What a night! 99% of precincts reporting and James Webb now leads George Allen by about 2,500 votes. Mixed feelings on this one. A while back I hoped that George Allen would hold himself together long enough politically to challenge John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination (and win).
In Virginia, 96% of the votes are in — and Allen has a smidgeon of a lead, just 8000 votes, over Jim Webb. Recount time. In Maryland, the Washington Post is now pulling off its projection that Ben Cardin will prevail over Michael Steele. More later.
11:07 p.m. That’s it. The investigations and testimony — under oath — will begin. Presidential campaigns start tomorrow. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York-20 and Ron Klein in Florida-22 put the Dems over the magic half-way point in the House. Nancy Pelosi now reigns. Big, very big.
It’s 11 p.m. here at CNN’s blogfest. Great people here — most of whom I know via email but very different to actually meet the pajama crowd in person. At this DCCC site, reports are the Dems are now just two seats away from taking over the House of Representatives. Exciting.
This is an exciting evening. Santorum loses. Chafee — who voted against George W. Bush in the last election — loses. Menendez keeps his seat in New Jersey. Blue states are getting bluer. Hal Ford is going down in the South. Allen and Webb are flipping every few minutes.
Wow. Well, I did prefer that Senator Lincoln Chafee win his race — but also know that Sheldon Whitehouse is considered by many to be a great candidate. I very much hope that Whitehouse continue the same course on foreign policy that Chafee bravely pursued this year.
My former boss, Jeff Bingaman, has won decisively in the New Mexico senate race. He is no media hound, but he is the smartest guy in the Senate when it comes to good public policy. Congatulations.
While it was somewhat expected that Rick Santorum and Thomas Kean, Jr. were going into their respective elections in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in deficit positions, the fact that Kean was a moderate Republican and Santorum a right-winger does flag something.