Right. With 64% of the votes tallied, Wynn led 50% to 46%. For the "current" (75% of precincts) results to be true, Edwards would have needed 60% of the next 11.2k votes. Possible, great news if true, but I'm skeptical.

Good to see that Donald Schaefer came in third:

Peter FRANCHOT    176448    36%
Janet OWENS    166949    34%
Wm. Donald *SCHAEFER    149186    30%

The later returns most likely will come from the part of the district that is in Montgomery County, where Donna is stronger.  

There haven't been any reports here on Maryland's Comptroller race.  The Comptroller in Maryland is actually a critical, independent office--one of only three statewide elected offices.  After polling at 15 percent about a month ago, the progressive candidate Peter Franchot is leading by 10,000 votes with 93 percent of precincts reported.  In third place is incumbent Comptroller and former governor William Donald Schaefer

Bad news for Edwards... CQ Politics is reporting that Wynn is expected to take the lead:

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/09/wynn_b arely_hanging_on_as_vote.html

"A CQPolitics.com analysis of votes at 5:15 a.m. Eastern time showed Edwards leading Wynn by 49 percent to 47 percent, following a complete but unofficial count of votes in Montgomery County, where Edwards ran strongly. But Wynn is expected to take the lead after a counting of the votes in 40 outstanding precincts in Prince George's County.

The county is Wynn's home base, and he led Edwards by 17 percentage points in the portions where the vote already had been recorded."

I'm holding out hope that Edwards is going to pull it out, but PG County really is Wynn's base.  This is where Edwards needs to win over some Dem voters that maybe weren't paying much attention and were just voting for the Wynn "machine."

Looks like the provisional ballots in Montgomery County won't matter... not with 40 precincts in PG County still outstanding.

Looking at the state legislature races that still have incomplete returns, they appear to be in eastern Prince Georges. I don't expect this to be fertile Edwards territory. The Montgomery provisional ballots should favor Edwards, but I haven't heard any count of the number of these things.  

I'm pleasantly surprised by the Franchot numbers. I was about to hold my nose and vote for Owens just to get rid of Shaeffer, but decided that she might even be worse. Shaeffer is a jerk, but he's generally independent. Owens is chummy with Gov. Ehrlich and was even mentioned as a possible running mate for him. Since the comptroller and the governor are 2/3 of the board that decides public contracts, we need someone who's not a pal.

Also, the Montogomery problems were not really machine problems. They were human error. The election board forgot to include the voter cards (with the magnetic strip that activates the voting machine) in the materials they sent to polling places.  By the time I voted at 10:30, everything was running smoothly at my polling place, but when my wife voted at 7:30, they were using paper ballots. The Wash Post reported this morning that they were passing out provisional ballots in spanish when the english ones ran out in some places.

  Not that it matters all that much in the great scheme of things, but I want to humbly tell everyone that I was elected to the Frederick County (MD) Democratic Central Committee last night. I'm a kingmaker!

  I've got my fingers crossed for Donna, but it doesn't look great.

  Re Owens: There are actually people I know -- informed, intellgent, loyal Democrats -- who held their noses and voted for Owens because "they thought she had a better chance". Guys, Janet Owens is Schaefer 2.0 -- what exactly ARE we accomplishing by electing her? I proudly voted Franchot. Lesson: VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE YOU WANT TO SEE WIN. A "strategic" vote can do nothing but blow up in your face.

The Maryland Comptroller is a powerful position that has a lot of say on how money is spent in the state. There's no way Shafer is going to win it now, with 93% of precincts reporting.

The combination of O'Malley, Franchot and Gansler in top offices will mean some substantial changes in education, health care, criminal justice, transportation and environmental policies. Maryland will probably join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and take the lead on other similar issues.

Yeah, Prince George is a Wynn stronghold.  But, think about this: the people that actually bothered to stay and fill out a provisional ballot had to be motivated voters.  I think that could skew things Edwards' way.

With 81.87% of precincts reporting, Wynn now leads 48.78% to 47.22%.  He leads by just under 1000 votes.  With so many of the remaining precincts supposedly in Wynn's PG County stronghold, this does not look good.  Only think I'm praying for is a deluge of Edwards provisional ballots when they finally get around to the counting.  

BTW, anyone have any idea why it is taking so long to get the results for Wynn country?  Any possible vote rigging going on?  I wouldn't put anything past this scumbag.

At 12.20 pm with only 8 more precincts outstanding, all in Wynn's base of PG county, so his margin will probably go up by a few hundred more

The absentees are Thursday will be the next big test of this -- I hope Donna Edwards had a good absentee operation in place

And then on Monday they'll count all of those provisionals

Whatever the outcome, the final margin will be razor thin in either direction -- I'm actually betting it will be under 1,000 in either direction

How does this analysis reconcile with the Washington Post's, which claims:

In Maryland's 4th District congressional race, challenger Donna Edwards was in a virtual tie with veteran Democrat Rep. Albert R. Wynn based on partial returns. But much of Edwards's support was coming from precincts in Montgomery County, which comprise only a small part of the congressional district.

In Prince George's County, where most 4th District voters live, Wynn had a double-digit lead over Edwards, and more than a third of the vote had not yet been tallied. All the electronic ballots in Montgomery had been counted, but not the provisional ballots. Political observers said it seemed likely that Wynn would pull ahead of Edwards once the remaining Prince George's ballots were counted.