Virginia and Montana are both ready to call D.
D Senate. Both houses. Well done.
Being from the UK, I’m just an interested bystander, but as I’m sure the SDMB is a typical cross section of the USA ( 
) - are there *any * republicans out there?
What’s your source on that, Sevastopol?
It seems like the lion’s share of the outstanding votes are from Yellowstone County, home of the state’s largest metropolis, Billings. Yellowstone has 0% reporting.
Although Tester’s lead has been slowly shrinking, in that his impressive 6000 vote lead has dropped to 3300, I’m guessing that Billings voters are the kind of urbanites that might lean towards Mr. Tester.
(But who the hell knows? I can’t stop staring at an election result page that shows that a voting population of about 375,000 people gets to pick 2 senators. Yeah, I knew that before Hell, that’s about double the voting population of Wyoming. This kind of rubs your face in it, though. Control of the senate is probably going to turn on Montana’s teeming thousands.)
Sure. The Democrats just make more noise sometimes.
Fortunately, that only sometimes involves bongo drums and amplified bad poetry.
Damn. Should be: “Yeah, I knew that before**. ** Hell, thats about double…”
There was a thread about this in IMHO or MPSIMS the other day. There are Republicans, but this year, many of them are fed up with the current government or can’t bring themselves to defend it.
CNN says we definitely won’t hear about Montana tonight. They’ll resume at 7 a.m. EST, so I’ll do what I should have done hours ago and get some sleep.
I’m just glad that I’m not yet so cynical that elections no longer excite me. Well done Americans.
Meanwhile, the most incompetently-run, bloated and corrupt level of Illinois government (and considering this year’s crop of Federal convictions, that’s saying a lot) can’t manage to count more than half of suburban Cook County votes by 3:30 a.m.
At least the City’s politicians are occasionally competent and make things work At the county level, though, we get both corruption and incompetence.
Apparently we spent $60 million dollars on recent upgrades to voting systems, but this year’s vote count is a shambles, with voting data having to be messengered downtown with questionable security, because the vote tallying and reporting system didn’t work. Third-world style demonstrations are taking place outside the County Building, protesting vote-counting irregularities.
Oh well. No doubt somebody’s brother was well-paid as a consultant by the voting system vendor.
Yet we happily vote in the same old people. Or their heirs.
Went to the state electoral site. I should clarify. I’m ready to call Montana.
Virginia is in the bag though. Doesn’t everyone agree on that by now. Likewise sourced from the state electoral site.
I apologise for appearing over-confident. I know a lot is at stake. Here’s hoping.
See I’ve gotten cynical to the point of being excited about this election simply for the beautiful political drama that will unfold. It should provide the Daily Show and the Colbert Report oodles of material.
Well, his lead is back up to around 4700, though the first results from Yellowstone are slightly leaning Republican.
Looks like I called Virginia a bit too soon. That’s one for the ‘never so glad to have been wrong’ file!
Holy cow! Went to bed resigned to Cheney breaking the tie and keeping the Senate Republican and now he may not matter. The Dems are like the 97 pound weakling that used to get sand kicked in his face- now all of a sudden they have muscle. Let’s hope that Bush will revert to being able to work with an opposition Congress the way he did in Texas.
That could happen. The Dems are barely hanging on in the Georgia seats with counting almost finished, and the runoff in Louisiana will be between two Dems.
Well, for the first time in recent years, no one marked my ballot making it not secret. In years past, the election judge would mark the sheet they make you sign with a number in sharpie and mark the ballot with the same number. They also argued if you messed up your ballot and needed a new one, once snatching the ballot out of my hand and putting it straight into the box to be counted. Complaints got no where. Now with the paper ballot, no marks. The paper ballot was clear and easy to read, and said right on it that you would be given a fresh ballot if you messed that one up.
I had to work until 2 AM today, so I was just itching to get home and see how the elections went. One word: Wow! The Republicans got battered. Most of the local elections went the way I wanted them to as well.
Currently, CNN is calling Minnesota’s gubernatorial race as “Too Close to Call”, but it looks like Pawlenty has a fairly safe lead. On the other hand, as I compulsively refresh the Minnesota Secretary of State’s webpage that lists the results, Mike Hatch tiptoes a tiny bit closer with each update. (46.86% to 45.55% with 83 / 87 counties complete) I’m predicting that Pawlenty will remain governor, but it would be terrific icing on an already wonderful cake if he was kicked out.
With Montana and Virginia still up in the air (but slightly in favor of the Democrats), this could get better yet.
I really should get some sleep now though. Not only should election days be national holidays, but the day after election days should be as well. That way, we can all recover from staying up late / shock / depression / jubulation / etc.
As much as I’d hate to admit it, Montana is leaning toward Burns. By fewer than a thousand votes.