The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that toppled incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is "optimistic the count of absentee votes will turn it around" (the website's timestamp says 5:42 PM).
But the Alaska elections division is reporting a basically 51 to 49 percent vote favoring Palin-backed insurgent Joe Miller, with 100 percent of precincts reporting. There's 7,600 absentee ballots outstanding, and the state will continue to accept ballots "within 10 days" nationally and "within 15 days" internationally. With over 138 thousand ballots cast, Murkowski could have a chance. She would need to take the absentees by 60 percent or so, but with state electorate split so closely in the election day polling, that's probably not likely. There's more on this here and here, but Murkowski's done. No wonder she's talking about a third party bid. (And good luck with that --- besides the fact that Alaska's a "sore loser state" requiring third party candidates to file papers before the major party primaries, the main alternative would be to run as a secessionist party candidate, obviously not a mainstream option.)
Added: Checking Allahpundit's post, it turns out Murkowski might have a chance to run as a Libertarian, although that would require the current Libertarian candidate to step-aside for her.
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