The pollster who worked for Ted Stevens during the primary race this year says that there’s no way the 40-year Senate veteran can win:
Alaska-based GOP pollster David Dittman, who worked for Sen. Ted Stevens during this year’s primary race, believes Democratic challenger Mark Begich is all but certain to expand his current razor-thin lead and snatch the seat.
“I don’t think Stevens can come back,” Dittman said, noting that he thinks the remaining trove of uncounted ballots will help Begich “increase his lead.”
Even if Begich’s advantage grows, however, Dittman believes it’s highly unlikely that Stevens will concede the race until every last ballot is counted. “He’s probably waiting in Washington,” Dittman said. “I haven’t talked to him since the evening of the election, when I called and just told him I was sorry for the way it turned out.”
Dittman believes early and absentee ballots, which comprise the approximately 40,000 votes left to count, will likely reflect Begichs’ overall advantage so far among those who took advantage of either process. Heavy early voting occurred in the period that directly followed Stevens’ conviction on seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.
Stevens is going to lose, and deservedly so.
[...] to call. Now that Mark Begich has taken a lead in the vote count, it seems fairly obvious that any chances that Ted Stevens can win this race are gone. In Georgia, there will be a runoff election on December 2nd that will essentially be a test of which [...]