The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; November 7, 2006

- Transcript
Thank you. This is Election Day 2006, writing on the results, the control of the Congress of the United States and all that goes with it, including possibly even the course of the war in Iraq. I'm as concerned as confused as everyone else about the war in Iraq.
I try to look at the candidates and see where they stand and what they think and that's how I vote. The Democrat approach comes down to this, the terrorist win, and America loses. Democrats want a new direction because we believe it's important to take our country forward. We've done a lot of things right and we've done some things wrong. You think we can be headed in a better direction. And if you do, give me a chance to help lead us in that direction. We'll have complete coverage of this special election edition of the New South. Major funding for the New South with Jim Lara is provided by... In navigating towards retirement, there are many courses you can take and Pacific Life can help you reach your goals. With over 135 years of experience, Pacific Life offers a wide range of financial solutions. Approach the future with confidence. Pacific Life, the power to help you succeed.
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Good evening from Washington, I'm Jim Lara, and I welcome you to this New South Special Edition. Control of Congress is the big, big story tonight, and the House Republicans are struggling to hold seats in Indiana, Kentucky, and other states. Democrats need 15 to take power for the first time since 1994. And the U.S. Senate, according to projections from exit polls, Democrats have held a seat in New Jersey and picked up two so far, one in Ohio, another in Pennsylvania. They need four more to move to the majority. And in the governor's races, two big states have changed hands to the Democrats in Ohio and Massachusetts. And now, two, to add their analysis and wisdom to what we know thus far, our shields and Panuru, syndicated columnist, Mark Shields, National Review, Senior Editor, Ramesh Panuru, joining us, our Gwen Eiffel, also from Pennsylvania, and Margaret Warner from our studio here.
And a few moments, Margaret is going to go to Chris Salissa for more details on the results themselves. Chris, of course, has been following the race for WashingtonPost.com. Ramesh, we've talked about it. Everybody's talked about a possible Democratic wave. Do you see signs of it? I think it's a little bit early. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Senate races were widely expected to be won by Democrats, and now it's just what everybody expected to happen does, in fact, seem to be happening. But I think I'm going to need to look at some more of the House races. We're going to need to find out what's happening in Virginia and the Senate race there, whether George Allen can pull it out against the Democratic challenger, Jim Webb, before we can tell how big victory Democrats are going to have tonight. Virginia is still the key to it, right? And at this point, Mark, Virginia remains the keystone in the cornerstone or any Democratic hopes of getting majority in the Senate. I would add one other element to it, Jim. And that is there were 18 congressional districts in the country in 2004. The John Kerry carried that had a Republican member of Congress elected.
Three of those were in Connecticut, the suburban districts in Philadelphia, when Eiffel is covered in North rips and Takis, the third, the Louisville district. The Democrats, if they're going to have the sweep that I think they're capable of having, potential will have tonight, they have to start winning an overwhelming percentage of those districts. Yeah, yeah, Gwen is with us from Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia, where you've been watching and you've been covering those races up there. What the turnout was huge, was it not in Pennsylvania? The turnout was huge in Pennsylvania. What you see behind me is a bunch of students here and we're having a little watching party and they're all completely enthused. Many of them have been working in these campaigns. Three critical districts, including the one that we're in right now, the seventh congressional district of Pennsylvania, Congressman Kurt Welden, who has been having a very tough re-election race, and two other districts were Republican, Mike Fitzpatrick, and another Republican that might Jim Girlock,
who are also having tough re-election races. That, plus the Senate race, which has been called now for Bob Casey, who's defeated an incumbent senator, as you mentioned, Rick Santorum, brought a lot of people out to the polls, but not only in Pennsylvania, Jim. We've also seen amazing turnout in states like Connecticut, where there was a tight race, a Senate race, and a lot of important house races as well. Three, five in danger to incumbents there. We've seen the heavy turnout in Maryland, where there's a big governor's race and a big Senate race. We've seen big turnout in states like Michigan, which didn't seem to have very competitive races, the Senate race for Debbie Stabenow, the incumbent, and the governor's race with Jennifer Grant home, but it also had an affirmative action initiative on the ballot. So when you start to go down these lists, we got this from the National Association of Elections officers. You begin to see that where the heaviest turnout was in Missouri, in Ohio, here in Pennsylvania. Even in South Dakota, where there was an anti-abortion initiative on the ballot, that's where the big turnout was,
and the incredible amount of interest in a midterm election. Those three races, those three house races, as you mentioned in Pennsylvania, they have yet to be called. Is that correct? That's correct. Of course, it's going to take a lot longer to hear. Even though the polls are closed in some places, in some places in Pennsylvania, they've actually had to extend them because of glitches with the voting, not widespread ones, but small ones. But house folks' races generally take a lot longer to call, in part because there aren't really exit polls, which are being conducted the way they are in the statewide Senate races. Now, Mark, you felt you felt all along that those house races in Pennsylvania were key to this, too. I do, Jim. I mean, really, they're a demographic switch. I mean, that historically, in the area where Gwen has covered, we're suburban, upscale Republican districts, and it's where the Democrats have made headway, and perhaps the Republicans have moved away from, since the sort of the Southernization of the Republican Party, and maybe on cultural and moral issues as well,
and religious issues. These are suburban voters who probably aren't as comfortable with that, but these are just the moderate Republican districts. That's what the main line of Philadelphia, then Bucks County, which of course is the great county that James Mitchell wrote so well about. So those two districts, that's a girl like if it's Patrick, and Kerry carried both of them very narrowly in 2004, but the idea that Bob Casey was leading in those districts, the idea that Bob Casey from Scranton, Pennsylvania, a hard-scrabble, blue-collar, lunch-pale Democrat, was carrying those congressional districts, probably doesn't argue well for the Republicans. Ramesh, put Santoram in context of the national Republican Party, particularly the leadership in the Senate, and what his loss either stands for symbolically or otherwise. Well, Santoram had a leadership post in the Republican Senate. He was chairman of the conference, and his departure from the Senate, who will be a real blow to conservatives.
He was a leader, particularly of the social conservative block, in the Senate. Now, his opponent, Robert Casey Jr., like Santoram, is against abortion, and has said that he would vote that way. But nobody expects him, and in fact he has said that he wouldn't play this kind of leading role that Santoram has. Yeah. Quinn, what is the word on? There's any exit poll information or anything, and the anecdotal, anecdotal information that you can give us as to what cause Santoram to go down in such a major way, too Casey. Well, the most striking thing I've noticed is about six months ago, maybe it was only three months ago, it all blurs together. I saw a poll in which people asked Pennsylvania voters if they liked Vic Santoram. Now, mind you, they had voted for him. He was their elected senator, but a lot of people said they didn't personally like him. As you can imagine, in every other state, we've been here for several days in Pennsylvania, looking at these ads, and they had been slashing. They had been negative.
And Bob Casey didn't hesitate to link Rick Santoram to President Bush to say that Rick Santoram was to conservative for Pennsylvania to the point that I heard a radio ad the other day, cut by the moderate Republican senator, Ireland Spector from Pennsylvania, in which he said, listen, Rick Santoram's not as conservative as you think. That was Ireland Spector's way of saying, get out and vote for my colleagues. So that really seemed to work against Rick Santoram in the end. Yeah. Mark, I've just been told, when I mentioned earlier, that there was a big turnout in Michigan. I've just been told that they have now called Jennifer Granholm, the winner, in her reelection campaign for governor. Now that, she had a rough race, and she had a rough race. Of course, Michigan's in tough shape economically. The economy was working against her. She was able to turn it against Dick DeVos, the former president of Amway, and accused him of hurting the economy in Michigan by sending jobs to China.
And Dick DeVos and deep pockets campaign put in, I believe, $20 million of his own money in that race. And so it was, Jennifer Granholm actually came back, and I think one fairly comfortably. Yeah, that's what, when you said that there was a, do you have anything specific about the turnout in Michigan, or it was just that it was unexpectedly large compared to what, yeah, just unexpectedly large? Unexpectedly large is the way it's put. The way the Association of State Election Officers puts it, the turnout in Michigan was heavy, which is a record for them. So I think that there were a number of issues that brought it out. In addition to that, Jennifer Granholm, Debbie Stabenow, the Senator of Democratic Senator for Michigan, Republicans saw that as a possible pickup in the last several weeks, saw this, and they started sending more money into Michigan. And as a result, I think that raised a profile of that race and maybe, as some Republicans feared, energized the wrong voters. Why are you,
you can say to me, that the Tigers winning the American League on an upset and beating the New York Yankees go in the World Series, gave a lift. I mean, Detroit is a city, and in the Metport, there is needed a lift. And it really gave a lift. And I can recall in 1969, John Lindsey being reelected mayor of New York, in large part, on the fumes generated by the wonderful feeling of the miracle Mets. I mean, so the cultural event, the intervened, gave people a better feel in a strange way about Michigan, which probably helped the incumbent. What you're feeling on that, Ramesh, why were the Republicans not able to take advantage of the situation in Michigan? Well, you know, it's funny, Republicans didn't in 2004. You may remember at the very end of that campaign, Bush spent a lot of time in Michigan, only to see it go for carry in the end. I think that it's very hard to, again, go up against this national political environment. What's striking to me is not so much that Republican challengers aren't knocking off these Democratic incumbents and close races, is that there are so few close races
involving Democratic incumbents to begin with. And that is at every level when you're talking about the governors, the senators, or the House members. Okay. Look, I've just been told also that there's no surprise, but Senator Joe Lieberman has been projected the winner in Connecticut. Glenn, you had mentioned earlier that Connecticut was a state with a big turnout. That's a whole different political story. And now we now have contact with Chris Alyssa at the Washington Post and we're going to get an update from him through Margaret Warner, Margaret. And the polls have now closed in 40 states, some just a few minutes ago. So for a report on the other returns reported so far, other than the ones Jim has told us about, and a guide on what to look for in the hours ahead, we are joined by Chris Alyssa from WashingtonPost.com and he's been monitoring election developments in the post-newsroom and he actually joins us by phone, the miracle of modern technology. Chris, let's look at the House races.
What can you tell us about the return so far in races in the House with the potential to flip control? We've got one definite flip. Indiana's eighth district, Southern Indiana district, John Hostetler, the Republican incumbent has lost that race to Brad Ellsworth, the Democrat. That's not incredibly unexpected, but it is a switch to other races in Indiana. The second district where Chris Chakola, the Republican incumbent, is running for reelection. He looks like he is in trouble in his trailing. And in Indiana's ninth district, down in Southern Indiana, again, former Rep Baron Hill, the Democrat, has a small, but significant lead over Microsoft or the current Republican incumbent. So we could be looking at three potential pickups out of Indiana already for Democrats. And then Chris, what about the other state that closed early, closed at seven Kentucky? Right. Fascinating race in Kentucky's third district. This is not one we expected to happen, but it looks as though Congresswoman and North
of the Republican will lose that race to John Yarmith, the Democratic candidate. Northup has held that seat since 1996, despite the fact that Al Gore and John Kerry carried it during the 2000 and 2004 presidential There's 96% of the vote counted there. Yarmith has a 7,000 vote lead, so a real surprise there in a good sign for Democrats. And that was a race that many observers felt really if she went down that that was very bad for Republicans. Is that right? Absolutely. whether because of the fact that Northup ran a very good campaign in the Democratic candidate was fine, but not as good a challenger as Democrats had put up against Northup before and she had beaten. So that was race was seen as if there is a Democratic wave building. It would come a seat that was won by the last two Democratic presidential nominees but held by a Republican. Then what about some of the states, the states that closed it eight o'clock? Sure. I think actually for Republicans and Florida. In Florida's 13th district
which is capped to see Catherine Harris gave up to make her now unsuccessful run for the Senate. The Republican candidate named Vern Buchanan appears to be ahead there. Now it's not by a lot. It's about 53-47 but he is ahead in the 16th district which I think most people are aware of his Mark Foley district to see that Mark Foley had to give up resigning a mid-sexual scandal. He's right in candidate the vote for Mark Foley that are going to a guy named Joe Negron, a Republican state rep. He is ahead at the moment of Tim Mahoney, the Democratic candidate that would be a real coup for Republicans to hold that seat because of the problem that people would actually have to go into the ballot and vote for Mark Foley and those votes would be counted for Mr. Negron. A real pick-me-op at least in Florida it looks like. And what about the third Florida race that was Clay Shaw? Right, the 22nd Clay Shaw v. State Senator Ron Klein the Democrat. We're still a little bit too early in terms of knowing what's going to happen there but everyone and everyone I had talked
to in previous weeks said very, very close. That's going to be and North of C Watch that one in terms of bell weather possibilities if Clay Shaw loses he's been in Congress since 1980. If he loses it spells a bad night for Republicans. Okay, now turning to the Senate as we reported earlier, Menendez is held into his seat the Democrat in New Jersey and then Ohio and Pennsylvania have gone to the Democratic pretty much as expected. Virginia? Very, very close. And that is the one Ohio and Pennsylvania are not necessarily bell-weather. Everyone expected the Democrats to over Virginia's very close. I talked to some folks affiliated with George Allen the Republicans campaign. They said they feel pretty good. Why? Because 80% of the Democrats have been counted and their guy George Allen of Jim Webb the Democrat. So they feel as though if they can withstand that vote with the in Northern Virginia Democratic area
that they can They admit going to be and it still either way. Now Chris, we've had the networks or the AP like some of these races. What do they on? They do on projections why you see few votes actual votes have been cast. But where been cast DeWine the Republican incumbent is performing well below where he needed to get in order to win state wide. So what the people at these with these news do say DeWine performing critical places and the reality that he that he cannot win So it's a problem. He just can't He can't percent showings far. Lissa Post com much. Margaret thank Mark Shields
Paneru still here I still Pennsylvania Margaret your as the first mark what we all the time get the and say to has the projected winner and all of you have more and I the two experience was a very experience the life probably school if and the world and the the the the those the
the um Do you feel, are you comfortable with those things tonight? I think that given some of the disasters, particularly in the year 2000, I think that the networks and the AP have become much more careful about projections. So it's not absolutely for sure that they're right, but I just think they're much, I know they're much more careful than they were in 2000. That said, we've just gotten a projection from a very closely watched Senate race which is Maryland where it's an open seat, Ben Cardin, the Democrat who was expected to do very to win originally because it's such a Democratic state, suddenly faced quite a competition from the Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, but it is now being projected and called that in fact Ben Cardin did win. And Gwen, you said that at the very beginning. And Maryland had an unusually large turnout too, did it not? Yes, and they were actually fighting over the same kinds of voters.
Michael Steele was one of those candidates who didn't want to say he was Republican, he was very much after, he kept saying he was a Lincoln Republican, not a Bush Republican, for instance. At the same time, Ben Cardin, an old war horse at the party in Maryland, I used to cover Maryland politics for a long time, and he'd been around for a long time and still try to use that against him. And it appeared in the last days of that campaign that things were closing, that still was actually going to make a chance. Make a real run at being, Ben Cardin, if he had, it would have been a major African-American senator, but it just doesn't sound like it closed. You know, it's interesting what's happening in Maryland as well as other states, these exit polls, what we talk about, you know, sometimes we've had some issues with them when it comes to deciding who wins and who loses, but sometimes on issues, the issues that people are talking about tonight, they're talking about corruption. But Iraq tells us a lot about what the mood of the country is. Talking more about corruption than Iraq. Every going into this, everybody said, hey, it's Iraq or Iraq or Iraq, it's George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, and then corruption.
But you're saying... When you went... Go ahead. Yeah, when you asked them an open-ended question as the exit pollsters did, the first question was corruption, which as we traveled the country, covering this race, we never heard that. The second was terrorism, the third was the economy, and the fourth was Iraq. They were closely grouped, but it was kind of surprising to hear people say that. If it's true that most Americans were really bothered by corruption scandals in Washington, that's not a good sign for incumbents. Does that surprise you, Ramesh? Well, it doesn't seem to fit with the men in Desuynne in the New Jersey Senate race, but there does seem to be... Because we should explain, here's a opponent on Kane Jr. had alleged that there was corruption involved in men in Desuynne's background, but it didn't clearly didn't take. That's right. He won the States. I think the partisan allegiances of that state were eventually triumphant. I think that to the extent, corruption is playing a role in this race, there's a clear partisan edge to it that there is... That people are upset about the mess in Washington, and they associate that with the
Republicans. How do you feel about that? That's right. I do think that probably the Bob Nae resignation reminded people again, I mean, another Republican member of the House quitting, which he did last Friday, I mean, that was news. It was cumulative. I think the Foley story crystallized so much of the dissatisfaction with the status quo, which had an ethical and moral dimension to it as well. I did want to add on the Maryland thing. I think it's fair to say that Michael Steele in Maryland has a future. I mean, he ran a friend of mine, John Carr, observed that... Who's John Carr? John Carr is a fellow here in town who lives in Maryland and is a very insightful analyst of Maryland politics. He said, Michael Steele had become an election about change. He became the change candidate in Maryland instead of the Democrat.
With the Republicans in charge of everything, the House, the Senate, the White House. He became the change candidate, and Ben Cardness is Gwen Plaidout, has been... The House for 20 years was Speaker of the Maryland legislature before that, and Ben almost gets tagged as the status quo candidate and steals television, I think, was probably the best in the country that I saw anyway. Most creative. And what would give people an example? I mean, it was, he presented himself as a non-politician, was against Washington, was against all lobbyists, taken gifts, any gifts, no more gift, wanted a gift ban, was tired of the partisanship that people in Washington all they did was argue, and he was opposed to that. I mean, he just kind of presented himself in a different way, in a entirely different way, and a very, very camera friendly. I think he, and I think in a strange way, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, who had a tough campaign because the toughest thing in politics is to run wire-to-wire, to be first, at the beginning,
and first, all the way through, and against a very tough opponent, Rick Santorum, who raised $21 million, Casey, to maintain that lead, and beat it in incumbent senator. Margaret, tell us about Joe Lieberman, for people who have just been dropped in out of dropped in from Mars, the fact that he got re-elected tonight by a sizeable margin apparently, a very interesting story about this political year that doesn't fit neatly into much of anything, to recap the story of Joe Lieberman. Well, Joe Lieberman, as we know, was the centrist Democratic senator from Connecticut, who had actually run for vice president, and when he got into the race, thought he had a pretty smooth sailing toward getting the primary, at least, and this fellow Ned Lamont from Greenwich ran against him completely on an anti-war platform, attacking Joe Lieberman for being mentally a vote for the Iraq War, but a consistent vote after that, supporting President Bush, and Ned Lamont with the help of bloggers and a lot of activists in Connecticut
actually defeated Joe Lieberman in the primary. Then, at that point, I think most of us thought, well, Joe Lieberman must be toast. It turned right around, said, I'm going to run us an independent, and then, remarkably, the Republicans decided, since they had a very weak candidate themselves, the Republican Party gave no support to their own candidate, and therefore many, many of the Republicans in Connecticut and independence ended up moving towards Joe Lieberman, and I think he's led in the polls pretty consistently ever since that primary loss. Yeah. And, Ramesh, of course, he says he is going to organize with the Democrats, meaning he is a Democratic vote when it comes to controlling the Senate of the United States, but he may turn out to be the most independent member of the United States Senate from this. Right? There's been a lot of speculation that he is going to feel less need to vote with the Democrats on each and every issue, whereas he has before. I mean, remember, this is a guy who had national ambitions within the Democratic Party,
who was on the ticket for the Democrats in 2000, and so he has, he waned himself in on some of these issues over the years, and I think we may see the emergence of an older and more conservative and more independent Joe Lieberman. But Glenn, the rest of Connecticut, I mean, there's the Joe Lieberman, but there are also three very important house races up there, and you said again earlier that the turnout has been terrific in the state of Connecticut, but the whole Connecticut story has not yet been told, has it? No, it hasn't been told. You know, the interesting thing that's been going on in Connecticut, as you know, Chris Shays, who is a Republican, considered to be a moderate Republican, is running a very tough race, as is John Nancy Johnson, who's also running a tough race, and Rob Simmons, all Republicans, three house races, very critical, we're watching for those tonight as well. And you know what we were also watching, what was going on in Rhode Island. It seemed like the flip side early on where we saw the moderate Republican, Lincoln Shapie, actually tried to beat Sheldon Whitehouse, he had a very tough primary, he won it,
and now he's really having a hard time in Rhode Island. Yeah. And he did just the opposite of Lieberman. Another, he was a Republican who voted against the President, in fact, voted against the war, one of the only Republican who voted against the war, and voted very seldom voted with the President, but the Republican supported him because he wanted to keep the seat for organizational reasons, and yeah, you're not. You should be noticed. Yeah. And it should be noted that the reason we've been one was because of Republican votes, not Democratic votes, at least that's what the polls were showing in the last week. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now election officials and lawyers were out in force today, along with the voters, they were at polling places looking for signs of voting problems, and for more on that, we go to raise Suarez. Lessons learned from recent election supposedly had election officials prepared to handle problems at the polls this year. Voting from malfunctioning voting machines to registered voters being barred from casting a ballot.
Doug Chapin is director of electionline.org, a nonpartisan organization that's tracking voting problems across the country. He joins us now. And I guess Doug, the focus has shifted from early in the day with the late openings to now late closings. Exactly. Some of the problems across the country have led lawyers to go to court seeking extension of polling hours, and it's sort of a tale of two cities a little bit. In the city of Cleveland, the Democratic Party was successful in getting a judge to agree to keep 16 precincts open until nine o'clock local time. Whereas in Denver, Colorado, lawyers were unsuccessful in getting a judge to agree to keep that county's polling place as open an additional two hours because of long lines and problems in the vote today. Now, did they give any reason why they wouldn't grant that extension? I mean, often judges err on the side if they err on any side of trying to widen the franchise. There, the judge said that she didn't have the authority, she believed to order the hours to be extended and said that because her ruling was early enough in the day that
voters could make sure they were in line by the time polls closed at seven o'clock local time. The reason line at the time that polls closed is still entitled to vote. Now, it's been estimated that one out of every three voters casting a ballot today did so using a new method. So obviously, we're in the midst of this huge change, how did it go out there? It went generally well, but there were problems across the country. As you mentioned before, there were problems early in the day. Several jurisdictions had problems getting those machines started, machines that wouldn't boot up or poll workers that didn't remember how to start them, even machines in Utah, for example, that couldn't get the cards to activate the machines to work properly. So we saw isolated but widespread problems in getting those machines to work. And will this be the last election? Are we sort of moving the goat through the anaconda as it were and getting the full turnover that was brought in by the helping America vote at?
I think we're getting there, I don't know if the goat is all the way through the anaconda. That's my new favorite metaphor, by the way. I think progress is definitely being made as more and more jurisdictions. Not everyone has reached this point yet. There may still be jurisdictions out there that haven't gotten as far in the process as maybe even some of those jurisdictions that had problems today. Now, is there any suspicion, are there any accusations that this is not just mishaps involving new technology, but something more sinister at work? You always hear those allegations, every election, probably the best or the most publicized today was out of New Jersey, where some voters claimed that when they stepped up to voting machines that the Democratic Senate candidate, Robert Menendez's name had already been selected. The authorities were alerted, monitors were called, and at least to my knowledge, those problems were not further substantiated. Now, you've been watching this at election line, if people feel that things were not as they should be, in a computerized world, is it easy to go back and check?
If you have complaints tomorrow and Thursday and Friday, will a judge be able to look at the evidence? Is there evidence in a computerized voting world? Not always. That will be the challenge, especially in races that end up being very close. It's very difficult, and judges are very reticent to overturn elections. If there are demonstrated problems and enough problems to potentially affect the outcome, then a judge will maybe be persuaded to take a look, but proof in those cases usually needs to be fairly specific and fairly convincing. But does the technology lend itself toward being able to examine how the vote was cast? Or once it's in the chips, once it's in the hard drive of an individual machine, is it easily extracted? What actually happened on election day? It isn't as easy. The new paperless voting systems were thought to be a benefit because they would free us from hanging chat and missed marked ballots. The problem is, in situations like this, is that also frees us frequently from a paper
record of how individual voters voted, and that can make untangling the result very difficult in the days and weeks following an election. So if you have a dispute, it becomes a my word against yours, question in some jurisdiction? Essentially that. I mean, you'll see lawyers filing after David's and the like, but individual voters may not have the ability to prove that that's how I voted. Well, that's been one of the downsides talked about, but one possible upside, we could get results faster. Couldn't we? Doesn't this massive wave to computerization make it possible to get finalized results that much faster? It does. I do think, though, that everyone involved is being deliberate. We've already heard about how deliberate the networks and the exit pollsters are about releasing their projections. I think in many places, election officials are going to be deliberate about releasing the results. No one wants to be that jurisdiction that calls it one way on election night and has proven wrong two or three days later.
So people are going to dot every eye, cross every tee, and double check every digit in the returns before they release them. But isn't a computer just telling you how people voted and that's all you can report to the authorities in your stay? That's the theory. But again, I think given the amount of scrutiny we're seeing around the country and the skepticism that lots of people have about some of this technology, election officials are going to take their time to assure themselves that they've gotten it right before they release it to the public. So, conceivably, as you follow the problems that are being reported in from around the country, there may be some races that are undetermined. Very likely there'll be some races that are almost finished, but not quite for several days. Doug Chapin, thanks a lot of pleasure, thank you. And once more to Mark Shields and Ramesh Panerou, plus Margaret Warner and Gwen Eiffel. And Gwen, while Ray, Mr. Chapin, we're talking, the Rhode Island race was called Sheldon Whitehouse defeated, Link Chafie, the Republican incumbent.
And as you said, we were talking about that before, before we went away. And the interesting thing there was that Whitehouse said he said, vote for me, not because we disagree so much on the issues, but because I am a Democrat and he is a Republican and that's control of the United States Senate, right? Yeah, you wouldn't think that kind of kind of inside Washington argument would work. But in fact, what happened here is, Link and Chapie was a burr in the President's side all this time. He seldom voted with the President. In fact, he didn't even vote for George W. Bush for President. He wrote in his father's name on his ballot. That was a famous moment of insubordination on the part of the Republican Senator from Rhode Island. So, the Republicans were kind of split during the primary and were kind of interested in having him defeated and many people supported a far more conservative Republican he was running against.
He said, Link and Chapie survived the primary. The Republicans came around, supported him, but there are some people who say that the divisions of the primary made it a little too late, so that Sheldon Whitehouse who came out of a United Democratic Party in a state which is generally, leans very democratic, except for Link and Chapie, kind of had the advantage in the end. Link and Chapie kind of missed the bullet in the primary, but he didn't get out of the way in time this time. A different bullet. It was a different bullet fire this second time. How would how would conservatives view the defeat of Link and Chapie tonight? It's one of the few bright spots in, in an otherwise depressing landscape, but actually what strikes me is the variety of the Republican senators who are losing between Chapie and Dwight and Ohio and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, so far we've seen a liberal Republican, a moderate Republican, and an abrasive Republican go down, and it's, what does that say? In Montana we may yet see sort of an intellectually challenged Republican go down, so if you can be Republicans from all wings and factions of the party are not having a good night.
And the message of that is? Well the message is you need to be a good candidate in most cases if you're going to weather these bad years for your party. Conrad Burns in Montana is facing a very tough race. He wouldn't be had he not had some self-inflicted wounds, even in a difficult year. Link Santorum had he not alienated large portions of the electorate, same thing. Okay, let's go to Margaret Warner now with some more specific results that have come in and projections that have also come in, Margaret. And I'm back with Chris Salisa of WashingtonPost.com and Chris, and now we see you live. This is terrific on video. There's some more house returns. Tell us about them. The fought by far the most interesting election is in the third district and Northrop in Kentucky, the Republican incumbent has lost. This is a huge surprise. Ms. Northrop had withstood a number of very competitive campaigns despite the fact that she sits in a democratic tilting district.
So a big upset here we're looking at Congressman John Yarmith is the new member of the Democrat. I think what it shows is that there's a national win blowing here for Democrats. And this is the kind of seat that we thought might go over if that was the case. So this is a big one, and I think a big bellwether. And there's another one in Indiana. Right, Indiana is shaping up as a really, really bad night for Republicans. Thus far, Indiana 8 in Southern Indiana has already gone. John Hostetler has lost. We now have heard that Indiana's second district up in the South Bend area, Congressman Chris Chakola, a Republican, has lost a Democrat Joe Donley. So that's now two seats that Democrats have picked up in Indiana. The third one to watch, and again, in Southern Indiana, Indiana's ninth district, Baron Hill, the Democrat against Congressman Mike Saudrill, the Republican. If Baron Hill wins that race, and he is ahead, Democrats are 20% of their way to the majority in Indiana alone. All right, now turning to the Senate, we have reported Maryland and Rhode Island. But now Virginia, is that still neck and neck?
You know, I just got an email that said that Virginia is 49.6% for Senator George Allen, the Republican 49.2% for the Democrat Jim Webb. It doesn't get a heck of a lot closer than that. So extremely close. Don't expect to call there anytime soon, but that one is absolutely critical for Democrats if they want to take back the Senate. They need to beat George Allen. Now, let's take Virginia. Let's say you get down to 99% of the precinct's reporting, and it's still with that kind of a margin. How great is the number of absentee ballots? And are they reflected in these totals or do those remain to be counted? That's a big question. You know, we never know election night just how many absenteees are. Remember, there are also provisional ballots. Those are ballots given to people who may show up at the wrong polling place, but are still allowed to vote. So there's a group of those votes. We never know how large they are until a day or two afterward. If it stays this close, I think we're going to see some form of recount, some way to check the votes.
Usually if the candidates are separated by less than 1%, it's a state law in most states that that automatically triggers a recount. So this may be a very late night in Virginia. All right. Now, take, give us a sort of overview of the next hour. What do you expect we're going to see? The one that I would look to is in the Missouri Senate race. It's one that has been absolutely tied from the get go since months ago. It's Senator Jim Towner Republican against state auditor Claire McCaskill at Democrat. That one, I think, is the bell weather of all bell weathers. If Claire McCaskill wins, I think, and the early return seemed to show that things are shaping up well for Democrats nationally. If that carries over to Missouri, I think you're going to see things west of the Mississippi look even better for Democrats. So that's the one that I'm really going to be keeping an eye on that. And Indiana's ninth district, which we talked about is getting very close to being called. If Baron Hill wins that one, Democrats feel great. Now, how do you explain the fact that in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and in Connecticut, and I think in New York, which all have three house races at least that are very much
a contention, there are what no results yet at all? The thing that is frustrating for me as a political reporter is at every state and many times every district and sometimes precincts within each district count differently. They can count very fast in Kentucky's third district. We saw 80% of the vote be counted very fast and they only went to 96 and was called in the last few minutes. So this is very dependent on sort of human error that people are there and actually tabulating in some cases these votes. The electronic machines are being counted. So it's an uneven process. There is not sort of a uniform way in which this is done and that's why we see some states reporting their results almost entirely. Some states where polls have been closed for hours were just getting 2 and 3 and 4% as you point out. Now, one state that has just two house districts and they're both up for grabs didn't look competitive at all early on is New Hampshire. What is the latest in terms of partial returns from there?
Yeah, you know, both of those races look good for Democrats at the minute. The second district, which is held by Charlie Bass or Republican, was one that broke late but that we knew was going to be competitive, Mr. Bass was slow to respond to some attacks from his Democratic opponent, a guy named Paul Hodes, and polling repeated polling seemed to show Mr. Bass either close or behind in that race. So there's no huge surprise there. The very interesting one is in the first district, Jeb Bradley, again a Republican incumbent, is running against Carol Shea Porter, a woman who most people didn't even expect to win the Democratic primary. She ran on a very strong anti-war platform, won the Democratic primary, and is more competitive than we would have guessed, at least at this point. What does that say? We're not totally sure, but if she winds up winning or at least coming close, you can rest assured that that anti-war sentiment in New Hampshire had a lot to do with it. All right, Chris Salisa, Washington Post dot com. Thanks again. Thank you, Margaret. Yes, thank you, Margaret and Chris, and one more time to Mark Shields and Ramesh Panuru. So where are we, Mark?
Well, just picking up, boy, Chris, to Margaret about New Hampshire, it's fascinating. New Hampshire, the Democrats thought they had a great shot at Jeb Bradley in the first district, and they had the Democratic leader of the House as they slated candidate. He was upset by this out of left field, literally and figuratively candidate, Carol Shea Porter, and she didn't have money, she didn't have anything. She's now given Jeb Bradley the right, Ramesh of his life, and so Charlie Bass, who is the moderate, I think, more established, more popular, he's in the race of his life. This was only 100,000 votes who changed in the country, really, between 2000 and 2004 in state changes. Iowa went from Democrat to Republican, supporting George Bush, and so did New Mexico. New Hampshire went from Republican to Democrat, and it's fascinating, the very popular Democratic governor winning re-election easily in New Hampshire. Now, to my question, where are we tonight?
We're generally speaking, we've got to go here, and if you want to. Yeah. No, I think by every measure, it's a very good night for the Democrats, I mean, there's still in competition and contention for the Senate to win the Senate, it's still in Virginia. We still, we just heard what Chris said, Virginia, for Virginia still, we're still waiting to hear that. The Democrats are having good night. The Republicans are having a bad night, but it's not as good night for the Democrats as they might have hoped. In Florida, the Republicans seem to be holding on to at least one of the contested seats, the seat that Catherine Harris made, and Kentucky, they seem to have held on to, they seem to be holding on to two of the three tight races there. So it's not quite a blowout for the Democrats. But you, so you don't feel the way. You don't feel that when we wake up tomorrow, that the House of Representatives will be in majority control of the Democrats. You do believe that. I think that's probably right, but we still don't know how large that majority is going to be.
And does it matter? Oh, I think it makes a great deal of difference. It will determine how free of hand Nancy Pelosi has. Is she going to have to worry each and every vote that's tight while does she lose one of these Democrats from Kentucky? Does she have some other Democrat and Connecticut that she can use to offset that person? So the margin matters, right? The margin does matter, and that matters in confidence that matters in terms of being able to forge a program that you don't immediately have to go to Republican votes to get. I mean, I think we've seen the Republicans govern with only a majority of the majority. That was their rule in their caucus, unless it had a majority of the majority, they never went to get Democratic votes to pass anything in the House of Representatives. I don't think you'll see Nancy Pelosi governing that way, but I think the more Democrats there are, the easier it is for her to have Democratic initiatives pass in the House of Representatives, which is going to be a test for the Democrats. They have to be something more than the again. They have to be for something. And to prove that, they've got to start passing things in January. Okay. Well, look, Mark, Ramesh, thank you both very much, and to everybody else who's been
with us tonight. And we close our look at today's election for now with a lighter side of things. Here's Jeffrey Brown with some campaign, O6 Humor. Only eight days until the midterm elections, or as most Americans call it, next Tuesday. Well, next Tuesday is finally upon us, the close of an election season that's seen more than its fair share of muddslinging, name-calling, and negative campaign. But for the nation's comedy writers on stage and screen, all the negatives added up to a net positive. Democrats wish they had some direction Republicans hope they can spread the claim. The Washington-based capital-step satirical review has spent the last 25 years mining the political mudd for comedic gold. He is George Allen, he's from Virginia, though he has California roots, he likes wearing
California roots. To my chakra, I sent my kaka, and now I have stepped in some kaka. The group's co-founder, Bill Strauss, is known for his so-called, Lurty Dies, spoonarisms where the letters of words are flipped, but the meaning somehow strike a deeper chord. Yeah, those set-runners could get there when he's fipped by the zooplowners. Cow hum? Because of that ex-camber of mongris. That rattle crouber. Mark Moly. Mark Molyb, slut a weaseball. Indeed, the Mark Foley scandal has been the gift that kept on giving. Former Congressman Mark Foley, I love this story, he's decided to remain in rehab even though it's a 30-day treatment ended last two years ago.
Apparently, phony alcoholism is the trickiest type of alcohol is it to treat. Then there was John Kerry, who perhaps should have left the joke telling to the professionals. And he's now walking around saying that he botched the joke he was trying to tell a joke about the bush. I'm telling you, this guy can lose elections. He's not even in. I guess you all heard about the big accent today, right? You know about that? Yeah, pretty gruesome. Apparently, a number of Republicans running from George Bush collided with a bunch of Democrats running from John Kerry in the just carnage everywhere. I'm Rick Santor. Why prove this message? Some politicians were able to generate laughs with ads that themselves poked fun at the negativity and evidence everywhere. In Connecticut, Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont targeted himself. Meet Ned Lamont, he can't make a decent cup of coffee. Kinky Friedman, a country western singer, writer, and Texas gubernatorial candidate, had
his alter ego answer questions. Tinky has Texas become too politically correct? Hell yes, and I'm going to detoxify Texas if I got to do it one once at a time. There was also, of course, the internet. After a Tennessee ad aimed at Democrat Harold Ford and funded by the Republican National Committee stirred a lot of controversy. Harold, call me. Two Los Angeles-based screenwriters produced a satire that was widely viewed on the popular video website, YouTube. I met him at the playpoint party, and he said the entire time talking to my little brother. I met him a year ago when I was interviewing for the page program, he took a real interest in me. I mean, why don't we just use Michael J. Fox's stem cells. This satirical ad inspired entirely by the hypocrisy of the Republican party. Congressman, call me. All in all, then, it's been a brutal and at times brutally funny campaign. But as the pundits keep reminding us, the stakes are unusually hot.
Just ask Bill Strauss of the capital steps. A star of my mory is this. If the POG wants to peep its power, it better keep it ween as a clistle. Keep the Bowser's truckled, keep that fun off their maces. Or else those criminal deaths are going to have a dong-over-loo, lorious, glam-slide. In the non-election news of this day, more than 20 Iraqis were killed in bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad, and to the South 15 more bodies were found in the Tigris River, all had been tied up and shot. Also today, the Iraqi Interior Ministry charged more than 50 police with torturing prisoners
in eastern Baghdad. And the U.S. military announced another U.S. soldier was killed yesterday. A British soldier was also killed. Saddam Hussein returned to court today, and he urged Iraqis to come together. A few days ago, he was sentenced to death for the killings of nearly 150 Shiites. Today he told a separate court. I call on all Iraqis, Arabs, and Kurds to forgive, reconcile, and shake hands. In this case, Saddam and six others are accused and a crackdown against Kurds in the late 1980s. In London today, an al-Qaeda operative was sentenced to life in prison. There in Barat, plotted to blow up London hotels, plus the New York Stock Exchange, and the World Bank in Washington, none of the attacks took place. Barat faces separate terror charges in the United States. Panama was elected to a seat on the UN Security Council today. The Central American nation won with 164 votes in the UN General Assembly.
Panama became a candidate after Venezuela and Guatemala fought to a draw in 47 earlier grounds. Panama's two-year term begins on January 1st. Flooding rains tapered off today across Western Washington state. Some places got more than 10 inches of rain, and 18 counties were under a state of emergency. The Skajit River was expected to crest above 40 feet near the Canadian border. The National Guard was activated there to help with rescues elsewhere, mudslides, and flooding closed sections of 20 highways. The weather was blamed for at least one death. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 51 points to close above 12,156. The Nasdaq rose nearly 10 points to close above 23.75. And now through the rest of the night, online news hour will have key results and updates of the overall numbers in the struggle for control of Congress.
We'll see you there and again here tomorrow evening with complete analysis of what happened today. For now, I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by... At CIT, we provide the financing to keep health care strong and healthy. We help energy companies find new resources. We work with communications companies to make the world smaller and life bigger. We offer financial aid to make college possible for more students. At CIT, we help finance the future because that's the place to be. See it with CIT. The world's demand for energy will never stop, which is why a farmer is growing corn, and a farmer is growing soy, and why ADN is turning these crops into biofuels.
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- Series
- The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
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- November 7, 2006
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- Election Special episode
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NewsHour Productions
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- Chicago: “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; November 7, 2006,” 2006-11-07, NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed August 30, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-3j3902018x.
- MLA: “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; November 7, 2006.” 2006-11-07. NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. August 30, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-3j3902018x>.
- APA: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; November 7, 2006. Boston, MA: NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-3j3902018x