looks like it may very well be due to a percentage of Alaskans who had been planning to vote for him all along not wanting to admit that they were.

I didn't follow the race closely so I don't really know much about Berkowitz, but had just assumed Young's reputation (at least the one he has outside of Alaska) would hurt him more within the state.

I wasn't trying to slam Alaskans across-the-board, if it came across that way in my post; being from Texas, I have no business judging the folks from other states in that manner!

[Steerpike]

14. No offense taken.

Just as explanation. The Republicans voted for Ted and Don in droves, becouse they thought they will be indicted and convicted !!! Talk Radio and the Party leaders let the party members know that if they stepped down or did not run, a Democratic sweep would occur. But if they voted for Don and Ted, even if convicted and sent to the pen, a special election and a second bite at the apple would become a very real possiblity. They are cunning indeed!

[last_texas_dem]

19. Good point; they may be corrupt, but they're definitely cunning as well...

A scary combination!

On the bright side, at least, as of this morning, it's looking like Stevens is going down, so y'all won't have to deal with a Senator Palin!

[Demeter]

27. A Primitive Animal Cunning Only Goes So Far

Intelligence is what Darwinism in humans is all about....

[No Elephants]

30. Why didn't I think of that? Thanks for the explanation. All makes sense now. except, of course,

for why anyone wants to be a Republican in the first place.

[No Elephants]

31. If it's shady, you wouldn't expect anyone to see evidence.

[asksam]

20. I can't believe the ReThugs stole *another* election!

Seriously, isn't there anything we can do to stop them from stealing seat after seat?

[Alexander]

22. Ethan Berkowitz ran a bad campaign. Had nothing to do with theft.

If it was really stolen, Mark Begich would've lost too, and that's not happening.

[walktall7]

23. Depends on the percentage of victory actually.

Everyone was expecting and has documented the electronic machines switch votes. A massive win is necessary to win. Mark Begich has a higher percentage (possibly over 80% of popular vote) and Berkowitz was a little under the majority.

[Steerpike]

26. Alaskans vote on paper.

The recounts are done by hand with the paper ballots. Facts, facts...facts...please.

[walktall7]

28. Recounts are by hand

But with due respect, this is not a recount it is the original tally. Are original votes all hand counted or scanned? Also are Democrats equally represented on all boards to provide adequate checks and balances? This was the problem in Florida along with the electronic machines.

[Steerpike]

29. This is done by hand.

And Mark Begich is winning.

The paper ballot is noted. Then it is fed into a machine. There are witnesses there from both parties as well as the State Departnment of Elections and the Candidates. In other words lots of eyes to insure veracity. And so far all is well.

[asksam]

32. And how do we know...

... the Rethug operatives in the Alaskan election department didn't secret away a bunch of votes for the Democrat?

[Steerpike]

33. How do I know

pigs don't fly out your ass?