58 and Counting!

From the AP:


The Associated Press has projected that GOP Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens has lost re-election, with the final major batch of absentee ballots giving Democratic challenger Mark Begich an insurmountable lead.

The current vote count: Begich 150,728 votes, Stevens 147,004 votes. Begich's lead of 3,724 votes is greater than the roughly 2,500 outstanding ballots. By percentage, the 1.18% lead is beyond the 0.5% threshold that would have entitled Stevens to a state-funded recount.

Even if every last single outstanding ballot went to Stevens -- an unlikely scenario, to say the least -- he would still lose, and even if they broke for Stevens by a strong margin it would still likely be outside of the state-paid recount threshold.

Begich will be the first Democrat to represent deep-red Alaska at the federal level since Mike Gravel was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 1980. This also brings the Democrats to a total of 58 Senate seats, with the GOP-held Minnesota and Georgia seats still up for grabs.

Late Update: The Anchorage Daily News has now called the race for Begich.

Late Late Update: Here's something to think about, adding insult to injury: Today was Stevens' birthday.
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What does this mean? It means that Democrats, with the help of Sens. Lieberman and Sanders have an 8 votte majority in the U.S. Senate. It also means, they are only 2 seats short of a super majority. That would make the Republican's attempts at fillibusters a moot point. Although much has been written about Sen. Lieberman's campaigning with Sen. McCain during the Presidential Campaign, having him on our side is a good thing and keeping him on our side is even better.