55 Senate seats is within grasp. Let us hope.
Frustrating that there is nothing yet.
Decision Desk just posted
New vote drops in Mississippi’s Senate race since 9:00 eastern:
Scott Colom: 1,156
Cindy Hyde-Smith (R): 848
Colom has gained a net 308 votes, difference is 3083.
The thing you need to know about these Mississippi votes trickling in is that they haven’t included any additional count from Hinds County, which is A) the county with the most outstanding votes remaining, and B) has gone Colom +60 in the votes counted so far.
Hyde-Smith needs to be making gains on Colom everywhere else in the state to build a cushion for the 3-4k vote advantage Colom is going to pick up when Hinds finally reports, and she’s not doing it.
Also looks like Alaska just updated their count, now at est. 84% counted:
Mary Peltola: 118,926 (49.0%)
Dan S. Sullivan: 114,676 (47.2%)
Seems a decent chance Sullivan isn’t going to make it to IRV counting.
I’m a little fuzzy on how the second round works.
Sullivan, Jr. gets dropped off, having the fewest votes, then the second place votes are counted. Is it only those who voted for Heikes and Jr. in the first round or is it all ballots, discarding Junior’s votes in the second round?
If it’s everybody I suppose there could be people who voted for Peltola in the first column then D.S. Sullivan in the second and vice versa but it can’t be very many.
They only count the “next level” votes of whoever was dropped.
A ballot that starts with Junior, followed by Heikes, then Sullivan would count for Sullivan after both Junior and Heikes have been eliminated. It’s hard to understand the thinking of someone who would prefer Peltola as a third choice after those two also-rans. It’s possible, of course, but who would do that?
Which round that is depends on how you number them. In my book, the numbers we see listed everywhere would be the first round. both also-rans don’t get eliminated until the third.
A ballot listing all four never gets discarded.