Of all the Election Day results, Ted Stevens’ re-election in Alaska was probably the one that surprised me most. Except now the recount’s done and it seems that Stevens has lost. It’s a pretty earth-shattering event in Alaska politics, as Stevens has been in office for almost the entirety of Alaska’s time as a state and they haven’t sent a Democrat to congress in decades.

Given the overall nature of Alaska politics it seems unlikely that Begich will be an especially reliable progressive vote. Liberals have basically no leverage in the state and natural resource extractors who tend not to take a very enlightened view of things are vital to the local economy. Still, Stevens was quite the bad actor so almost anything would be progress.