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* The only thing that will save Congresswoman Melissa Bean is a miracle.
Lake and McHenry counties won’t even start counting late-arriving absentee ballots until next Tuesday the 16th, which is the statutory deadline. From Lake County’s website…
All tallies from Provisional and late-arriving ballots voted by mail are reported 14 days after Election Day when the election results become final. The official canvass of the results occurs the following day.
This, by the way, is yet another reason why the state cannot certify Mark Kirk’s election.
Anyway, back to Bean. With Cook County’s absentee results mostly in, Bean trails Republican Joe Walsh by 347 votes. That’s down from her 553-vote deficit late last week before Cook started counting late absentees, but it isn’t nearly enough. She picked up just three votes on Walsh yesterday in Cook, which has now stopped counting until next Tuesday as well.
And keep in mind that Bean actually won suburban Cook County 54-43. She lost Lake County 50-47 and got stomped in McHenry 52-43.
It’s likely that a higher percentage of Democrats voted by mail in those counties than voted on election day, partly because of the Democrats’ coordinated committee efforts. But that difference will have to be truly vast for Bean to catch up or even get close enough to realistically expect that a recount will make much of a difference…
About 500 absentee ballots remain unaccounted for in Cook County, election officials said, though the likelihood they will be returned with a valid postmark date drops by the day.
Another 216 provisional ballots could also be counted into the total, though only between 20 and 25 percent of those votes are usually ruled valid, said Courtney Greve, the clerk’s office spokeswoman.
Lake County has received 599 valid absentee ballots that will be counted, and several hundred more provisional ballots likely will be counted into the total, said County Clerk Willard Helander. McHenry County Clerk Katherine Schultz said she expects her county to contribute a few dozen votes.
The Cook “unaccounted for” line is a bit vague. The county mailed out 500 more absentee ballots than they’ve so far received back. Some will never be sent. The ones that are sent in will likely be postmarked after last Monday’s deadline.
* In the meantime, Joe Walsh is heading to DC for freshman orientation. He appears to have earned that right. But, as usual, he went over the top in a message to supporters…
Rest assured as well, that we are diligently prepared to defend against any attempt to steal last week’s victory away from us. We won’t let that happen.
…Adding… From Bean’s campaign…
“Every single day that ballots have been counted following Election Day, the margin of votes separating Congresswoman Melissa Bean and Mr. Walsh has continued to shrink. Now, more than ever, this race remains too close to call. While we wait for additional ballots to be counted, we remain encouraged by the favorable results we’ve seen in suburban Cook County. In fact, nearly 70 percent of the absentee ballots counted since Election Day in Cook County were cast in support of Congresswoman Bean, which suggests that similar absentee numbers will be reported in Lake and McHenry between now and November 16th.”
It suggests nothing of the sort since she won Cook County.
* Related…
* Rep. Shimkus aims to be House Energy and Commerce chairman: One other more-senior member is likely to chair the panel’s subcommittee on telecommunications, so the real contest is between Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who has served in Congress since 1987, and Mr. Shimkus, who was first elected a decade later. Conservative groups recently started a campaign to block Mr. Upton, citing his voting record going back to the 1990s, according to Politico, a Capitol Hill publication.
* ‘The planet won’t be destroyed by global warming because God promised Noah,’ says politician bidding to chair U.S. energy committee
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 9:57 am
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Yeah this seems too wide of a gap with the outstanding vote. Can’t believe she didn’t see herself a part of this wave that was coming. You always have to fight when you are in an election. Don’t take anything for granted.
Comment by Aaron Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:02 am
I’m guessing that Walsh won’t enjoy being in the majority in Congress. Governing is a lot different than bomb-throwing, as our recently elected governor can attest.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:08 am
bean lives in the 10th which is more liberal but has a stronger incumbent than the 8th where she was congresswoman. You wonder if she’ll try next time to beat the weaker candidate in the tougher district or the stronger candidate in the easier district.
It would be easier if walsh’s campaign just created a simple spreadsheet with votes left to be counted in each county, the percentage each candidate won in each county so that it’s easier to see the numbers.
Comment by shore Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:10 am
re- Shimkus. It is baffling to me why some Republicans think that the election gives them some sort of “mandate” to overturn the healthcare bill. go ahead down that road my friends! and in two years, the Dems will take the back what they have lost.
Comment by bdogg Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:16 am
bdogg — so you don’t think there was a mandate against the democrat’s policies, but Quinn, with not even a half a percent win, received a mandate to raise taxes??
Comment by Anon1 Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:22 am
Bdogg
Yeah it’s the same as Quinn believing the election gave him a mandate to raise taxes. Just silly.
Comment by Fed up Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:22 am
bdogg never weighed in on the Quinn question, so don’t put words in his mouth.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:24 am
Don’t know anything about this Upton guy but I have noticed some old clips of Shimkus and his climate change brilliance citing God’s words to Noah as an explanation for why man-made global warming isn’t possible making the rounds on sites like gawker.com. Yikes.
Comment by hisgirlfriday Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:30 am
TO be fair to Bean, she lived in the 8th until redistricting and lives just inside the 10th. That being said, she SHOULD have run in the 10th. It was quite comical 2 years ago.
Cand Lives Running in
Bean 10th 8th
Dkwrth 8th 6th
Seals 9th 10th
4 years ago
Keyes MD IL
Comment by Wumpus Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:31 am
Walsh just needs to embrace the rocky mountain way….
Comment by ghost Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:36 am
I think it’s a fascinating political question for her
8th
more r district
weaker candidate
obama factor NOT in your favor
(hoping for a sharon angle/christine o’donnell type candidate meltdown)
10th
more d district
stronger candidate
obama factor in your favor
(hoping for a jan schakowsky type win where voters match their presidential party choice with their congressional party choice)
Comment by shore Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:40 am
Walsh should not get comfortable. With the remap in 2011 he will probably be running against Dold in 2012.
Comment by Remapper Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:41 am
Remapper–
I tend to think you are correct. There will be one less district and since the D’s control the map, they aren’t going to get rid of their incumbents. It will be likely that two freshmen GOP representatives will wind up in a primary against each other. The R party leadership may not publicly admit it, but probably would be happy to get rid of ‘bomb thrower’ Walsh and all his personal baggage well before they would want to get rid of any of the other freshmen.
train111
Comment by train111 Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:56 am
It will be almost impossible for Bean to win. After the Lake and McHenry absentee and military counts, Walsh should regain 100-200 votes. The technology in the three counties is really solid, with extremely low error rates. My bet is that DCCC will put their recount dollars elsewhere — perhaps to defend a more “pure” Pelosi-compliant voter.
Bean is smarter than to let the DCCC folks mess with the absentee ballot voters, like is being reported in another state — where there are calls going to AB voters to find out how they cast their ballots (presumably so the DCCC lawyers will know which ballots to challenge during absentee ballot counting activities). I think she wants to preserve her reputation to run again in the future. Hard to say she is trying to “steal” the election if she stays away from that kind of tactic.
Comment by Chad Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:58 am
Thank you, Rich, I will take it from here.
If you don’t think the healthcare system was a broken mess, then go ahead and overturn the healthcare bill. you see, that is the problem. something needed to be done on healthcare, and something was done. to overturn something that hasn’t even had a chance to take affect yet, or be shown/proven to be a bad idea is simply non-sensical. so by overturning the healthcare bill, republicans are saying people and children with pre-existing conditions should continue to be denied healthcare? this country has other pressing issues that need to be addressed before we circle back around to healthcare.
Shimkus reading from the Bible and citing the story of God and Noah as how humans could never destroy the earth one minute and turning around the next minute and vowing to overturn the healthcare bill is the ultimate hypocrisy. The “right” of this country thinks they have the market cornered on Christianity, when in fact many of them have no idea what it truly means to be a Christian. Maybe they are just Old Testament Christians, and forgot to read the New Testament. I go off on my parents all the time (white, republican, christians) about this very issue.
As far as Quinn’s “mandate”- not sure i would have used that word if I was him, but I can tell you one thing if you think we can address the budget deficit without some sort of increased tax, be it temporary or otherwise, then you are smoking better weed than i am. with that, i gotta get back to work.. peace.
Comment by bdogg Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:04 am
Wumpus, it was six years ago when Alan Keyes came from Maryland to run for the U.S. Senate, in IL.
Comment by Conservative Veteran Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:05 am
shore -
I think the more fascinating political question is how Hamos would have done against Dold.
I’d love to see the exit-polling from Seals-Dold, especially the crosstabs.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:12 am
While it is unlikely Bean will prevail, it is still close enough and enough votes remain outstanding that Bean is doing the right thing for herself and her supporters to wait for the final count before conceding.
All this talk about “Crook County” and “stealing” the election is nonsense and beneath those that make those charges. If they have real evidence of vote stealing or tampering speak up — if not, stop throwing those allegations around.
Comment by Just Observing Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:41 am
Bean truly needs a miracle out of Lake County:
Right now: (From Lake County Clerk Site)
Election Day
Bean 40,258
Walsh 41,258
Early Voting
Bean 8,124
Walsh 9,336
Mail Ballots
Bean 2,931
Walsh 4,096
I can only assume that the rest of the absentee/mail ballots received after election day will break in Walsh’s favor when you look at these numbers.
Comment by Louis G. Atsaves Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:41 am
Yellow Dog, Hoffman, Hamos, Dillard, Coulson, hynes, raja all had chances to run and win and I’m not really for revisionist history, it’s disrespectful to the people that beat them. They ran their campaigns and lost. Hamos was a 60 year old former springfield lobbyist and career politician. Despite all of that she could not beat seals.
To answer your question I don’t think hamos would have done better. You could argue she would have had a better organization-but seals did better in the primary. You could say she would have done better with fundraising-but she had that in the primary and still lost. Also national democrats outspent dold and still lost. You could make the jewish and women arguments, but those didnt work for her in the primary and they would have been countered by the fact that seals did ok with jewish voters and had the same positions on social issues. Finally there is the matter that seals had name id, no springfield ties, no lobbyist background which I think would have sunk her.
Lost in the kirk shuffle about how the white house lost obama’s seat was the fact that they lost 12 congressional seats in new york (where their seiu trained political director comes from) and Illinois. I can understand losing districts in the south, but you would think all those capitolfaxblog readers in dc would have known how to protect people like bean, seals, foster ect.
Comment by shore Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 11:47 am
So the possible head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is a Biblical literalist. The earth is 6,000 years old, Jesus walked with the dinosaurs, Adam and Eve are the first humans, evolution is a scam, gays are evil, etc.
One question: who voted for this guy?
Comment by Lefty Lefty Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 12:04 pm
- shore
I disagree with you about whether Hamos would have been a better candidate. I believe that one of the reasons that the 10th race stayed relatively quiet was because voters had pre-determined their stance on Seals. As a two time loser, he was a known quantity. Hamos on the other hand would have energized people to pay more attention and may have pulled more support.
Comment by A.B. Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 12:14 pm
Remapper, Now that primary would be a doozy.
Comment by kj Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 12:27 pm
Louis, the 2008 results are also available on the Lake County website.
Absentee counted on Election Night
Bean 2847
Greenberg 2119
Late arriving
Bean 696
Greenberg 451
Her statement says she’ll do better in Lake than in 2008. Laughable, really. The only good thing in this mess is that the military vote will be counted.
Comment by Inthe8th Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 1:03 pm
Having worked on a Bean campaign in the past, I do not see any chance whatsoever that she can prevail unless there is something dramatically different about absentee and provisional ballots from the other votes counted, which is doubtful.
In terms of the redistricting, Jack Franks won his race overwhelmingly despite the trend line and is in position to go for a redistricted Congressional seat in 2012. With Bean out of the way, the easiest thing to do is to redraw him into the 8th. He doesn’t want to be in the 16th with Manzullo and the 14th isn’t as D favorable.
IF Manzullo were to retire however, (he promised in 92 when first elected that he would serve no more than ten years), that could change things as Rockford could be drawn in to a new 16th district.
If you see Franks toning down his trashing of Madigan, that will be a sign.
Comment by McHenry Mike Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 1:10 pm
–Today I learned from a member of the Walsh campaign about very serious and demonstrable alleged acts of election fraud on the part
of Melissa Bean’s campaign and the Cook County Clerk’s office.–
Dude, you know you’re going to win. It doesn’t make sense to claim fraud when you win.
(Although when William Buckley was asked what he would do if he actually won his campaign for mayor of New York, he said, “Demand a recount.”)
The Walsh Team is going to have to adjust their mindset; they’re going to be in the majority in the House of Representatives, which has very serious responsibilities outlined by the Constitution.
Happy governing.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 1:55 pm
Let’s see what other public policy we can decide on a Biblical basis, Rep. Shimkus….1) cancel the Bush tax cuts “render unto Ceaser, etc.; 2)stop the border fences “love thy neighbor”; 3) save the whales and blue fin tuna “Jonah was swallowed by a big fish”…I’m sure I can find more if I think longer about my sundayschool and confirmation days.
Comment by D.P. Gumby Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 3:14 pm
everyone should really stop trying to hypothesize what the new congressional districts are going to look like. The simple answer is: nothing what they look like right now.
in 2002, both Dems and GOP cut a deal to preserve their seats and maintain their bases of support. That will not happen this time. Every Republican seat, with maybe the exception of Shimkus will look demonstrably different. And I only say with the exception of Shimkus because he already covers half the state.
Comment by Gimmees Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 3:36 pm
If Walsh wins, but thinks there was fraud, does he step down?
Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 3:42 pm
Interesting perspective…still how this individual with so many personal indiscretions gets elected is amazing to me
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-chicago/in-potential-walsh-election-tea-party-deserves-the-credit-and-the-blame
Comment by DMAC57 Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 6:13 pm
In response to - bdogg - Wednesday, Nov 10, 10 @ 10:16 am who wrote:
re- Shimkus. It is baffling to me why some Republicans think that the election gives them some sort of “mandate” to overturn the healthcare bill. go ahead down that road my friends! and in two years, the Dems will take the back what they have lost.
My response: It seems to me what you have said above is almost precisely what Obama said about the 2010 elections shortly after he rammed OBUMMERcare down our throats. It is YOU that doesn’t get it bdogg. America didn’t want this monstrosity when it was passed and even fewer want it now! Take IL17 as just one example. In 2008 Phil Hare ran unopposed. In 2010 he got CLOBBERED! If you don’t think that had anything to do with the health care law you are DREAMING!
Comment by BorisBadenough Friday, Nov 12, 10 @ 10:10 am