Ted "the felon" Stevens' Lead Shrinks to 971 Votes, With Many Yet to be Counted

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: BEGICH AHEAD BY 3. Here's a link to another site reporting the same thing.

US SENATOR
		Total
Number of Precincts		438
Precincts Reporting		438	100.0 %
Times Counted		267941/495731	54.0 %
Total Votes		264655
Begich, Mark	DEM	125019	47.24%
Bird, Bob	AI	10913	4.12%
Gianoutsos, Ted	NA	1076	0.41%
Haase, Fredrick D.	LIB	1961	0.74%
Stevens, Ted	REP	125016	47.24%
Write-in Votes		670	0.25%

H/t: Commenters and Atrios

From Nate the Great at Five Thirty Eight, who tells it straight, which is a nice trait:

The state of Alaska is now reporting that Ted Stevens has 118,602 votes to Mark Begich's 117,631, a gap of 971 ballots. This incorporates 28,519 ballots which have been counted since this morning. [...]

[T]here are still plenty of votes remaining to be counted, and Begich is making up ground at a sufficient pace that he appears more likely than not to surpass Stevens.

A significant number of additional votes will be counted before close of business today, although approximately 8 of Alaska's 40 house districts won't finalize their counting process until Friday at the earliest. The areas that will report late consist mostly of rural, Begich-friendly districts (contrary to our earlier reporting, Begich performed quite well in rural Alaska; his weaknesses were in the Anchorage Suburbs and the Mat-Su Valley).

Well, mush, already! We're getting antsy down here in the "lower 48".