I’ve got to say, I’m loving living in New York. One of the best decisions I ever made. I think TPM is better written from outside DC.
But I’m sitting here watching the Dem rallies right now in DC. Rahm’s speaking. I’m envying you guys. It’s got to be a sweet night.
Wow, with 99% of the votes in Jim Webb has just pulled ahead of Allen by the tiniest amount.
Karl Rove formally told the President tonight that the House had gone to the Democrats, Reuters reports.
To have been a fly on that wall.
The two Georgia House districts which have been fiercely contested are still too close to call. Both Democratic incumbents, Marshall and Barrow, hold small leads with most of the votes counted.
The White House strategy for going forward is pretty apparent from this Reuters dispatch:
President George W. Bush, disappointed at the Democrats’ seizure of the House of Representatives, will hold a news conference on Wednesday to urge his opponents to work with him, the White House said.
The news conference was set for 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT).
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the outcome of the elections, in which Democrats were projected to win control of the House and pick up several Senate seats, was “not what we would’ve hoped.”
“But it also gets us to a point: Democrats have spent a lot of time complaining about what the president has done. This is an opportunity for them to kind of stand up,” Snow said.
No concessions. No retreat. No surrender.
There will be much more to say about this in the coming hours and days, but it’s not a bad time, even as the Senate remains in the balance, to emphasize a point we have made here from time to time during this campaign.
The election marks a beginning more than an end. Savor the moment tonight. But there is much to be done and no time to linger. Plans must be implemented. More battles waged. Our opponents have been planning for this moment for many months. They are ready. We must be, too.
It’s interesting. It didn’t always show up in an obvious way in the polls. But I always thought the corruption issue had a pervasive, atmosphere effect, pulling down the Republicans and particularly the GOP Congress. At least the exit polls seem to show that that was true. Makes me really happy we launched Muckraker earlier this year.
I’ll be curious to see how that conversation goes over the coming days, what the conventional wisdom becomes on the relative weight of Iraq, Bush and the corruption issue in ending the Republican majority in the House.
What do you think?
With 76% reporting, Democrat Claire McCaskill has emerged with a very narrrow lead over Sen Jim Talent. Most of the late vote in Missouri breaks for the Democrat, so you would expect to see McCaskill stretching that lead as the night wears on. But no guarantees.
Late Update: CNN was reporting on its website a very narrow McCaskill lead, but the latest numbers–with just 71% reporting–show Talent up by 3 percentage points.
Later update: McCaskill back on top. With 80% reporting, she leads 49-48.
Tennessee Senate seat goes to Bob Corker, CNN projects.
Is Rep. Pombo (R-CA) going to be another Abramoff victim?
McNerney (D) 49.3%, Pombo (R) 50.7%, with 31% of the votes counted.
That’d be a satisfying win.
Late Update: Ha. Looks like I had those numbers transposed. It’s McNerney with the slightly higher number. Even better.