John Boehner and Eric Cantor should effortlessly accede to Speaker and Majority Leader in the new House. But there’s a battle brewing for the position of House Republican Conference Chair. Cantor and Boehner want Jeb Hensarling (R) for the post. But Michele Bachman wants it for herself. She’s got a lot of fans in the incoming class of GOP House Freshman. But the word I get from Republican circles is that Hensarling’s got this locked up.

Local media, the AP and Sen. Michael Bennet himself have all now declared Bennet the winner in the Colorado Senate race. The only thing missing seems to be a concession by Republican Ken Buck.

Obama sounds like someone ready to compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts. If only Democrats had thought to address that before the election …

When the news finally slowed down a bit this afternoon, I got a chance to go around (virtually) and thank our staff for all their hard work covering the election. And believe me, they worked incredibly hard. But we owe you a debt of gratitude as well.

Our readers were our eyes and ears and noses on the ground over the course of this entire election season, from the primaries straight through election night. We couldn’t have pulled off the breadth and depth of coverage that we did without your help.

I say it all the time to journalism students and others when I’m describing TPM, but I don’t say it here in this space that often: The coolest thing about TPM is our audience.

Of the many close, close statehouse races around the country, one that caught my eye was the governor’s race in Oregon, where former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) is trailing in his comeback attempt to former NBA player Chris Dudley (R). I spent a derelict two years in my early 20s in Portland waiting tables and aspiring to climb mountains, so I’m often frustrated by how little attention the state’s fascinating politics gets nationally.

Dudley’s lead is around a percentage point, which is pretty substantial. But there are a lot of uncounted ballots remaining in the liberal bastion of Multnomah County (Portland) and the latest report suggests that will be more than enough for Kitzhaber to make up the difference.

Late Update: The (Portland) Oregonian is now projecting Kitzhaber as the winner.

In her first public statement since she lost the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she hasn’t yet decided whether she will stay on in the House.

Reflecting for a moment on the service to the country Harry Reid and also his staff and campaign volunteers did keeping that crazy woman Sharron Angle out of the US Senate. Just reflecting back on her performance in that debate. Yes, he was lackluster. But she was frightening. Captures as well as anyone the concept of militant ignorance. And there are so many people doing their best to capture it.

We’ve come up with a total of four candidates on the ballot Tuesday who had died before Election Day but who won anyway. I cast a vote for the late Mel Carnahan in 2000 so I know this happens, but I had no idea there’d be so many in one election.

One of Ben Craw’s patented mashups — all the election night cable coverage in one concentrated 5-minute overdose: Read More

TPM Reader CA with a great catch:

The Denver Post article on Wednesday reported that “Tom Tancredo entered the
room for his concession speech to the strains of ‘La Bamba'” playing.

Now that’s irony!

Mexican-American Ritchie Valens’ given name was Ricardo Esteban Valenzuela Reyes.