Herseth Will Win

5:18 Rome time, 10:18 Central. 579 precincts reporting Herseth leads 89386 to
84787. Roughly (assuming total votes per precinct constant) Diedrich must win
53.5 % of remaining votes. The last 1941 votes went more than 54% for Herseth so this is very unlikely. I call the race for Herseth.


update: 5:25 Rome time only 11 more precincts reporting now Diedrich must win by 6.68 % of remaining votes and he won 6.67 % of votes in those 11 precincts. I'm not scared. I stand by my call.

update 5:28 Rome time. 604 precincts reporting in last 16 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 5.8% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 8% (whew).

update 5:32 Rome time. 618 precincts reporting in last 14 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 21% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 7.2% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.



update 5:37 Rome time. 633 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 13.1% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 6.9% I'm getting antsy, but I stand by my call.

update 656 precincts reporting in last 23 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 13.7% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.8% (whew).

update 671 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 15.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.3% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.

update 688 precincts reporting in last 70 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 1.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 11.1%. That really really looks unlikely.

update 6:08 Rome time. Now 700 preincts reporting. in the last 12 precincts Herseth wins by 3.2% Diedrich must win remaining votes by 12.85 %. That looks really unlikely.

update 6:22 Rome time 712 precincts reporting in last 12 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 12.2% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 12.6%. That looks very unlikely.

update 6:43 Rome time 725 precincts reporting in last 13 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 14.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 13.5%. That looks very unlikely. Recall approximation same number of votes in each precinct.

update 6:51 Rome time 753 precincts reporting in last 28 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 7.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 19.3%. That looks very very unlikely.

update 6:54 Rome time 758 precincts reporting in last 5 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 6.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 16.3%. That looks very very unlikely.

Update 7:05 Rome time 765 precincts reporting in the last 7 precincts Herseth beat Dietrich by 46.9 percent. Dietrich must win the remaining votes by 27.9 % That looks impossible, but the proof that precincts are totally different makes me no more certain than I was 11 minutes ago.

update 7:35 AM Rome time. in the past half hour 1 precinct has reported. Give me a break (a long break). I just spent a whole sleepless night following congressional election returns in South Dakota. How the hell am I going to survive November? Anyway I am off to sleep.

Final Update 1:29 PM Rome time 5:29 AM in South Dakota. 796 of 798 precincts reporting. Diedrich has won 4 more of the 16448 votes counted since I went to sleep. Assuming that the number of votes per precinct is constant and ignoring late counted absentee ballots, Diedrich would have to win 274 % of the uncounted votes (that means negative votes for Herseth). To be less surreal , there are two unreportgin precincts. My guess is they will report 657 votes Herseth's lead (which was roughly constant all night) is 2944 votes. congratulations congresswoman Herseth.