Nate Silver, a baseball numbers guru who gained a national following by predicting the outcome of this year's presidential race, has picked Franken, the Democrat Farmer Labor candidate, as the winner, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. But he acknowledges that his prediction that the recount will end with Franken on top by between 48 and 136 votes has a margin of error larger than his prediction.
In Minneapolis, with the largest concentration of Democrats in the state, Franken appears to be losing ground, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Franken has lost 86 votes in the recount, more than twice as many as the Republican Coleman's 37.
But the newspaper says that those numbers could also be misleading, since Coleman's volunteers have been more aggressive about challenging ballots. Challenged ballots are pulled out but could be counted in the end.