VIRGINIA — 8 Republicans (+3), 3 Democrats (-3)
Delegation: 8 Republicans, 3 Democrats
District 1: Rep. Rob Wittman 135,431-Krystal Ball 73,668
District 2: Rep. Scott Rigell 88,007-Glenn Nye 70,306 PICKUP
District 3: Rep. Bobby Scott 114,656-Chuck Smith 44,488
District 4: Rep. Randy Forbes 122,661-Wynne LeGrow 74,205
District 5: Robert Hurt 119,241-Tom Perriello 110,561 PICKUP
District 6: Rep. Bob Goodlatte 125,298-Jeffrey Vanke 21,412
District 7: Rep. Eric Cantor 138,093-Rick Waugh 79,289-Floyd Bayne 15,154
District 8: Rep. Jim Moran 116,264-Patrick Murray 71,097
District 9: Morgan Griffith 95,526-Rep. Rick Boucher 86,616 PICKUP
District 10: Rep. Frank Wolf 136,703-Jeff Barnett 72,272
District 11: Rep. Gerry Connolly 110,401-Keith Fimian 109,914 (with 98.80% of votes counted)
NATIONAL
As of 6:20 am, according to Politico, it appears that Democrats will keep control of the Senate (with 51-54 seats) but lose the House (down around 60 seats), which means Democrats retain the Senate but Republicans (new speaker: John Boehner) take the House. A few key Senate results include:
*Sen. Harry Reid defeats Sharron Angle in Nevada, 50.2%-44.6%.
*Joe Manchin defeats John Raese in West Virginia, 53.5%-43.4%.
*Pat Toomey defeats Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, 51.0%-49.0%.
*Mark Kirk defeats Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, 48.4%-46.1%.
*Ron Johnson defeats Sen. Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, 51.9%-47.1%.
*Rand Paul defeats Jack Conway in Kentucky 55.9%-44.1%
*Chris Coons defeats Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, 56.6%-40.0%
*Marco Rubio wins easily in Florida over Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek
*Richard Blumenthal wins easily in Connecticut over Linda McMahon
Washington State, Colorado and Alaska remain too close to call.
In governor’s races, it appears that Republicans are picking up around 8 seats (including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and New Mexico) but that Democrats have taken California. Right now, it appears that Alex Sink has lost to Rick Scott in Florida.
POLLING
A quick analysis by Nate Silver on Rasmussen, which turns out to be as biased (towards Republicans) as many of us suspected all along.
While waiting for the remaining results to trickle in from states like Colorado and Alaska, I did a quick check on the accuracy of polls from the firm Rasmussen Reports, which came under heavy criticism this year – including from FiveThirtyEight – because its polls showed a strong lean toward Republican candidates.
Indeed, Rasmussen polls quite consistently turned out to overstate the standing of Republicans tonight. Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points.
Every pollster is entitled to a bad cycle now and again – and Rasmussen has had some good cycles in the past. But their polling took a major downturn this year.
Let’s put it this way, Rasmussen is the preferred pollster of the insane right wingnut Washington Examiner. ‘Nuff said.
UPDATE: I agree with Markos on this one, “Teabaggers rescued Dems from themselves in CO, NV, and DE. Without them, we’d have a 50/50 Senate.” Alao, in Alaska, it looks like they’ve lost to Lisa Murkowski, and they almost helped defeat Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania (with Christine “Not a Witch” O’Donnell’s insanity in neighboring Delaware). In addition, they handed the Colorado governor’s mansion to Democrats on a silver platter, not to mention New York’s. Oh, and thanks for saving Harry Reid in Nevada, guys! 🙂
UPDATE #2: See Ari Melber on “Lessons of the Blue Dog Blowout”. “Loudly breaking with Obama on health care was not a winner, either. “Of the 34 Democrats who voted against the health care bill in March – 24 of them were Blue Dogs – only 12 won reelection,” notes reporter Jon Ward.” Hello, Glenn Nye and Rick Boucher, did you hear that?
UPDATE 11:30 am: The Denver Post calls it for Michael Bennet. Great news; Ken Buck was apparently just too crazy for Colorado voters.
UPDATE 11:41 am: With 100% of precincts now reporting, Rep. Gerry Connolly leads Keith Fimian by 820 votes (111,515-110,695). What would have happened if Republicans had nominated Pat Herrity instead of Fimian? My guess is that Connolly would have lost last night. But they didn’t, and he didn’t.
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