Democrat Merkley Projected to Win Oregon U.S. Senate Race

Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate moves to 57 seats.

The Portland Oregonian is calling the Oregon U.S. Senate race for Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley over incumbent Republican Gordon Smith.

With 84% of the vote counted, Merkley, who had been trailing through most of the vote count, has pulled ahead of Smith by something over 5,400 votes, 710,454 to 705,027.

The race is being called despite the fact that 16% of the vote remains to be counted, based upon the location of those uncounted ballots. All but a smattering are from Democratic strongholds Lane County (Eugene), where with 76% of the ballots counting, Merkley is leading Smith by nearly 30,000 votes, at 58% to 38%, and from Multnomah County (Portland), where 71% of the ballots have been counted, and Merkley has a 38% lead over Smith, with 67% of the vote (157,385 votes) to 29% (68,262.) (Third party candidate Brownlow has 8,850 votes in Multnomah County.)

Based upon the location of the uncounted ballots, we join the Oregonian in calling the Oregon U.S. Senate seat for Jeff Merkley.

Democrats will now have at least 57 seat in the U.S. Senate, with Minnesota, Alaska & Georgia yet to be determined. There is a very real possibility that we will have no final determination of the winners in any of those races for several weeks, based upon the need to count late absentee ballots, provisional / challenged ballots, and, in the case of Georgia, the likely need to conduct a run-off election.

And you thought we were done with elections for the year.

(Photo: Jeff Merkley, L, Gordon Smith, R., courtesy Jeff Merkley.com.)