Franken/Coleman

Much to my surprise, Al Franken is likely to win the Minnesota Senate seat. The race is currently tied (to be precise, Coleman leads by 5 votes), with slightly more Coleman challenges (2761) to go than Franken challenges (2614). This means that Coleman has to do better on his challenges than Franken does on his. But so far, Coleman has done far worse than Franken on his challenges: The average Coleman challenge has resulted in net 0.73 votes for Franken, while the average Franken challenge has resulted in net 0.40 votes for Coleman. If the 887 resolved ballots are even close to being representative of the remaining 5375, Norm is toast.

My current projection, if Coleman challenges continue to net 0.73 votes for Franken and Franken challenges continue to net 0.40 votes for Coleman, is that Franken will win by 957.

(These numbers are quoted from the Star Tribune's website. I don't know whether it includes the absentee ballots that the MN Supreme Court ruled today must be counted.)

Football picks of the week: Ravens+4 (71% certainty), Bills+7 (66%), Cardinals+7.5 (66%). I've made a pretty good system for picking football games since the election finished, and am now up to 3rd place out of 85 in my pool.

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