12,000 more are coming in tonight, and the rest will be counted in the coming days. Given the composition of the existing absentee/early/provisional ballots though, and the location of the uncounted lots, Begich’s lead is only expected to increase, by as much as another half a percentage point.

Update:

After counting the evening’s votes, Begich is up by 814.  The ballots not yet counted are apparently from heavily D-leaning areas, so it’s pretty safe to call this one for Begich.

That puts the Senate tally at 56-40-2 plus two races too close to call.

In the Senate, the tally is 55-40-2, with 3 seats undecided:
Alaska:
FiveThirtyEight has a simulation that suggests that there is still a decent chance of Mark Begich defeating convicted felon & Republican senator Ted Stevens, thereby preventing Sarah Palin from appointing herself temporary Senator (and then winning the special election) and making us listen to her verbal gymnastics for another six years.  If she wants to run for President this would be an ideal place to improve her image… but since the Senate has to actually vote on the record, strategically and tactically on many different issues, it’s traditionally been a very difficult place to springboard to the Presidency from.  Whether Sarah Palin’s appeal to her base is subject to tedious things like how she voted is up for discussion.  More on her (and the future of the Republican Party) in a later post.

Georgia:
While a few more votes have to be counted, Georgia’s Republican senator Saxby Chambliss is at 49.8% to Democratic challenger Jim Martin’s 46.8%. Under Georgia law, the winner coming in under 50% triggers a runoff that it would be entirely possible for Jim Martin, campaigning with President-elect Obama and enjoying much of the Democratic Party’s attention, could win.  3 points is considerable as a handicap, but I think this is entirely about how the economy does and how much effort the Democrats put into this race.

Minnesota:
Odds are close to even on who a month-long recount (to start in a week or two) will favor. Coleman has around 200 votes over Frankin, and lawsuits over things as small as a 32 ballot absentee batch that was slow in the coming in have been filed.

Update:
It looks like that lawsuit (which has been thrown out) may have attempted in the small print to stop the counting of most of the uncounted ballots:

Connecticut:
Lieberman was not up for reelection this year, but he may be impacted. Over the course of the last 8 years, he has gone:

• from the Vice-Presidential Nominee who torpedoed recount efforts & his chances of winning by being too conciliatory

• to an influential part of the DLC who “Votes with us on everything but the war”
• to an independant pro-war candidate who couldn’t muster enough Democratic votes to win a primary but could win an election by splitting both Republican and Democratic votes

• to a full-on neoconservative shill who campaigned with McCain and said he doesn’t know whether America would survive a government with the Democratic Party at its reins

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pretty adamant that his committee chairmanship (Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs) be yanked, but even offered him a trade: a chair somewhere else where his pro-war positions won’t damage Democratic ability to govern effectively. Joe’s spokesman said simply that losing his chair was “unacceptable,” as Democrats stood in awe of his audacity and the blogosphere called for him to be thrown out of the caucus entirely. The sole position I’ve been warning about since the issue came up in 2006 where this could matter after 2008, the 60th censure vote that Democrats need to stop Republican obstructionism in the Senate, would be at stake if the above three races are decided in favor of Democrats. The question for the Senate might end up being – Is suffering Joe Lieberman as deciding vote worth having the deciding vote?

The line will be drawn in the red Arizona sands, in John McCain’s back yard – a trophy that the Democrats won’t gain, but nevertheless an endpoint that represents the biggest margin a Democrat has been elected by since Johnson trounced Goldwater in 1964.  Say what you will about the Bradley or anti-Bradley effect, Obama has too many other things going for him.

• The cell-only correction in an age when young voters register Democratic over Republican bby a 2:1 ratio

• The unprecedented African-American voter turnout expected

• The ‘enthusiasm gap’ that McCain suffers (where he has to hold events at a school so that students are included and he can get more than 1000 people to attend, while Obama gets crowds of 100,000) will likely cause many of his voters that get polled to stay home.  This includes the GOTV efforts that Obama has set up – a ground campaign that McCain’s efforts were never able to touch.

• The deep hangover that the Republican party faithful tangentially connected to reality suffer from in the face of Sarah Palin, after the two-week-long euphoric highs of her cult of personality

And the clincher:

• The amazingly high numbers of people voting early, and the amazing margin by which they’re going for Obama. I understand that his canvassers urge early voting, but the numbers we’re seeing would need an election-day landslide for McCain to correct in some states where a significant portion of the electorate has already voted.

We’ll know in 24 hours how accurate I was.

Side bets:

• States without early voting, particularly ones with a diverse populations like Maryland, will positively swell with voters today, causing long enough lines to provoke outrage.  I’ll be out there at 7AM.

• When Obama makes his inauguration day address, the District of Colombia will swell with the biggest event it’s ever had.  If the same regurgitated speech in a campaign that lasted two grueling years can fill 100k seat stadiums multiple times a day, Inauguration Day will draw millions – and the low-attendence restricted-ticket events planned (where controversy has arisen over things like restricting crowds in front of bleachers) will be ill-equipped to handle it.  I’ll be out there at 7AM as well.

Update:

Arrived at poll at 7:30AM to a line that was just doubling back as it reached the end of the elementary school’s property.  I heard “Been here 90 minutes” from the people coming out.  There was a lot of chatter about Palin’s outrages and Obama’s merits as well as a few Democrats at their table – but not a vocal McCain supporter in earshot.  An hour and 15 minuts later, I was out, and the line appeared to be shorter by about 10%.