I published an earlier regular miscellany post here today.
The night started out with Congresswoman Capito winning the open WV Senate seat due to Jay Rockefeller's retirement, the first of the 6 seats the GOP needed to convert to wrestle away in their third election attempt to capture the Senate since 2010. A little noted fact is that the GOP swept all 3 House seats; my incumbent Congressman won his race, but one seat flipped an incumbent Dem and the third race saw popular Sen. Manchin (D) put his support behind Casey, who painted Mooney as a failed Maryland carpetbagger. There have been some rumors that Manchin, who has openly distanced himself from the White House on some issues, could flip parties, although I consider that unlikely, but as of January, he'll be the sole WV Congressional Dem in DC...
There were a number of fascinating stories tonight, most importantly the GOP gaining control of the Senate for the first time since 2006, but let me start out with some sentimental favorites in my former residential states of Illinois and Maryland. (I've been spending all evening with the CBS home pages for the Senate, House and governor races and listened to FNC for the first time in months--I was amused as I watched the first ad for my Congressman during election coverage.) The big story is GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan decisively beating Lt. Gov. Brown, O'Malley's running mate, 52-46%. (If you recall, one of Obama's last campaign appearances was for Brown, and it got some news coverage because people started leaving while Obama was speaking.)
In Illinois, I used to live in Mark Kirk's district before he ran for Obama's old seat; Bob Dold succeeded him and I'm still on Dold's email list. He lost reelection in 2012 by an eyelash, and this time he won by a decisive 4-point or so margin. But the big story on the night was Rauner beat Quinn to return the GOP to the governor's mansion from a 3-term Blago/Quinn exile following George Ryan, who left the office over a license scandal during his terms as Secretary of State.
There were several unexpectedly sound GOP Senate wins; the Dems were on the offense in SD, KY, GA, KS. Grimes, who got Dem royalty coming in to push against unpopular Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and once led him in the polls, didn't come close, barely capturing 40% of the vote. Incumbent Sen. Pryor of Arkansas, thought to be close to Congressman Cotton, also got blown out, barely hitting the hitting the 40% level. I had seen some recent polls showing Nunn with a lead in Georgia and most pundits thought it was heading for a runoff with a clear majority needed: but Perdue has been north of 50 (53-57%) all evening, and I don't recall a single poll showing him doing that well. Rounds, who was in trouble a few weeks back with former GOP Pressler making a dent in a 3-way race, but he blew away the competition walking away with a clear majority. Daines also picked up Montana's open seat; this is where his original opponent (Walsh, named interim senator by the state Dem governor) bowed out over a plagiarism scandal. But I don't think anyone anticipated that Pat Roberts would pull off what looks like a 10-point victory over Orman, just 2-3 weeks after Orman had a 10-point lead in the polls and Roberts looked like roadkill.
The marquee Senate races: what can you say about Gardner edging out Mark Udall in Colorado and Ernst taking the open Iowa seat by similar majority margins? The big upset pickup was Tillis beating NC incumbent Hagan. The majority of polls I saw had Hagan winning, with just a couple of narrow Tillis wins. Scott Brown fought the good fight but lost by about 4 points. But without a doubt, the biggest near-upset was Gillespie's showing against Warner; as I write, they still have not called the race with Warner narrowly leading 48-47.
Landrieu and Cassidy will face off in a runoff. Landrieu leads 42-41 as I write, but she's done: she had an advantage of a divided opposition, with Palin-backed Maness picking up 14 points. First, 58% of the voters did not support Landrieu, which is bad for an incumbent. Second, Cassidy has repeatedly beaten Landrieu in head-to-head polls. Maness supporters thought Cassidy is not conservative enough; Landrieu is anathema to them. Sure, some may skip the runoff over not liking either candidate, but let me point out the open primary poll results showed Landrieu with a more decisive lead over Cassidy: she did not outperform the polls but he did. I think he wins the runoff going away, but expect a ton of money and high-profile supporters to work it for Landrieu. Will the fact that the GOP won the Senate without Louisiana save her? I don't think so. Cassidy would have more pull as part of the majority. I was really unhappy with Landrieu pulling the race card in her campaign, which I regard as the sign of political desperation.
As I write, Sullivan has been consistently been leading Begich by 5-6 points all evening with about 70% of the vote in. This is consistent with most of the polls I've seen from Alaska; of course, it all depends where the missing votes are. Polls in Alaska are tricky because of its thin population. I may be eating my words in the morning but it looks like 53-45, and when Virginia and Louisiana are accounted for, I suspect 54-46. I don't think anyone was projecting a net gain of 9; up to 10 were possible but even name pundits were giving up to 70% or so to get to 51.
The CBS House results so far show a 10-seat increase for the GOP with the current called races 236-172. [11/05 AM note: CNN has it 242-174.] The hope was that GOP would hit 240 seats or above, maybe up to 246 in the 1946 election. There are enough seats still in play that the GOP has a good shot at reaching its target. I initially thought a personal favorite, Dan Bongino in MD, would win but the late returns put the Dem incumbent over him.
A final reflection on the governors races. Scott Walker of Wisconsin pulled off his third election. Brownback of Kansas looked like he was going to lose but pulled his out. Snyder of Michigan won reelection, even vulnerable LePage of Maine pulled his out. Baker handed MA Attorney General Coakley her second high-profile statewide defeat, returning the governor's mansion to the GOP for the first time since Romney left office in 2007. The marquee battle, of course, was the Battle of Governors in Florida. I've watched this race closely all evening and Scott has maintained a small percentage lead all evening. At one point, I could swear I saw floating news item that Crist was demanding that Scott concede the race: what in the world was Crist smoking? Let's hope his defeat tonight is his political obituary... Lastly, I was grateful to see Texas Attorney General Abbott's landslide defeat of Wendy Davis, best known for filibustering to protect the legal right to abort late-term babies; Davis' campaign had posted a nasty ad referencing Abbott's disabled status.
Finally, on the gossip side of the election results, Clay Aiken, the American Idol runner up in season 2, lost his battle to unseat a GOP Congresswoman, and George P. Bush, Jeb Bush's son, won a land commissioner race in Texas, often a springboard for higher office in the state.
