Election Night 2006: The LiveBlog
Nov 7, 2006 Brainwaves, Politics
Alex, Yvonne and I are at Panera Bread in Webster tonight, eating dinner, checking news sites, and listening to FOX News Radio on stream; we’ll be headed back to Alex’s place later. I’ll be posting updates… well, whenever I feel like it. I’ll be posting new stuff at the top of the post At the end of the night, I’ve reversed the order for easier reading — start at the top and go down for chronological order (all times Eastern).
8:15 PM – Since we started listening to reports about a half hour ago, the Allen/Webb VA-SEN race has flip-flopped about 4 times.
8:39 PM – IN-8 appears to be the first House pickup for the Democrats, and FOX is calling Santorum to lose his Senate seat. CNN’s site isn’t saying yet on that last.
8:47 PM – Panera is closing shortly; more when we get home.
9:36 PM – Now back online at Alex’s. Projections are that the OH, RI, and PA Senate seats have fallen from Republican to Democratic control. They need 3 more to take Senate control.
9:45 PM – From the well-that’s-just-silly department… CNN reports that a 62% of those exit-polled approved of the job that Lincoln Chaffee was doing, yet still voted him out off office.
10:07 PM – Hat tip to Pajamas Media for this gem:
A man who reportedly believed Republicans were conspiring to steal today’s election entered an Allentown polling site, signed in and proceeded to smash the screen of one of the electronic voting machines with a metal cat paperweight, poll volunteers said.
10:27 PM – FOX News suggests the Republicans may take 2 of the Democratic House seats in the south (that’s a gross 2, not a net — GOP still expected to lose seats net).
10:34 PM – 4 GOP Senate seats are still in play: MT, MO, VA and TN. Republicans Talent (MO), Allen (VA) and Corker (TN) are showing slight leads at this time. No precincts have yet reported from MT.
10:35 PM – Joe Lieberman is giving a victory speech. Kinda amusing that when the Democratic party base was fed up with him over his Iraq war stance, the state as a whole disagreed, and kept him in office.
11:12 PM – Most outlets have called MD-SEN for Ben Cardin (D) over Michael Steele (R). However, with Steele leading by 22K votes, FOX reports the Washington Post may have pulled its projection.
11:17 PM – Not election-related, but Yvonne fell asleep over an hour ago. Alex and I are still at it. I forgot to link it earlier, but check out his coverage on LiveJournal.
11:28 PM – They’re all still close, but I’m suspecting all four incumbents House Representatives in Monroe County — Walsh (R-25), Reynolds (R-26), Slaughter (D-28) and Kuhl (R-29) — will keep their seats.
11:33 PM – I forgot to post it, but I’m sure you’ve seen it elsewhere already — Reports are that the Democratic Party has taken control of the House of Representatives. They still need 3 of the last 4 un-called Senate seats to take control of that house; current vote counts only have two of them shifting, and VA seems to be flip-flopping between Cardin and Steele.
11:39 PM – CNN is now calling NY-26 and NY-29 for GOP incumbents Tom Reynolds and Randy Kuhl.
11:43 PM – I pin this one on the cable company, not on FOX, but in commercial breaks on FOX News Channel, a commercial for Dan Doyle for State Supreme Court just ran — nearly three hours after polls closed. 
11:50 PM – John Podhoretz on The Corner@NRO, via Glenn Reynolds:
Happy or suicidal with tonight’s results, something colossal and profoundly important has happened in the United States beginning in 2000 — the re-engagement of the American people with politics. We have had four enormously consequential elections in a row now in which voters have cast their ballots in numbers that we were told we’d never see in our lifetimes. I don’t see how you can view this as anything but a wondrous development for the United States.
11:57 PM – Not surprisingly, CA-GOV is being called as Arnold Schwarzenegger winning reelection.
12:22 AM – Astonishingly, after using state taxpayer money to have his wife chauffeured by an office staffer, thus losing the endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial candidate (now Governor-elect) Eliot Spitzer and failing to gain the endorsement of the New York Times, Alan Hevesi has somehow been reelected to the NY state comptroller position.
12:48 AM – You should be able to see this post again, after it being missing for a while. I’d accidentally marked it Private somewhere along the line, and didn’t notice it was missing ’cause for me, logged in as the site admin, it wasn’t missing.
1:04 AM – We’re not going to know who’s in control of the Senate until tomorrow at the earliest, and likely longer. Last report had 1,792 more votes for Jim Webb than George Allen, but at least one district had so many votes to count from the first count — not a recount — that they’re not going to finish tonight, they’ve gone home and will finish them tomorrow. Add to that a large number of absentee ballots, and the state is still very much in play. Democrats Claire McCaskell (MO) and Jon Tester (MT) are currently showing leads, which makes VA-SEN the determining seat — an Allen win results in a tie, with Vice President Cheney casting deciding votes in Senate tie votes, and a Webb win gives the Democrats control. I’m likely done for the night on posting, will check in more later.
