Within the Margin

Here’s where I’ll be tonight. All times eastern. Refresh often.

First thing to note: parts of Indiana and Kentucky close their polls at 6:00 eastern time, which is absurd. But that means we already have some results. With a small number of precincts reporting, Richard Mourdock (R) is leading Joe Donnelly (D) by 4.5 points in the Indiana senate race. Keep in mind this evening that WTM has Donnelly picking this seat up for Democrats, as part of our overall forecast of no net change in the Senate (3 Rep pickups canceled out by 3 Dem pickups).

7:05 We have a long way to go in this Senate race, but we’re up to 4% counted now, and Mourdock’s lead has shrunk to about 2 points (CNN has more results but doesn’t report to a decimal place). Right now Romney is leading Obama 60-38 in Indiana atop the ticket, which is unrealistic: Indiana is not rocketing all the way back to its ’04 numbers. Remember that Obama won this state four years ago. He won’t this time, but that margin’s going to close, and as it does, Donnelly will pull ahead.

7:11 Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about Donnelly even with so few precincts in. That’s because Mourdock is leading narrowly, and we haven’t seen any of Marion (Indianapolis), St. Joseph (South Bend/Notre Dame) or Lake (Gary) counties yet. Nor Vanderburgh (Evansville) or LaPorte counties). These are Indiana’s most Democratic counties, and they are populous places. Barring the unexpected, we’re headed toward the first senate flip of the night, which is helpful for Dems as they seek to maintain a Senate majority.

7:21 Indiana-8 is a longshot pickup opportunity for Dems. We can start to get a decent read on it, because a lot of the IN precincts which have already reported are in the 8th. Republican incumbent Larry Bucshon leads by 0.9%.

7:24 7% in; Donnelly now up about 2% as votes start to come in from Lake and Marion counties. The city of Gary is ultra-Democratic as are some of the neighboring towns. Marion County is coterminous with Indianapolis; there’s some red suburban territory in there but in federal races Indy is essentially Democratic now (twas not always thus).

7:27 Ben Chandler (Kentucky-6) is a Democratic survivor from the 2010 wipeout, and he’s in a rematch with the man who he narrowly beat: Andy Barr. This is a top target for the Reps, but we have it at Lean Dem. Barr is up by 10 votes right now, but none of Fayette County has reported. Fayette includes Lexington, and is one of the bluer counties in Kentucky.

7:29 In other House news, Wacky Jackie Walorski is favored to pick up IN-2 for the Reps; this is the seat Donnelly has vacated to run for Senate. It was made redder in redistricting. Walorski has a comfortable lead in the early count, but that’s without any of South Bend reporting.

7:42 Not much erosion for Obama in Kentucky relative to 2008. Dave Leip’s site is not loading consistently – he apparently was not equipped for election night traffic – so my access to historical data might be somewhat limited tonight. But most counties look to be coming at roughly same percentages as 2008. Harder to judge turnout this early. I mention this not because Kentucky is a swing state, but specifically because it is not: the disparity in national versus state polling has led us to assume that Obama must be doing worse than before in non-swing states. KY is not an indicator of that.

7:45 Let’s talk about a bigger fish in the presidential race: Florida. Early Obama lead (50%-49%). With the ultra-red panhandle not closing for another 15 minutes and nothing in yet from populous counties like Miami-Dade (good for Dems) or Polk (good for Reps), I don’t have a feel yet for this one. My assumption has been a Romney win in Florida, of course.

7:54 As my good friend Chris Kelly just pointed out, the Florida numbers are bizarre. CNN has 34% reporting…everyone else 4-5%. CNN knows something that no one else does?

8:00 Indiana update: St. Louis County (South Bend, home of the Fighting Irish) has largely reported. That moved Brendan Mullen ahead significantly in IN-2, but let’s see if that holds up. Walorski will fight back in the much redder areas of the district, obviously. Marion is also starting to come in, so statewide numbers are more useful now. Romney is down to a 10-11 point lead in Indiana, depending on which results you look at. That falls in line with my expectation that Indiana ’12 will be a midpoint between Indiana ’04 (big Bush win) and Indiana ’08 (narrow Obama win). Lastly, Donnelly leads by 6.3% in the Senate race. Dems are on top in the first of the Abortion Derbies in the Senate – Mizzou being the other.

8:09 Florida update: Some erosion for Obama relative to ’08 in populous, suburban Polk County. McCain won 52.5-46.3 in 2008; Romney leads 53.4-45.7. That’s a smallish gain, but played out across the state – along with Romney improvements in the super-red panhandle, which we’re seeing so far – might be enough to flip it. Romney absolutely has to have Florida; I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop here.

8:20 Let’s do a House update. Buchson is pulling away in IN-8 (southwest corner). Reps should be OK there. Mullen has a big lead with half of the vote counted in IN-2; he’s going to gain some more ground in LaPorte County so that’s still very much in play as a difficult Dem hold. But it looks like Ben Chandler might be toast in KY-6; Barr is up 5 and much of Fayette County is in, so I don’t see where he makes up ground. He had momentum late; should’ve changed it to Tilt Dem or even Tilt Rep.

8:24 The Florida goofiness continues. CNN shows an Obama lead, with 45% counted. Everyone else shows a narrower Romney lead, with 23-31% reporting. That could mean that on their way to 45%, Obama will retake the lead. Or it means CNN is watching a different game, as they’ve been known to do in Florida sometimes.

8:26 I haven’t mentioned Virginia yet, because we didn’t have anything from Fairfax County. As that starts to roll in, the current ginormous Romney lead will diminish and we’ll get a sense of where things stand there.

8:27 CNN added a bunch of results in Florida – 50% reported, 50-50 tie. Obama up by 6,536 votes statewide.

8:32 Networks are already calling the Connecticut Senate race for Chris Murphy. So Dems replace Joe Lieberman with, you know, an actual Democrat. And Linda McMahon loses again, in a race Republicans spent September thinking they might pick up. She won’t be missed on the American political scene.

8:32 Relocating to Shadows – I’ll be back online within a half hour in a new thread.