Any historical track record of how much late votes were more Democratic precinct by precinct, or whatever, than earlier counted votes? It would need to be a big discrepancy in favor of the Dems to make the math work for Begich. The late votes were more Dem last time than earlier counted votes, although not enough to close the gap for Begich if replicated by a couple of thousand votes, but that is raw numbers, not corrected for whether or not late counted votes were disproportionately from precincts favoring one party or the other. Intuitively one would think late votes are more more Dem precincts, in which event Begich is fried per the above number crunching projection, but sometimes intuition about a state you know next to nothing about psephologically, is a fail.
For reference, here's a Election Day vs. Early/Absentee votes for the 2008 Senate race by HD:
Here's the 2010 US House race by HD:
In both cases, the early/absentee vote leaned more Dem than the election day vote, but the lean was much more pronounced in 2008.
