It’s over. It’s really over. Two Republican concessions have brought the curtain down on the midterm elections of 2010. And the Senate race in Alaska, whose outcome is already known, moved one step closer to being official.
Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, conceded to Mark Dayton, who becomes Governor-elect Mark Dayton and the state’s first Democratic chief executive since Rudy Perpich left office in 1991.
Mr. Emmer conceded after a hand recount still showed him behind by about 9,000 ballots.
The last unresolved House race, New York 1, was also wrapped up when Randy Altschuler, the Republican challenging Representative Timothy H. Bishop for his seat on eastern Long Island, decided not to pursue a hand recount and ended his campaign.
Mr. Bishop, a Democrat first elected in 2002, gets to stay on Capitol Hill, although now as a member of the minority party.
In Alaska on Friday, a judge ruled against Joe Miller’s effort to have thousands of ballots for Senator Lisa Murkowski discounted. The lawsuit argued that election officials broke state law by following voter intent and counting write-in ballots with minor misspellings, poor punctuation or handwriting flaws.
Although Mr. Miller is expected to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court, the ruling further solidifies Ms. Murkowski’s victory.
So the Republican gains of 2010 now have some exact dimensions: 63 House seats by six Senate seats (counting Senator Lisa Murkowski as a Republican) by six governor’s mansions.