8:18 PM: So what’s the Nikki Haley thing about in South Carolina. This is how she came out of nowhere in April …
7:57 PM: Following up on the points below, check out this piece from April by Christina Bellantoni. As I said, in California and Nevada Republicans look likely to nominate very non-ideal candidates. But look at the money the Dems have. Harry Reid had almost $10 million on hand 6 weeks ago. I suspect he has a good deal more now. Barbara Boxer had almost $9 million. Fiorina will probably be ready to fund her own campaign to make up the difference whatever their might be. But Boxer will have plenty of money. And Reid is going to have enough money to plaster whichever opponent Republicans put up against him.
7:53 PM: I really think Republicans are going to rue the day they nominated Carly Fiorina as their Senate candidate in California. A really iffy record as CEO of HP, in a cycle where CEOs in general aren’t that popular and you add on top of that a lurch to the right on all sorts of issues that really doesn’t pass the laugh test. I could see what was coming with Fiorina when I noticed that a number of folks who are pretty conservative actually supporting Campbell because they knew she wouldn’t hold up in a serious general.
7:44 PM: I think the big story over the course of this evening is going to be Republicans ending up with non-ideal candidates — particularly in Nevada. But it looks like they’re ending up with the most electable guy to go up against Rep. Tom Perriello (D) in Virginia’s 5th district. The AP just called this one and it looks solid for Robert Hurt (R).
7:27 PM: Okay, we’ve got a few states closed so far but as yet no definitive results. So I thought I’d start with some previews. Here’s the latest trend line for the Arkansas Dem Senate run-off. (As always, to see the full-sized graph click the TPM logo.)
Now one point to keep in mind here is that only one pollster has polled this race since the first round, Research 2000. So that means that this is mainly a trend of R2K’s polling rather than a composite of several pollsters. Also, there are some details about turnout in different parts of the state given that there are no other downballot races this time. Still, this gives you an overview of the trend.
