Author: Crisitunity

• WV-Gov: I’ve complained at length before about the sheer haziness of West Virginia’s succession laws, and they aren’t going to get any clearer: Joe Manchin, as one of his final acts as Governor, isn’t going to call a special session to clarify. The law is clear that Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin becomes Acting Governor upon Manchin’s resignation (which will probably happen as soon as the election results are certified, as Manchin is able and ready to serve in the lame duck session in place of temp Carte Goodwin), but all it says is that a special election must be held to fill the vacancy, without saying, y’know, when. Legislative counsel have made the best guess that two elections should happen in Nov. 2012 (one special election for the remaining two months of the term, the other regularly scheduled one for the following four years), but that doesn’t have the force of law yet.

• AZ-07: This was one where victory was pretty clear yesterday, but today it’s officially been called for Raul Grijalva. He’s up more than 6,000 now, as friendly Pima County precincts have kept reporting.

• AZ-08: Looking right next door, things are also looking up for Gabby Giffords. She’s up by about 3,000 votes. 30,000 votes remain to be processed in Pima County, although it’s unclear how many of those are in the 7th or in the 8th. The local paper says it’s expected the race will be called in her favor today.

• CA-11: J-Mac looks to be coming back, if today’s news is any indication. Jerry McNerney’s lead over David Harmer has edged up to 568 votes (although potentially that could erode a bit in today’s further counting as there are still some San Joaquin Co. votes outstanding). California doesn’t have an automatic recount provision, but Harmer seems to already be laying groundwork: he’s filed a suit in Contra Costa County saying his team should be able to stop the vote-by-mail signature-verification process in order to challenge signatures.

• KY-06: Ben Chandler is declaring victory, despite Andy Barr’s plans to pursue a recanvass. The final count is Chandler up by 649, although that’s not SoS-certified yet, and the recanvass may change that (although probably not to the extent that Barr could win).

• NV-St. Sen.: 84-year-old long-timer Bill Raggio won’t be the Republican leader in the Nevada state Senate for the first time in ages. He pulled his name from consideration for another stint as minority leader after it was clear that he wasn’t going to win the internal struggle against Mike McGinness. Raggio’s sin? Endorsing Harry Reid over Sharron Angle (who, you might remember, ran and lost to Raggio in a 2008 GOP primary battle in his Reno-area seat).

• Leadership: The big news on Capitol Hill today, of course, is that Nancy Pelosi has made clear that she will seek to become minority leader. One more indication how quickly the daily CW (which had a quick transition to Steny Hoyer penciled in yesterday) can change on a dime. Hoyer is likely to stay in place, so Pelosi will probably only face a minor challenge from Heath Shuler. Only a few other surviving conservadems are publicly opposing Pelosi so far (no surprises: Altmire, Boren, Matheson). Chris Van Hollen, unsurprisingly, is also out as DCCC chair… although it’s hard to tell how much his star has dimmed for future leadership endeavors, as a third term at the DCCC would have been unlikely even if the Dems had salvaged a majority. (There’s plenty of other discussion on this topic, including the GOP leadership ladder and committee chairs, underway over in MassGOP’s diary.) UPDATE: Here’s some last-minute tension: Dems are less one leadership slot, having to drop down to the minority, and it looks like that’s going to be resolved with a battle for minority whip between Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn. That could produce some fireworks.

• Polltopia: Nate Silver went there: his newest post is called “Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate.” His graph of major pollsters’ performance finds Rasmussen both off by the widest average margin, and with the most greatest amount of bias in a particular direction (the Republican direction, natch). (Quinnipiac had the smallest average error, and PPP was the closest to having no bias. He also has kind words for SurveyUSA and YouGov.) PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some interesting divining from Tuesday’s entrails: if you were wondering whether the dropoff was from Obama voters staying home, or Obama voters voting for Republicans this time around, he finds it was almost exactly half-and-half of each.

The lone spot of good news in all this for Dino Rossi? Now he won’t have all those Senatorial duties cluttering up his planning activities for his 2012 gubernatorial run.

Sen. Patty Murray pulled further ahead this afternoon , taking 68 percent of the nearly 70,000 votes counted in King County on Thursday.

The King County boost widened Murray’s statewide lead to more than two percentage points — nearly 50,000 votes — over Republican Dino Rossi statewide even as Rossi-leaning counties began to report new totals. The biggest Rossi counties, Spokane and Clark, both reported results today but his gains there were swamped by King County.

Also worth noting: Rick Larsen in WA-02 seems to be moving into healthier shape against John Koster. He’s now up more than 1,400 according to the SoS, suggesting that Dem-friendly precincts are late to report in the 2nd too.

• IL-Gov: The DGA is sending ’round a press release congratulating Pat Quinn on his who’da-thunk-it re-election victory. No official call yet, but the trendlines in the count (with a margin now of 20,000 votes) make it pretty clear what’s happening. Bill Brady says he isn’t ready to concede… yet. UPDATE: CNN has called it.

• CT-Gov: More vacillation in the Connecticut count, this time with Dan Malloy back on top by about 6,000 votes. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with actual counting, but simply with the AP getting its facts straight (it seemed to be missing a large slab of urban and assumedly heavily Democratic votes, mostly from New Haven). Final tallies remain unknown because we’re still waiting on Bridgeport (another Dem stronghold), although SoS Susan Bysiewicz has promised results by the end of the day. (Doesn’t seem like she’ll make it, though.) Relatedly, Dan Debicella in CT-04 is “waiting and seeing” what the Bridgeport situation is before conceding, although that race has already been called against him.

• FL-Gov: This was pretty well decided yesterday, but Alex Sink officially conceded, finalizing the transaction on Rick Scott’s self-financed purchase of the gubernatorial election.

• NE-Sen: Ben Nelson says he won’t switch parties. (Why the heck would he want to, considering that the Dems still have a Lieberman-proof majority in the Senate, that he’s part of? He’d just get teabagged to death in the 2012 GOP primary a la poor Parker Griffith.) It’s worth wondering, though, if any House Dems are considering a switch… but, with the possible exception of Dan Boren, all of the most likely suspects have already lost, saving us the trouble of such speculation. UPDATE: Although here’s an interesting post-script to the Nelson story: GOP Gov. Dave Heineman, who’s led a few hypothetical polls against Nelson for 2012, has already announced that he won’t run for the Senate in two years.

• NV-Sen: The one major race where the polls really seemed off was Nevada, where Harry Reid’s 4-pt average deficit turned into a 5-point victory and in retrospect, that’s easy to explain: pollsters weren’t reaching Latinos. Exit polls suggest that Latinos did turn out well in Nevada (thanks in no doubt to the Reid-friendly hotel unions in Las Vegas). Nate Silver graphs the variance in other states with large Latino populations: it may also have played a role in Colorado, although the poll variance wasn’t as bad there, though it was enough to predict a Ken Buck victory… and Latino turnout didn’t seem to work in Texas, where Rick Perry exceeded polling predictions (and which explains the sudden and probably brief appearance of Rep. Blake Farenthold).

• KY-06: Here’s a race that’s definitely going to recount. Andy Barr, trailing Ben Chandler by about 600 votes, has formally requested a “routine recanvass.”

• NC-02: Here’s one more race where we’re not quite dead yet. Bob Etheridge hasn’t conceded, it turns out, nor should he: he’s down only 1,646 votes, after cutting his deficit against Renee Elmers by more than 500 in late counting yesterday.

• NC-11: When Heath Shuler announced that he’d challenge Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, the proper response was laughter, although my main question at the time was whether he planned to challenge her for minority leader. It sounds like, yes, he does still plan to go through with his kooky gambit (made all the kookier because there aren’t any core Blue Dogs left besides him who need to follow through on their promises to not vote for Pelosi). Anyway, the scuttlebutt seems to be leaning toward a voluntary sword-falling and a painless transition to Steny Hoyer, in which case the Shuler challenge would be even more pointless.

• WV-01: After maintaining for most of yesterday that he wasn’t dead yet (given the narrow margin, currently 1,357), Mike Oliverio did wind up conceding eventually late yesterday.

• Redistricting: As much as the mess in the state legislatures really messes up hopes of wresting an advantage out of the redistricting process, here’s some good news: Amendment 6 in Florida surprisingly passed, clearing the super-high 60% hurdle at 63%. This doesn’t create a commission, but it does impose requirements that redistricting be done without political consideration (but without violating federal law, namely the Voting Rights Act). However, two U.S. Reps… probably the two in Florida who have the most to lose from having less friendly districts drawn for them… Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart, are challenging the law in court. With the passage of Proposition 20 in California, though, which creates an independent redistricting commission there, it’s all kind of a wash, as a less-bad Florida map is balanced out by not being able to aggressively redistrict California. (Similarly, while it takes some sting out of Alex Sink’s narrow loss, it also deflates the impact of Jerry Brown’s victory.)

• CO-Sen: This isn’t an official call from the AP or CNN, but the Denver Post (who you would think would know their state well enough to know the score) has decided that Michael Bennet is the victor in Colorado. No couching, as their article is titled “Bennet Wins in Senate Race;” you can’t lay it on the line any more than that. Their rationale: he leads by 7,000 votes with 30,000 remaining to be counted in dirty hippie stronghold Boulder County.

• WA-Sen: While the Seattle Times doesn’t sound as fully confident as the Denver Post, they also make it sound like Patty Murray is on her way to reelection. Their rationale: more than one-third of the uncounted votes statewide are found in King County, which of course is the state’s Democratic base and where she’s getting 62% currently.

• WI-Sen?: Pundits (or at least William Kristol, known for his wishful thinking) seem to be taking the wrong message from this Russ Feingold line at the end of his concession speech last night: “It’s on to our next adventure. It’s on to 2012! Forward!” To them, that means that Feingold will be mounting a quixotic primary challenge to Barack Obama. Um, we’re likely to see a Herb Kohl retirement in 2012. Maybe Feingold is likely to run for the other Wisconsin Senate seat? (Taking a page from Washington’s Slade Gorton, who lost in 1986 and resurfaced in 1988. Any other Senators anyone out there can think of who did that?)

• MN-Gov: It must seem like Groundhog Day for Minnesotans, who are poised for another recount nightmare as the election lawyers descend like locusts. With only 19 precincts remaining to count, Mark Dayton’s lead over Tom Emmer is 0.43%, which is below the 0.5% bar where an automatic recount is triggered.

• Polltopia: So is the cycle where bullshit finally gets called on Rasmussen? Nate Silver made the case last night, observing that of the 100 polls released in the final 21 days of the campaign, 70-75% overstated Republican support, off by an average 3-4 points. Taegan Goddard also chips in singling out its final HI-Sen poll, which was off by only 38 points on the final margin of victory for Dan Inouye.

• Trivia: Would you believe that the Democratic freshman class is only in the single digits? There are 9 freshmen: Terri Sewell (AL-07), Karen Bass (CA-33), John Carney (DE-AL), Frederica Wilson (FL-17), Colleen Hanabusa (HI-01), Cedric Richmond (LA-02), Bill Keating (MA-10), Hansen Clarke (MI-13), and David Cicilline (RI-01). Remarkably, only two of them are straight white guys!

• CA-11: This race has had some ups and downs today: The Stockton Record (the local, well, paper of record) was initially running a story stating that Jerry McNerney had won his race, after having trailed all of last night to David Harmer. They’ve pulled back on that, merely saying it’s “too close to call,” but the hard data is that McNerney now has a 121-vote lead over Harmer, with 100% of precincts reporting. I’d imagine this one will be heading for a recount!

8:11am: Not sure how all your hangovers are doing this morning, but let’s just say the loss of Jim Oberstar to Chip Cravaack in MN-08, and Walt Minnick to Raul Labrador in ID-01 isn’t helping. This is offset by Colleen Hanabusa‘s victory over Charles Djou in Hawaii. It’s no OJ and greasy breakfast, but I’ll take it.

8:49am: My hungover self (jeffmd here) also missed the good news in Jim Matheson‘s re-election in UT-02, and Loretta Sanchez in CA-47.

Here are the races still outstanding:

For House:

NY-25: 96% reporting, Dan Maffei (D) leads by 2,200 votes.

VA-11: 99% reporting, Gerry Connolly (D) leads by 487.

KY-06: 99% reporting, Ben Chandler (D) leads by 600.

GA-02: 100% reporting, Sanford Bishop (D) had his race uncalled and is leading by 4,800.

MI-09: 90% reporting, Gary Peters (D) leads by 4,600 votes.

IL-08: 98% reporting, Melissa Bean (D) trails by 800 votes.

TX-27: 100% reporting, Solomon Ortiz (D) trails by 800 votes.

AZ-07: 99% reporting, Raul Grijalva (D) leads by 3,600.

AZ-08: 99% reporting, Gabby Giffords (D) leads by 2,500.

CA-11: 99% reporting, Jerry McNerney (D) trails by 23 votes.

CA-20: 100% reporting, Jim Costa (D) trails by 700.

WA-02: 64% reporting, Rick Larsen (D) trails by 1,400.

WA-09: 67% reporting, Adam Smith (D) leads by 9,500.

If these hold, we’ll be out another 5, -65 on the night.

For Senate:

Colorado: Michael Bennet (D) has a 5,000 vote edge, 87% reporting. Outstanding precincts in Boulder (67-29 Bennet), Arapahoe (49-46 Bennet); nothing reported from Chaffee or Hinsdale County. Chaffee voted narrowly for McCain, 49-49 in 2008; Hinsdale only cast 500 votes in 2008.

Washington: Patty Murray (D) leads by 14,000; 62% reporting.

Alaska: Write-ins have 41% of the vote, to Joe Miller’s 34% and Scott McAdams’ 25%.

For Governor:

Maine: Paul LePage (R) leads Eliot Cutler (I) by 6,200 votes with 89% reporting; Libby Mitchell is an utter fail back at 19%.

Connecticut: Dan Malloy (D) trails by about 10,000 votes, 90% reporting.

Vermont: Peter Shumlin (D) leads by 3,100 votes, but is 113 votes short of the 50% majority needed.

Florida: Alex Sink (D) trails by 50,000 votes with 99% reporting.

Minnesota: Mark Dayton (D) leads by 9,200 votes with 99% reporting; indie Tom Horner back at 12%.

Oregon: John Kitzhaber (D) trails by 20,000 votes with 80% reporting.

and maybe, just maybe, the one piece of good news all night:

Illinois: I have no idea where Pat Quinn’s bag of tricks comes from, but miraculously, he’s leading by 8,300 votes with 75 Cook County precincts outstanding. 27 of them are in Suburban Cook County with the other 48 in the City of Chicago.

Better yet, 35 of the outstanding precincts overlap the black-majority 1st, 2nd, and 7th CDs, while another 6 overlap the Hispanic-majority 4th, with another 19 in the strongly Democratic 5th and 9th CDs on the North Side. Who woulda thunk it, Pat Quinn would be the one underdog to pull it out.

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3:33am: PS: feel free to keep using this thread as an open thread tomorrow morning; we probably won’t have any posts out of the gate early tomorrow.

3:25am: OK, I strongly suspect we aren’t going to see any more calls tonight. With that, SSP will call it a night, and we’ll sweep up more pieces in the morning. A bad night, at least on the House front, to be sure… but we’ll be right back at it tomorrow, looking at what we can pick off in 2012. And remember… if the last two years were any indication… being on offense (and having the power of righteous indignation behind you, instead of having to explain away your own party’s shortcomings) is just plain more fun.

3:14am: I wonder if we can go 2 for 2 on the remaining tossup seats in Arizona? Raul Grijalva’s up 48-46 in AZ-07 (90% in), while Gabby Gifford’s up 49-47 in AZ-08 (85% in).

3:09am: Up to 58% reporting in Alaska, where it’s still late evening. Lisa Murkowski appears to be holding on: 39 to 36 for Joe Miller and 24 for Scott McAdams. The real question will be whether all those thousands of write-ins survive the scrutiny process.

3:06am: Ooops, look like we never mentioned these calls from earlier. Joe Heck squeaked by Dina Titus in NV-03, 48-47, while Scott Tipton also had a narrow victory over John Salazar in CO-03, 49-47.

2:55am: So what’s left outstanding in the House? We’re only at 1% reporting in HI-01 according to CNN, so don’t look for an answer there, but currently Colleen Hanabusa leads GOP incumbent Charles Djou 54-46, so this may turn into our third pickup (especially given strong top-of-ticket support from Neil Abercrombie). There are still a few districts left where the GOP may be on track for a pickup, especially ID-01, where Walt Minnick trails 50-42, with 50% reporting. There are also super-small GOP leads in CA-11, TX-27, WA-02, and, unbelievably, IL-08, where Melissa Bean is down a few hundred votes to the unheralded Joe Walsh.

2:48am: Ah, wait, there are still three other gubernatorial races. IL-Gov is super-close: 46-46 with Pat Quinn slightly up, with 93% in, but with Cook County a sizable part of the remainder. He might yet pull this out. In Minnesota, Mark Dayton’s only up 44-43-12 now with 87% reporting, but we’re also waiting on a lot of votes out of Duluth, which is good for Dems (also good for James Oberstar, who’s in a dead heat in MN-08 still). In OR-Gov, Chris Dudley leads 50-48 over John Kitzhaber; if this is like the 2008 Senate race, Multnomah Co. (Portland) tends to trickle in later, so again, we might pull this out although the suburban numbers (from Washington and Clackamas Cos.) aren’t very encouraging.

2:45am: Good news in a few tight-as-a-tick House races. In OR-05, Kurt Schrader beats Scott Bruun, 51-46. And in UT-02, things finally got called for Scott Jim Matheson, where Morgan Philpot overperformed the polls; Matheson leads 51-45.

2:40am: A whole bunch of gubernatorial races are up for grabs still. The biggest prize left is FL-Gov, where Rick Scott leads Alex Sink 49-48, with 89% reporting (where it’s been stalled for many hours, so resolution tonight looks unlikely). With most of the remaining precincts in the Miami metro area (Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Cos.), she might be able to make that up though. Ditto CT-Gov, where Dan Malloy trails 51-48 with 78% reporting, but where the remaining votes seem mostly urban (like Bridgeport). This too will go down to the wire. The smaller New England states also have barnburners: VT-Gov is Peter Shumlin (D) over Brian Dubie 49-48 with 76% reporting, while in ME-Gov, Paul LePage (R) leads center-left indie Eliot Cutler 38-37 with 84% reporting (with Dem Libby Mitchell at a woeful 19).

2:33am: At this point, it’s up to the west coast crew (i.e. me) to sweep up the mess. Three Senate races remain outstanding. WA-Sen, as per usual Washington operating procedure, they reported about half of all votes and then shut it down for the night (seeing as how many valid ballots are still in the mail). Patty Murray leads Dino Rossi 51-49, which is about where I expect the race to stay, with 54% reporting. CNN is telling me that Ken Buck leads CO-Sen 48-47 with 80% reporting, but given the various ping-ponging of the numbers what with the screwed-up Boulder numbers, I have no idea. Finally, AK-Sen is out there, and I doubt we’ll know for weeks, but for now, with 38% reporting, it’s write-in (including Lisa Murkowski) 39, Joe Miller 35, Scott McAdams 25.

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One last thread for the night!

RESULTS: CNN | Politico

For all of you advanced poll watchers out there, here are some diagnostic tools for seeing whether we’re on track to clear the 50% mark in 10 key states. Long-time SSPers are familiar with the general idea here: take the most important counties and their 2008 presidential numbers, and just perform a simple adjustment ratcheting things down (or up) to 50.

This, of course, is what experts would call “naive extrapolation,” assuming that variation will be identical from county-to-county, and not assuming that various candidates have regional strengths that might cause the numbers to be weighted differently than the presidential map, or that turnout may vary from the 2008 percentages among counties (i.e. counties with large minority populations or college campuses may make a smaller percent of the whole state compared with 2008). (One other problem is that I’m not sure what exactly the AP is going to be reporting tonight, with their decision to end precinct-level reporting. I assume there will still be county-level reporting, though!) With those caveats in mind, here you go:

California

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/48	61/37
Los Angeles	24.4	58/40	69/29
San Diego	9.1	43/55	54/44
Orange	8.5	37/61	48/50
Santa Clara	4.9	58/40	69/29
Riverside	4.8	39/59	50/48
Alameda	4.6	68/30	79/19
San Bernardino	4.5	41/57	52/46
Sacramento	4.0	47/50	58/39
Contra Costa	3.3	57/41	68/30
San Francisco	2.8	73/27	84/16
Ventura	2.5	44/53	55/42
San Mateo	2.2	62/36	73/25
Fresno	2.0	39/59	50/48

Much more over the flip…

Colorado

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	54/45
Jefferson	12.3	50/49	54/45
El Paso	11.4	36/63	40/59
Denver	11.3	71/27	75/23
Arapahoe	11.1	52/47	56/43
Boulder	7.2	68/30	72/26
Larimer	6.9	50/48	54/44
Adams	6.7	54/44	58/40
Douglas	6.3	37/62	41/58
Weld	4.4	41/57	45/53
Pueblo	3.0	53/46	57/42
Mesa	2.9	30/68	34/64

Florida

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	51/48
Miami-Dade	10.3	57/43	58/42
Broward	8.7	66/33	67/32
Palm Beach	7.0	60/39	61/38
Hillsborough	6.1	52/47	53/46
Pinellas	5.5	52/46	53/45
Orange	5.5	58/41	59/40
Duval	5.0	48/52	49/51
Brevard	3.4	43/57	44/56
Lee	3.2	43/56	44/55
Polk	2.9	45/53	46/52
Volusia	2.9	51/48	52/47
Pasco	2.6	47/52	48/51
Sarasota	2.5	48/50	49/49
Seminole	2.5	47/52	48/51

Illinois

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	62/37
Cook	38.7	64/35	76/23
DuPage	7.6	43/56	55/44
Lake	5.4	47/52	59/40
Will	5.2	44/55	56/43
Kane	3.5	43/55	55/43
McHenry	2.5	40/58	52/46
Madison	2.3	42/56	54/44
Winnebago	2.3	43/55	55/43
St. Clair	2.3	48/50	60/38

Kentucky

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	41/57
Jefferson	19.4	64/34	55/43
Fayette	7.0	61/38	52/47
Kenton	3.7	48/51	39/60
Boone	2.8	41/58	32/67
Warren	2.4	49/50	40/59
Daviess	2.4	53/45	44/54
Campbell	2.2	48/51	39/60
Hardin	2.2	48/51	39/60

Nevada

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/48	55/43
Clark	67.3	53/44	58/39
Washoe	18.6	50/48	55/43
Douglas	2.7	36/62	41/57
Carson City	2.4	44/53	49/48
Lyon	2.2	35/63	40/58

Ohio

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/48	51/47
Cuyahoga	11.7	68/36	69/30
Franklin	9.8	59/40	60/39
Hamilton	7.4	52/47	53/46
Montgomery	4.9	51/47	52/46
Summit	4.9	57/42	58/41
Lucas	3.9	64/34	65/33
Stark	3.3	51/47	52/46
Butler	3.0	37/62	38/61
Lorain	2.6	57/41	58/40
Mahoning	2.2	61/37	62/36
Lake	2.1	48/50	49/49

Pennsylvania

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/48	54/44
Philadelphia	11.9	79/20	83/16
Allegheny	10.9	53/46	57/42
Montgomery	7.0	56/43	60/39
Bucks	5.5	50/49	54/45
Delaware	4.9	56/43	60/39
Chester	4.2	50/49	54/45
Lancaster	3.8	37/59	43/55
York	3.2	38/60	42/56
Berks	3.0	50/49	54/45
Westmoreland	3.0	37/62	41/58
Lehigh	2.5	53/46	57/42
Luzerne	2.3	49/49	53/45
Northampton	2.3	51/47	55/43
Dauphin	2.2	50/49	54/45
Erie	2.5	55/44	59/39

Washington

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/47	57/40
King	30.3	63/35	70/28
Pierce	10.9	48/50	55/43
Snohomish	10.6	51/46	58/39
Spokane	7.2	41/56	48/49
Clark	6.0	45/53	52/46
Thurston	4.2	53/45	60/38
Kitsap	4.1	48/50	55/43
Whatcom	3.3	51/47	58/40
Yakima	2.5	37/61	44/54
Benton	2.4	29/69	36/62

West Virginia

County	% of 2008 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2008 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	43/56
Kanawha	11.6	56/42	49/49
Berkeley	5.2	50/49	43/56
Wood	5.1	42/56	35/63
Cabell	4.9	51/47	44/54
Monongalia	4.7	58/40	51/47
Harrison	4.5	49/49	42/56
Raleigh	4.0	43/55	36/62
Putnam	3.5	45/54	38/61
Marion	3.3	56/41	49/48
Jefferson	3.2	59/40	52/47
Mercer	2.9	42/56	35/63
Ohio	2.7	51/48	44/55
Wayne	2.2	47/51	40/58
Fayette	2.1	55/43	48/50
Marshall	2.0	50/48	43/55

• Poll Closing Times: In case you haven’t seen it already, check out our handy map of poll closing times and key races across the country. Also, we’ll be accepting entries in our predictions contest until 6pm Eastern. Reach for that golden chocolate babka!

• Weather: Forecasts today call for plagues of locusts in Arizona, frogs falling from the sky in Illinois, periodic blood showers in Pennsylvania, hellfire and brimstone in Ohio. Partly sunny in California.

• AK-Sen: The rumor mill over the last few days has had the NRSC turning its attentions back to Lisa Murkowski, whom they’d once shunned, seeing her as their best plan for holding Alaska as Joe Miller seems to lag. (Of course, they may have semi-consciously been doing that for weeks, running ads hitting Scott McAdams instead of hitting Murkowski.) Miller, for his part, is dismissive, saying he didn’t need them to win the primary.

DC Dems are finally showing some interest here… maybe it was a conscious decision to avoid the taint of Washington in this race, or more likely it was just being blind to the possibility of a pickup here until the last moment. Bill Clinton is robocalling on McAdams’ behalf, and the DSCC finally rolled out a TV ad here over the weekend (anti-Murkowski, not anti-Miller). Here’s what’s probably motivated them: the final Hays Research poll, this time on behalf of the DSCC (instead of the IBEW like the last ones). Its results: Miller 27, McAdams 26, “another candidate you have to write in” 25, and undecided 21. That’s close. With the specter of analyzing tens of thousands of write-in ballots for intent, and the attendant legal challenges, it will almost assuredly be weeks before we have a winner in Alaska. UPDATE: Just got late word of yet another poll here, from yet another local pollster: Dittman. I don’t know who, if anyone Dittman is working for, but they’re pretty Murkowski-friendly results: Murko 37, Miller 26, McAdams 22.

• DE-Sen: Despite having essentially no chance of winning, somehow Christine O’Donnell got more media coverage than any other candidate this cycle, according to a Pew study. (Thanks, Gawker!) Of course, it’s hard not to, when she provides us with so much good material, as with her closing argument fail: she’d planned on 30-minute blocks of TV time on the local Fox affiliate and on public access, but somehow neither happened, owing to miscommunication and flat-out never getting around to purchasing the time on Fox. A remarkable end to a remarkable campaign.

• PA-08: I imagine you’ll be hearing a lot of stories today and in the following days about voter “suppression” (from the Dems) and “fraud” (from the GOP), but we’re already getting a jump on it in the 8th: both sides are alleging irregularities in absentee ballots. 8,000 ballots have been sequestered at the Bucks County courthouse already, so assuming the margin is less than that, here’s another one we can already expect to find its way into court.

And here are a few more straggler polls:

• NC-Sen (PPP): Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%, Elaine Marshall (D) 40%

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov (UNH): Kelly Ayotte (R) 54%, Paul Hodes (D) 36%; John Lynch (D-inc) 49%, John Stephen (R) 41%

• ID-01 (Greg Smith): Walt Minnick (D-inc) 48%, Raul Labrador (R) 38%

• Fox/Pulse:

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: Ken Buck (R) 50%, Michael Bennet (D-inc) 46%; John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Tom Tancredo (C) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 6%

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk (R) 46%, Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 6%; Bill Brady (R) 44%, Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle (R) 48%, Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%

• OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 48%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 44%

Get ready for the mother of all poll dumps:

• AK-Sen, Gov PPP:  Joe Miller (R) 37%, Scott McAdams (D) 30%, Lisa Murkowski (WI) 30%; Sean Parnell (R-inc) 54%, Ethan Berkowitz (D) 43%

• AR-Gov Rasmussen: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 60%, Jim Keet (R) 38%

• AR-Sen Rasmussen: John Boozman (R) 55%, Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 36%

• AZ-Gov Rasmussen: Jan Brewer (R-inc) 53%, Terry Goddard (D) 39%

• CA-Sen, Gov PPP: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 50%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%; Jerry Brown (D) 51%, Meg Whitman (R) 46%

• CA-Sen, Gov SurveyUSA: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 46%, Carly Fiorina (R) 38%; Jerry Brown (D) 48%, Meg Whitman (D) 37%

• CA-Sen, Gov YouGov: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%; Jerry Brown (D) 51%, Meg Whitman (D) 41%

• CO-Sen Marist: Ken Buck (R) 49%, Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%

• CO-Sen, Gov PPP: Ken Buck (R) 49%, Michael Bennet (D-inc) 48%; John Hickenlooper (D) 48%, Tom Tancredo (C) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 8%

• CO-Sen, Gov YouGov: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 49%, Ken Buck (R) 48%; John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Tom Tancredo (C) 40%, Dan Maes (R) 9%

• CT-Sen, Gov PPP: Richard Blumenthal (D) 54%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%; Tom Foley (R) 49%, Dan Malloy (D) 47%

• CT-Sen, Gov Qpac: Richard Blumenthal (D) 53%, Linda McMahon (R) 44%; Tom Foley (R) 48%, Dan Malloy (D) 45%

• CT-Sen Rasmussen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 53%, Linda McMahon (R) 46%

• CT-Gov Rasmussen : Tom Foley (D) 48%, Dan Malloy (R) 46%

• CT-Sen, Gov YouGov: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%; Dan Malloy (D) 48%, Tom Foley (R) 44%

• FL-Gov, Sen PPP: Alex Sink (D) 48%, Rick Scott (R) 47%; Marco Rubio (R) 47%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%, Kendrick Meek (D) 21%

• FL-Gov, Sen Quinnipiac: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 43%; Marco Rubio (R) 45%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%, Kendrick Meek (D) 18%

• FL-Sen Rasmussen: Marco Rubio (R) 50%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%, Kendrick Meek (D) 16%

• FL-Gov, Sen Susquehanna for Sunshine St. News: Alex Sink (D) 49%, Rick Scott (R) 46%; Marco Rubio (R) 48%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%, Kendrick Meek (D) 20%

• FL-Gov Univ. of S. Florida for NYT: Rick Scott (R) 44%, Alex Sink (D) 39%

• FL-Gov, Sen YouGov: Alex Sink (D) 45%, Rick Scott (R) 45%; Marco Rubio (R) 46%, Charlie Crist (I) 34%, Kendrick Meek (D) 15%

• GA-Gov Mason-Dixon: Nathan Deal (R) 47%, Roy Barnes (D) 40%, John Monds (L) 6%

• IA-Sen, Gov Selzer for Des Moines Register: Terry Branstad (R) 50%, Chet Culver (D-inc) 38%; Charles Grassley (R) 61%, Roxanne Conlin (D) 30%

• IL-Sen Anzalone-Liszt for DSCC: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 39%, Mark Kirk (R) 37%

• IL-Sen, Gov PPP: Mark Kirk (R) 46%, Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%; Bill Brady (R) 45%, Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%

• IL-Sen, Gov YouGov: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 47%, Mark Kirk (R) 44%; Bill Brady (R) 47%, Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%

• KY-Sen PPP: Rand Paul (R) 55%, Jack Conway (D) 40%

• KY-Sen YouGov: Rand Paul (R) 52%, Jack Conway (D) 44%

• MA-Gov WNEC: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 42%, Charlie Baker (R) 37%, Tim Cahill (I) 11%

• ME-Gov MPRC for Down East: Paul LePage (R) 39%, Eliot Cutler (I) 29%, Libby Mitchell (D) 24%

• ME-01 Critical Insights for Maine Today Media: Dean Scontras (R) 45%, Chellie Pingree (D-inc) 41%

• MN-Gov PPP: Mark Dayton (D) 43%, Tom Emmer (R) 40%, Tom Horner (I) 15%

• MO-Sen YouGov: Roy Blunt (R) 54%, Robin Carnahan (D) 42%

• NH-Sen, Gov PPP: Kelly Ayotte (R) 56%, Paul Hodes (D) 41%; John Lynch (D-inc) 53%, John Stephen (R) 44%

• NH-Gov Rasmussen: John Lynch (D-inc) 51%, John Stephen (R) 45%

• NH-01, 02 UNH: Frank Guinta (R) 46%, Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc) 39%; Ann McLane Kuster (D) 43%, Charlie Bass (R) 40%

• NM-Gov ABQ Journal: Susana Martinez (R) 52%, Diane Denish (D) 42%

• NV-Gov Mason-Dixon: Brian Sandoval (R) 56%, Rory Reid (D) 35%

• NV-03 Mason Dixon: Joe Heck (R) 53%, Dina Titus (D-inc) 43%

• NV-Sen, Gov PPP: Sharron Angle (R) 47%, Harry Reid (D-inc) 46%, Scott Ashjian (T) 3%; Brian Sandoval (R) 55%, Rory Reid (D) 44%

• NV-Sen, Gov YouGov: Sharron Angle (R) 49%, Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%; Brian Sandoval (R) 56%, Rory Reid (D) 40%

• NY-Sen, Sen-B, Gov Siena: Andrew Cuomo (D) 58%, Carl Paladino (R) 33%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 57%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 37%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 64%, Jay Townsend (R) 32%

• NY-Sen, Sen-B, Gov SurveyUSA: Andrew Cuomo (D) 55%, Carl Paladino (R) 33%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 56%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 36%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 62%, Jay Townsend (R) 32%

• NY-Sen, Sen-B, Gov YouGov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 56%, Carl Paladino (R) 29%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 58%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 34%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 60%, Jay Townsend (R) 34%

• OH-Sen, Gov Columbus Dispatch (mail-in): John Kasich (R) 49%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 47%; Rob Portman (R)56%, Lee Fisher (D) 40%

• OH-Sen, Gov PPP: John Kasich (R) 49%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 48%; Rob Portman (R) 57%, Lee Fisher (D) 39%

• OH-Sen, Gov Quinnipiac: John Kasich (R) 47%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 46%; Rob Portman (R) 56%, Lee Fisher (D) 37%

• OH-Sen Rasmussen: Rob Portman (R) 57%, Lee Fisher (D) 33%

• OH-Sen, Gov Univ. of Cincinnati: John Kasich (R) 52%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 48%; Rob Portman (R) 60%, Lee Fisher (D) 39%

• OH-Sen, Gov YouGov: John Kasich (R) 48%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%; Rob Portman (R) 52%, Lee Fisher (D) 39%

• PA-Sen Marist: Pat Toomey (R) 52%, Joe Sestak (D) 45%

• PA-Sen, Gov Muhlenberg: Pat Toomey (R) 48%, Joe Sestak (D) 44%; Tom Corbett (R) 49%, Dan Onorato (D) 42%

• PA-Sen, Gov PPP: Pat Toomey (R) 51%, Joe Sestak (D) 46%; Tom Corbett (R) 52%, Dan Onorato (D) 45%

• PA-Sen, Gov Quinnipiac: Pat Toomey (R) 50%, Joe Sestak (D) 45%; Tom Corbett (R) 52%, Dan Onorato (D) 42%

• PA-Gov Rasmussen: Tom Corbett (R) 52%, Dan Onorato (D) 43%

• PA-Sen, Gov Susquehanna for Tribune-Review: Pat Toomey (R) 46%, Joe Sestak (D) 44%; Tom Corbett (R) 48%, Dan Onorato (D) 41%

• PA-Sen, Gov YouGov: Pat Toomey (R) 48%, Joe Sestak (D) 44%; Tom Corbett (R) 51%, Dan Onorato (D) 40%

• UT-Gov, Sen, 02 Mason-Dixon: Gary Herbert (R-inc) 59%, Peter Coroon (D) 32%; Mike Lee (R) 48%, Sam Granato (D) 32%; Jim Matheson (D-inc) 48%, Morgan Philpot (R) 35%

• UT-Gov, Sen, 02 Dan Jones (for Deseret News): Gary Herbert (R-inc) 63%, Peter Coroon (D) 29%; Mike Lee (R) 57%, Sam Granato (D) 30%; Jim Matheson (D-inc) 51%, Morgan Philpot (R) 39%

• VA-05 POS for Robert Hurt: Robert Hurt (R) 45%, Tom Perriello (D) 42%

• VT-Gov Rasmussen: Peter Shumlin (D) 50%, Brian Dubie (R) 45%

• WA-Sen Fox/Pulse: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WA-Sen Marist: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

• WA-Sen PPP: Dino Rossi (R) 50%, Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%

• WA-Sen YouGov: Patty Murray (D-inc) 50%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WI-Sen Marist: Ron Johnson (R) 52%, Russ Feingold (D-inc) 45%

• WI-Sen, Gov YouGov: Ron Johnson (R) 52%, Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%; Scott Walker (R) 53%, Tom Barrett (D) 43%

• WV-Sen PPP: Joe Manchin (D) 51%, John Raese (R) 46%

• WV-Sen Rasmussen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 46%

• FL-Sen: File this under half a year too late and a few million dollars too short. Charlie Crist, as quietly as possible through an advisor making a leak to the Wall Street Journal, says he’d caucus with the Democrats if elected. If he’d said that many months ago, he would have probably had a clearer shot consolidating the Democratic vote and turning it into a two-man race. This comes shortly after a day of conflicting reports on whether or not Bill Clinton tried to get Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race, as recently as last week. Clinton and Meek have offered partial rebuttals, but at any rate, it’s kind of a non-story at this point with only a few days left.

• LA-Sen: Too bad there isn’t time left in the cycle to turn this into an ad: David Vitter’s verbal gymnastics at the last debate as to direct questions as to whether or not he actually broke the law when he was engaging in “very serious sin,” apparently for pay. The short answer is, of course, yes (assuming that his involvement with a prostitution ring occurred in Washington DC and not Reno).

• NV-Sen: Those of you following Jon Ralston’s tweets of the early voting in Nevada with bated breath probably already know this, but thanks to the movement of the mobile voting booths into some Dem-friendly areas, Democrats have actually pulled into the lead (at least by party registration) among early voters, up by 20,000 in Clark County.

• CO-Gov: My first question was why Tom Tancredo would even bother running for office if he felt this way, but then I remembered that he’s running for an executive position this time, not a legislative one. Apparently he’s a believer in a strong executive. Very, very, very strong.

There is a sort of an elitist idea that seeps into the head of a lot of people who get elected. And they begin to think of themselves as, really, there for only one purpose and that is to make laws. And why would you make laws?

• IL-Gov: Oooops, ad buy fail. A round of Bill Brady ads were pulled from the air on Thursday because the appropriate television stations didn’t get paid first. It appears to have been a “glitch” (their words) rather than a cash flow problem, though, nothing that a Fed-Exed check won’t fix: the ads will resume running tonight.

• PA-Gov: Ah, nice to see that a Republican briefly acknowledge that the fewer people vote, the better Republicans do. Tom Corbett, at a Philadelphia appearance, said that he wanted to keep Democratic participation down, saying “we want to make sure that they don’t get 50 percent.”

• OH-13: Sensing a pattern here? A second woman is coming forward to accuse Tom Ganley of sexual harassment. She filed a police report stating that in 2005, while in the middle of a car transaction, Ganley groped her and later propositioned her. This race, despite Ganley’s money, is seeming increasingly like one of the House Dems’ lesser worries.

• RGA: I’m not sure what you can do with $6.5 million in half a week, but the RGA is determined to find out. They put that much money into four governor’s races in some of the nation’s largest states: Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and (interestingly, since they haven’t sweated this one before) Pennsylvania. (While the other three are for TV ads, in Florida it’s for GOTV… seemingly something that Rick Scott forgot to purchase.)

• Election night: This may be the most shocking news of all today, for the obsessive number crunchers among us. This will be the first election where the powers that be (mostly the AP) will be doing away with precinct reporting. Instead of giving specific numbers of precincts in, they’ll be expressing it as “percentage of expected vote.” The change in longstanding tradition has mostly to do with the increasing prevalence of mail-in votes and early votes, best seen with some locales dumping all their early votes all at once and calling it one precinct, messing with people like us who build complicated models ahead of time.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk’s last ad calls Alexi Giannoulias “too immature” for the Senate (um, has he actually seen the Senate in action?)

• NV-Sen: Obama! Fear! Tyranny! Aaaghh! And apparently the Carmina Burana playing the background! (Sharron Angle’s closing statement, in other words)

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold puts on a plaid shirt and faces the camera, touting his accomplishments and newspaper endorsements

• TX-Gov: Bill White also rolls out his newspaper endorsements, as well as lobbing “career politician” at Rick Perry one last time

• MN-06: Taryl Clark’s last ad is a look at real people with real problems in the 6th, and the myriad ways Michele Bachmann blew them off

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 45%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Dan Maes (R) 5%, Tom Tancredo (C) 42%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 41%, Rand Paul (R) 53%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 46%, Charlie Baker (R) 44%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D-inc) 53%, Jim Huffman (R) 42%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%

• YouGov: The English pollster is out with a slew of polls; the numbers seem very plausible, but they’re conducted over the Internet (probably using at least some sort of rigor, but that alone is enough for relegation to the end of the digest)

• CA: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%; Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%

• FL: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 41%; Kendrick Meek (D) 18%, Marco Rubio (R) 42%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%

• NY: Andrew Cuomo (D) 57%, Carl Paladino (R) 27%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 57%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 59%, Jay Townsend (R) 35%

• OH: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%, John Kasich (R) 48%; Lee Fisher (D) 40%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

• PA: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%; Joe Sestak (D) 44%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%