It took nearly two weeks, but the results of one of the tightest Congressional races are finally out. Incumbent Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican, has fought off Patricia Madrid, her Democratic challenger, to represent New Mexico's 1st congressional district in the House of Representatives. County election officials certified yesterday that Wilson beat Madrid by 875 votes -- in an election where roughly 211,000 votes were cast.

Nature profiled this race in its midterm election special because of two science issues: Wilson was one of many Republicans who split with President Bush over the issue of embryonic stem-cell research, and Madrid made climate change a major portion of her platform.

Looks like stem cells beat climate change for now.

Posted by Alex Witze at 05:13 PM | Permalink

Democratic-led Congress could shake up funding for science agencies.

When the Democrats take control of Congress in January, they will also gain control over the nation’s purse strings. Scientists should take note.

Read more here

Posted by Mike Hopkin at 06:03 PM | Permalink

Committees likely to focus more on climate change.

After storming the US House of Representatives in the 7 November elections, the Democrats look likely to also take power in the Senate. They currently hold a 50-49 lead over the Republicans, with a tight race in Virginia the key.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Intelligent Design has been muscled out of the Ohio school board. The news came early this afternoon from Help Ohio Public Education (HOPE), an organization devoted to getting pro-evolution candidates onto the board.

Four out of five HOPE-endorsed candidates won their races. Particularly thrashed was Deborah Owens-Fink, the board's strongest intelligent design proponent. Owens-Fink’s opponent, former Akron mayor and Congressman Tom Sawyer, won by a whopping 42-point margin.

Also defeated was Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, who endorsed intelligent design late in his campaign (see Nature 443, 615; 2006). DeVos lost to Jennifer Granholm, the incumbent Democrat, by a margin of 14 points.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel at 07:07 PM | Permalink

All change at the head of Washington's science committees.

While the balance of power in the Senate remains undecided, pending a probable recount in Virginia, the 7 November US elections swept the Democrats back into the majority of seats in the House of Representatives. What do the changes really mean, and what will the Democrats do next? Nature takes a look at the politicians old and new who, starting in January, will be running the key House committees on science issues.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 01:30 PM | Permalink

America has voted, and the science-policy landscape for the next two years looks rather different. Here's a look at the results of some of the most important science-related elections Nature featured in our elections special report.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 01:27 PM | Permalink

A little light reading for election night: scientific papers on the very unscientific business of electing leaders:

This paper asks the question: would you vote for yourself if you didn't know it was you? "Transformed Facial Similarity as a Political Cue: A Preliminary Investigation"

This paper does an experiment to show how enthusiasm and fear in political ads might prove contagious: "Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions"

Here's a technical treatise on predicting two-stage elections. "Modeling voter choice to predict the final outcome of two-stage elections"

This comment explores the idea that if it is harder to vote, you end up with a different kind of voter pool. "Barriers to Participation, Voter Sophistication and Candidate Spending Choices in US Senate Elections"

And here's a model of why midterm elections tend to boost party that doesn't hold the Whitehouse. "Loss aversion, presidential responsibility, and midterm congressional elections"

Happy election night!

Posted by Emma Marris at 12:08 AM | Permalink

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting 'what-if' story today (subscription required). If Democrats won every single election up for grabs today, would there be enough pro-stem-cell members of Congress to overturn President Bush's veto on federal financing for research on new lines of embryonic stem cells?

The short answer: no. A two-thirds majority of both chambers of Congress - the 435 total seats in the House of Representatives, and the 100 in the Senate -- are needed to override a presidential veto. Democrats led the faction voting against Bush's veto this summer, but plenty of Republicans also crossed party lines. But even given the bipartisan support for stem-cell research, the Chronicle analysis concludes that the voting records of candidates show that there simply aren't enough pro-stem-cell bodies to make the two-thirds overriding majority.

Looks like it'll be 2008 before there could be any major changes in stem-cell funding in the US.

Posted by Alex Witze at 06:35 PM | Permalink

California politics always get an extra sprinkling of interest from all the earnest movie stars who feel that a career embodying unattainable glamour well equips them for thoughtful endorsement of people and propositions. This year, they have embraced the more or less scientific issues of the environment, stem cells, and alternative energy.

In the 11th congressional race between Richard Pombo, despised by greens everywhere, and Jerry McNerney, Mr. Turbine:

Campaigning for Jerry McNerney: Jennifer Garner, All-American TV actress and wife of All-American Box-Office-Poison Ben Affleck.

Carefully not campaigning for Pombo: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the lovable gap-toothed movie-star governor of California.

Endorsing McNerney: The quite shaky but still charming Parkinson's-afflicted actor Michael J. Fox, who dislikes Pombo's conservative stance on embryonic stem cells.

And…

Supporting Proposition 87, to collect $4 billion by taxing oil to spend on alternative energy: impressively-mouthed America's Sweetheart Julia Roberts, mob-movie regular James Caan and world's tallest fictional female president Geena Davis.

UPDATE: A call to the Yes on 87 office reveals that the following additional celebrities are behind the proposition: Robert Redford (the Sundance Kid), Leonardo DiCaprio (apparently soon to play Teddy Roosevelt), Alyssa Milano (TV crush of millions), Maria Bello (of Thank You for Smoking), Eva Longoria (of TV's "Desperate Housewives"), Jamie Lee Curtis (scream queen) and Ben Affleck.

Frankly, if I was trying to sell something, I wouldn't involve Mr. Affleck, gleaming as his teeth may be. He has been seen praising the initiative with Barack "So-hot-right-now" Obama, who I think needs to explain to us how he can be on so many campaign stages at once. Quantum teleportation? Cloning? Anyway, I have one cautionary phrase for the junior senator from Illinois about managing hype: Snakes on a Plane.

Posted by Emma Marris at 04:17 PM | Permalink

Things are really looking tight in Missouri, where state auditor Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, is running against incumbent senator Jim Talent for a seat in the US Senate. Many pollsters are tipping the race as the tightest of all Senate races for this election. That, in turn, makes it key for control of the Senate as a whole; if the Democrats pick up six seats in the Senate, they will have a majority and control the chamber. Pretty much everyone expects the Democrats to win back a majority in the other chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, but the Senate still appears to be up for grabs.

Like a college student, McCaskill has pulled an all-nighter of campaigning. Early this morning she was stumping for votes in 24-hour diners across Missouri. Her opponent, meanwhile, is getting only slightly more sleep, and yesterday hosted President Bush in a campaign stop.

Continue reading "US elections: Heating up in Missouri" »

Posted by Alex Witze at 10:43 PM | Permalink

With the House of Representatives looking like more and more of a lock for Democrats, what is a Republican staffer to do on a Friday night before the election? Joe Pouliot, communications director for Sherry Boehlert, head of the Science Committee, is at Tortilla Coast, a Capitol Hill "GOP staff hangout" according to the Washington Post. He says that since Boehlert had already announced his intention to retire, things have been quiet for a while. "Some people are helping out with other campaigns; other folks are sprucing up their resumes, or catching up on work." Pouliot says that from his ringside seat the one hot science issue in this midterm election has clearly been stem cells. "It has actually been a key issue in some races." I let the man go with no further shop talk. With the kind of midterm his party can expect, he deserves a margarita.

Posted by Emma Marris at 11:28 PM | Permalink

Stem cells are a hot campaign topic in several key races in these elections, but one has to wonder sometimes just how much of a grasp the candidates have on the topic. On the highly regarded 'Meet the Press' television news program last weekend, the leading candidates for US senator from Maryland faced off on stem cells among other issues.

Republican Michael Steele and Democrat Benjamin Cardin both claim that they support stem cell research, but got into squabbling over whose support is the most morally upstanding. Steele has been running a campaign ad featuring his younger sister (and ex-wife of boxer Mike Tyson). She has multiple sclerosis, and says to the camera that her brother supports stem cell research.

Continue reading "US elections: Stem cells vs puppies?" »

Posted by Alex Witze at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Where the US government fears to tread, the town of Boulder, Colorado, will dive right in.

On Tuesday, city residents will vote whether to adopt a 'carbon tax' to offset emissions from residences and businesses in Boulder. The cost? A mere $22 extra for the average resident per year. By 2012, Boulder wants its emissions to be 7 percent below its 1990 levels -- itself following the Kyoto protocol the federal government has not yet signed.

Continue reading "US elections: Little city with big climate dreams" »

Posted by Alex Witze at 01:47 AM | Permalink

Another thing the McNerney campaign has going for it is its heroic shot of the candidate in front of the turbines that he used to work on and that he hopes to make central to an alt-energy paradise in the district. See it here.

Windmills seem to be the requisite pose for politicos this year. See also Washington senator Maria Cantwell (in a tight race), Senator Menedez from New Jersey (ditto), Senator Ken Salazar from Colorado (presumably he's pointing to the future in this picture. He's not running this year.), Rep Tom Udall of New Mexico (last photo in slow-loading series. He's also pointing authoritatively and wearing a cowboy hat), and a rather artsy one from Texas Rep. Randy Neugebauer. I could go on and on, I really could.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson mixes it up with solar panels (Richardson, by the way, is as safe as houses and might even run for president in 2008).

Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota has a slightly surreal series of alt-energy shovel shots, wherein he and some backup bureaucrats break ground on green projects in jaunty formation, including a windfarm, an ethanol plant, and two biodiesel plants (Scroll through his series to find them) He's the state's only representative, so I guess all the shoveling falls to him.

Posted by Emma Marris at 10:50 PM | Permalink

My favorite race this mid-term is between Richard Pombo, the Republican head of the House Committee on Resources, and Jerry McNerney, a novice Democrat. Pombo is the arch enemy of the greens, with his stances on revamping the Endangered Species Act and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge giving them the cold horrors. Come-from-behind McNerney is a wind energy consultant and math PhD.

They are fighting to represent California's inland 11th district. But as one of the tightest and most polarized elections of this blockbuster midterm, all eyes are on them—including the benevolent peepers of Bill Clinton, who was down to campaign with McNerney yesterday. But look out! The Republican's last lovable figure, first lady Laura Bush, is on her way in to campaign for Pombo.

Posted by Emma Marris at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The 7 November 2006 US mid-term elections will decide who holds all seats in the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate seats, and 36 governorships. As Democrats and Republicans war for the hearts and minds of their voters, is science playing a role? And what are the science-based arguments taking a front seat in the debates?

Find out in our special.

Continue reading "US election 2006" »

Posted by Nicola Jones at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)