I guess tonight is a night for annoying near victories. In Mississippi, we are headed for a run-off in the special election for MS-01. The Democrat won, but he didn’t quite get 50% of the vote. He fell about 400 votes short. There will be a run-off election on May 13th. Still, this is a totally shocking result. Bush carried the district in 2004 with 62% and Roger Wicker won this seat in 2006 with 66% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the result in Pennsylvania seems to be a case of white people lying to pollsters. Obama is currently carrying Philadelphia Co. by a margin of 130,000 votes. That should have been plenty to make the race a deadheat or even win. But he’s losing the state by 190,000 votes. The reason? He got beaten by much larger than expected numbers in the rural areas and the suburbs barely went for him despite telling pollsters they preferred him 62-38.
The final numbers will probably narrow a bit, but not much. It looks like a 8-10 point victory.
