Maybe the voters in Alaska decided that letting Palin pick a replacement was preferable to electing a Democrat. Palin certainly played coy about the whole Stevens thing and even refused to say whether she voted for him. She seemed to be sending the signal that voting for Stevens was voting for Palin's replacement for Stevens.

And that's why he (and Young) will win.

Stevens (with Young as his partner in the House) were sent to Washington with one mandate. Bring back bags of cash.

Stevens has become a master at horse-trading with Senators to maximize the money going to Alaska. He worked with both Republican and Democratic govnernors to get money for whatever projects they asked for.

Even people who don't like the guy (like me) acknowledge he is good at it. And most of us know when he leaves Alaska will not get anywhere near the level of pork it gets now. That's why even Democrats voted for him (they plugged their noses but they voted for him).

After Senator Murkoski won the governorship and appointed his daughter Lisa to fill his seat Alaska changed the law to require a special election to fill a vacated seat.

My guess. Palin will run for senate against Begich.

Palin will also win. She's still popular in the state and don't underestimate the 'show up those jerks in the lower 48' factor.

In 2012 she will run for President from the Senate.

It is funny, but family and friends in Ireland were very very worried about the Bradley effect. The reason is that a form of it has been very manifest in Irish and especially Northern Ireland politics. Historically, voters polled there have understated their willingness to vote for parties such as Sinn Féin, the Provisional IRA's political arm, or for that matter the DUP or Democratic Unionist Party, Paisley's party. Instead, people polled would state that they planned to vote for the more respectable Unionist Party, the SDLP or if they wanted to be ultra respectable the Alliance Party. Then election after election saw more extremists than expected elected to office, while the moderates did much worse than anticipated.

To the extent that the "Bradley" effect has been observed, it has always required a non-respectable option, like David Duke, or one could argue in 2004, George W. Bush and has much less to do with race as such. So it is no surprise that many Alaskans were disinclined to admit an intent to vote for a felon, but indeed were willing to do so.

Although I am fairly confident that the uncounted ballots will put Begich ahead by a narrow margin, it's a fact that Stevens is drastically outperforming polls. However, Don Young (not a convicted felon, at least not yet) also ooutperformed polls and is almost sure to defeat Ethan Berkowitz for Alaska's House Seat. This suggests to me that there's something else afoot. I propose that it is a unique-to-Alaska instantiation of the "Cell Phone Effect," i.e. that pollsters can't poll people they can't talk to.

Rural Alaska isn't so much rural as remote--places there are truly "off the grid" of national transportation and communications networks. I suspect that as a result, rural Alaskan villages were heavily under-represented in the polls. A previous commenter noted that Stevens has a great ability to bring "pork" into the state--this is just as true for Don Young. The raises in standards of living brought about by the twin porksters have been particularly high in the bush, so it is extremely heavy Republican country out there--less for ideological than for material reasons. I think this explains why the Republicans did better than predicted in Alaska.

The other commenter's points about people voting for "Whoever Palin picks to replace Stevens" is a good one. However, Palin cannot appooint anyone--thanks to previous gov. Frank Murkowski's not-well-regarded trick of appointing his daughter to fill the Senate seat he vacated, all vacant Senate seats must be filled by special election. If Stevens does keep the lead he's got and wins the elections, and then does get expelled from the Senate, I suspect Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (who tried to unseat Don Young in the primary) will run for it, probably against Begich again. Hard to say how that would shake out.

I guess this is just the way things are done in Alaska. Though, I sort of feel McCain won Alaska because if he didn't win the election he'd have to give back Palin. Sounds to me like the good people of Alaska have got to straighten out this nightmare the call Alaskan Politics.

"the idiot effect"?

That seems to cover all our bases.

Assuming "Uncle Ted" wins, can a convicted felon serve in the Senate while serving, um, time?

...that the vote count has been honest. In a state as small as Alaska it wouldn't take much thumb to tip the scales in the direction of Mr. Stevens, especially as that magic number of 60 for the Democrats is not out of the question.

With the possible exception of the State of Ohio, Alaska has excelled in offering (to the lower 48) for inspection three of the most dubious public "servants" inhabiting the political scene: Governor Sarah Palin, the grimacing, vitriolic virago with the bad-mouthing, metal piercing voice; the ever arrogant Senator Ted Stevens, 7-fold felon; and Rep. Don Young running for reelection under a cloud of probable indictment for malfeasance in office. Not a pretty picture.

But Alaskans seem to prefer folks like these three so long as each of them gets a nice chunk of the generous supply of funds from a Republican administration in Washington eager to rally support for extracting more oil from ANWAR. Also not a pretty picture. But that may well change pretty soon.

Oh great. Just when we thought we were rid of her for awhile, she'll come flouncing back in her stilettos- Hi I'm Senator Palin from the great state of Alaska.

Palin is possibly eager enough to try to nab the seat that would open in the event of a Stevens victory followed by a Stevens expulsion, but I think she's going to try to get Sean Parnell in that seat. The Senate seat she has her eye on, I think, is Lisa Murkowski's, which opens up in 2010. This would make Lisa the second Murkowski Sarah Palin goes after, although the daughter is a much more palatable character than the father (compared to whom Palin was actually a dramatic improvement).

That way Sarah gets a full term of executive experience, plus 2 years in the Senate to become oh-so-knowledgeable about world affairs, prior to her presidential run in 2012.