MD Senate Race: Ben Cardin (D) declared victor over Michael Steele (R) … NOT SO FAST

With only a small percentage of the vote counted, Cardin is declared the victor in the Maryland US Senate race over Republican challenger Michael Steele. This was the wild card race as many thought that Steele might pull off the upset.

One think is for certain, Michael Steele showed himself to be a great candidate and will be on the national stage for some time to come. He ran one of the best campaigns of all of the Republican candidates this year. In a state that is 2 to 1 Democrats to Republicans, Steele did himself proud. He will be back.

We agree with Lorie Byrd at WIZBANG, this loss was “the heartbreak of the night”.

With the Republican Senate losses of Rick Santorum in PA, Lincoln Chafee in RI and DeWine in OH the Republican control of the US Senate is looking bleak. Conventional wisdom was that Democrats would most likely gain control of the House, but Republicans would keep control of the Senate, even if a slim majority. Now that is not looking good. Republican control of the Senate hinges on four races: (Democrats need to win 3 of 4)

Keep up to date with the CNN Senate tracking

• (R) Corker vs (D) Ford Jr in Tennessee (As of 10:10 EDT Corker leads 52–47)
• (R) Talent vs (D) McCaskill in Missouri (Talent leads 53–43)
• (R) Allen vs (D) Webb in Virginia (Allen leads 50–49)
• (R) Burns vs. Tester in Montana (no precincts reporting yet)

UPDATE I: Not so fast says NRO. This is rather interesting, hope its not just wishful thinking. TKS of National Review is not buying the Michael Steele loss. Hmmm. That would make my night. We shall see, love to see it when a network has to pull back a prediction. Especially when they make the call from exit polling.

They don’t buy the CNN and ABC call on Cardin. The early numbers have Steele up, and they have a lot of absentees that won’t get counted for a while. That’s based entirely on exit polls, which are wrong. (NRO)

UPDATE II: As Michelle Malkin states, “Michael Steele not conceding”

“The Steele campaign is not conceding. Every vote must be counted.” (NRO)

Ben Cardin

Democrat

331,924 (48%)

UPDATE IV: MD – U.S. Senate
57% Precincts Reporting

	Ben Cardin	Democrat	391,027 (50%)
	Michael Steele	Republican	374,807 (48%)
	Kevin Zeese	Green	12,832 (2%)