Chambliss Wins Runoff

With 93% of precincts reporting, Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss (left) leads Democratic challenger Jim Martin 58 to 42%. AP, CNN, and most of the other major news organizations have called the race for Chambliss.

African Americans did not come out in as large numbers as they did in November, and Chambliss's message seemed to have resonated with many Georgians.

This is certainly a disappointing night for Democrats, whose dreams of a 60-seat supermajority in the Senate were dashed tonight by Chambliss's victory.

But this election can be a learning lesson for Democrats for future election years. As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com said, "I think the Democrats need to think carefully about what went wrong here as they begin to gear up for 2010."

The current count of the new Senate is 58 to 41 in the Democrats favor (including Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side).

The only race that has yet to be decided is the one in Minnesota, where the recount is still going on. The the Canvassing Board will have to look over at least 6,000 challenged ballots, one-by-one, before we know the winner. And that probably won't be until late December at the earliest.

For those of you out there who still crave more elections, the last two races of this year will be on Saturday, as LA-02 and LA-04 hold their postponed elections. I will delve into those races later in the week.