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Not counting the 250,000 or so provisional (and absentee?) votes, Ohio goes to Bush by 136,000. Basically, Kerry needs 136,000 + 1/2*118,000, or 195,000 of those 250,000, about 80%. It's possible but it doesn't look good.
Meanwhile, the GOP get 6 (effectively 5) more House seats. One of those House seats was held by a conservative Democrat named Charles Stenholm, who voted often with the GOP, so the gain is more like 4 to 4-1/2. Not great, but it could have been worse.
The GOP picked up a Senate seat, giving them 55 to 44 (one Independent).
The vote confirms 2000, but still not a mandate. The 115 million voters, 55% of all eligible voters, were split down the middle, so the GOP gained a couple of percentage points.
Nader did not tip the race to Bush this time.
If "furthering the agenda," to quote Kohn Thune, who unseated Democrat Tom Daschle in South Dakota, becomes the first order of business then maybe there'll be a Cold Civil War, in which the Blue states on the coasts and around the Great Lakes find ways to sandbag "the agenda" at state and local levels. |
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