All the nets calling Michigan for Obama. Not many details yet. But they called it as soon as the polls closed. So it must not even have been close.
Just broad overview. We’re starting to get a view of a lot of key counties in Florida and to a lesser extent in Virginia. In a situation like this you look at those key counties and see whether each guy is under- or over-performing their party’s totals in 2008. Obama seems to be keeping his pace in a lot of them. And some critical counties where Romney would need to be really racking up votes he doesn’t seem to be. Again, this is early. He could definitely win. The whole thing could turn. But what we might call the ‘internals’ of these states totally don’t look terribly promising for Romney. And these are the states he must win — really VA, NC and FLA — to even be in the running once we get to the midwestern states.
All of Linda McMahon’s efforts to confuse black voters about her pro-Romney record were to no avail.
Chris Murphy wins the Connecticut Senate seat held by Joe Lieberman.
Not a huge surprise but Chris Murphy defeats Linda McMahon in Connecticut. The final PollTracker Average was Murphy +9. But it had been considerably closer.
Late Update: Looking pretty encouraging for Donnelly in Indiana.
Second record exit polls continue to look quite promising for President Obama.
The second round exit polls show a party ID number in Ohio similar to the polls: D +7. Early results etc, but those are the sorts of numbers that ‘unskewers’ said were wildly unrealistic.
Polls closed in Virginia at 7 p.m. ET, but with long lines at polling places around the state — and those already in line still legally entitled to vote — the state is delaying counting votes so as not to unduly influence those still waiting in line. Smart move.
Yes, everything is very tentative. But the thing to look at right now is Florida and North Carolina. These two states are extremely close both in the exits and the trickle of actual results. The big deal though is that these two states are super, super close. Seemingly down to the wire. But Romney must win both states. If these are going down to the wire, that’s not a good sign for Romney.