I've been saying this for a while, but in the wake of my brilliantly correct predictions in the two of yesterday's races that I cared enough about to predict (Sestak beating Specter and the Dems holding PA-12), I figured I should write this down and publish it, so that I may claim credit for it come November 3: the economy will continue to rebound (albeit slowly), the Tea Partiers will fade, and the Dems will maintain control of both chambers.

House

• Currently (including Critz): 255-177 Dems
• November 3: 235-200 Dems

Senate

• Currently: 59-41 Dems
• November 3: 55-45 Dems

Republicans will pick up seats across the board, but they won't come anywhere close to retaking either the House or the Senate. Mark my words.

From the Onion: Dom DeLillo (or "Dom DeLillo") on the election. Uncanny.

This is pretty wild:

Among the more unusual measures on this year’s ballots was one in Florida that would repeal an old clause in the state constitution that allows legislators to bar Asian immigrants from owning land. The repeal would be symbolic, as equal protection laws would prevent lawmakers from applying the ban. With 78 percent of precincts reporting just before 11 p.m. Tuesday, the vote was close, with 52 percent voting to preserve the clause.

Italics mine, to illustrate the fact that Floridians are out of their damn minds.

It's Excellular!

This number-cruncher fellow says the networks will call the election for Obama at around 11pm on Tuesday (which is not-coincidentally also when he predicts they'll call Virginia and Pennsylvania). His methodology seems a little light, but it's a fun thing to think about all the same (and in his defense, he sounds a bit like Dr. Ashen, so that's fun).

My game-plan for Tuesday is to spend the evening flipping back and forth between PBS, MSNBC, and Comedy Central (with the occasional stop at CNN or FOX). On the web, I'll be keeping an eye on the nifty Daily Kos map, Hotline's blog, and the New York Times. Any other suggestions?

Update: Nate Silver says he'll be updating and live-blogging throughout the evening, so that plus the three sites above should cover about 98% of my web surfing Tuesday night.

Before the exits start coming in, here's the official Purple State prediction (which I actually first made yesterday morning, and in which I now have relatively little confidence [but which I'm sticking with, because people who stick to their guns are admirable]):

• Texas: Obama by 7-8
• Ohio: Obama by 1-2
• Vermont and Rhode Island: Obama by 65

Mark my words.

(And then forget them when they turn out to be wrong.)

Update: I hate politics.

Point of interest: I allowed a ton of time for voting this afternoon, on the assumption that my polling place might be crowded. It was -- to put it mildly -- not. Not only did I not have to wait in line to get in the door (which I had figured could happen), I didn't even have to wait in line to give my name to the election workers (which I'd pretty much taken as a given). Now, granted: it was 1:30 in the afternoon. But still.

This seems like it ought to be news, but I'm really not sure it is:

To date, about 52 percent of those 3,253 delegates have been pledged in the voting process -- with Clinton and Obama roughly splitting them at 832 and 821 delegates a piece, according to the AP.

That means there are now only about 1,600 delegates left up for grabs in the remaining states and territories voting.

So, do the math. If they both have 820 plus pledged delegates so far, they'll need to win roughly 1,200 -- 75 percent -- of the remaining 1,600 delegates to win the nomination through actual voting.

In other words: Ain't gonna happen, barring a stunning scandal or some new crazy revelation. So, Clinton and Obama keep fighting this thing out, each accumulating a chunk of delegates, one of them holding a slight edge and both finishing the voting process with 1,600 or so delegates.

And then the super delegates decide this thing.

I don't think anyone's ever had a problem with the superdelegates deciding this thing, per se. Given that superdelegates make up a solid 20% of the total, the only way a candidate could win without them would be to win the popular vote by a pretty dramatic margin (you'd need about 62% of the pledged delegates to make a majority at the convention). And realistically, that's been off the table for a while. So the issue's not that superdelegates will make the decision; it's how they'll make the decision. If Obama comes in leading 52-48, and the superdelegates split 2:1 for Clinton, there could be a mutiny. But if Obama comes in leading 52-48, and the superdelegates split, say, 55-45 for Clinton (which would preserve Obama's overall lead), I don't think anyone will really mind.

I came out of Super-Duper Tuesday with mixed feelings. I thought Obama looked good early (Georgia was stronger than I expected, and Connecticut and Delaware were both pretty quick); I thought Clinton looked good late (ten points in California was a lot more of a landslide than I'd expected). So I turned to the Internet:

Obama won!
AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "It is hard for me to see this as anything but a big night for Barack Obama."
Daily Kos's... well, Kos: "We still don't know who won the delegate count, but it should be obvious that the race has shifted and that the Clinton campaign is reeling and Obama is now the front-runner."

Nobody won!
TPM's Josh Marshall: "The only arguments for one side or the other being a winner here come down to airy and finally meaningless arguments about expectations. And the result tells a different tale. It's about delegates. It's dead even."
TAPPED's Sam Boyd: "One thing's for sure about last night's results, the long campaign is now a reality and superdelegates are going to be important."

Clinton... won?
MyDD's Todd Beeton: "[Conventional media thinking will be:] the headlines stating that Clinton and Obama 'Trade Victories,' and that the race is 'Not Settled' are telling and indeed represent a non-victory victory for Hillary Clinton; as New Hampshire before it, tonight was the equivalent of hitting a reset button."

Well then. Glad we cleared that up.

The BBC's surprisingly robust U.S. election coverage is anchored by one of the best primers on the delegate system that I've come across. Worth a read.

John "McCain-Feingold" McCain has rejected public funding for the primaries. He's a maverick!

Roger Simon, The Politico's chief political columnist, on Face the Nation this morning:

In a field that has seven credible candidates, actually seven pretty good candidates, for one person [Hillary Clinton] to get 51% of the vote, which is the third time she's done this, the third poll she's done this in, that's... that's not an insurmountable lead, but it's large.

Seven credible candidates? Really?

Actual credible candidates

Clinton

Obama

Edwards

Pseudo-credible candidates

Richardson

Dodd

Biden

The Seventh

Kucinich?

Gravel?

Gore?

Clark?

Dean?

Romney?

The pros and cons of the top twenty Democratic presidential candidates, courtesy of regular McSweeney's contributor John Moe.

According to this post from the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire (a post that I only saw because Wake-Up Call linked to it), Comedy Central's InDecider blog actually broke the news of Rumsfeld's resignation about twelve hours before it was anywhere mainstream. Go figure.

So, as you may have heard, George Allen conceded (snivellingly) at about 3:00 this afternoon, giving the Democrats both houses of Congress for the first time since November 8, 1994. Lieberman will caucus with the Democrats, thank the Jesus -- and in honesty, I never really thought he wouldn't. But to cut and paste from an email I sent this afternoon:

[In] choosing not to step aside and let Lamont take the seat, Lieberman put himself before the party (with, to read it most charitably, "the people of Connecticut’s" interests at heart). And while there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, it had the potential to become worrisome when he became the swing vote. Given his willingness to put self (and maybe Connecticut) before party, it was not a 100%-sure-thing that’d he’d say to the Republicans knocking on his door, "No, I don’t want [nearly any committee chairmanship]. I’d rather remain a Democrat." That's what he'd probably say, mind, but there there was at least a chance that instead he’d say, "If I remain a Democrat, I’m just a conservative, loyal member of the caucus [he’ll be chairman of the Homeland Security committee]. But if I become a Republican, I’m a superstar with any chairmanship I want, which will enable me to do more good for myself the people of Connecticut."

He swears he’ll caucus with the Democrats, and I now believe him. And honestly, even at my lowest point, I would have put the odds that he’d caucus with the Democrats at around 2:1. But with, say, Ned Lamont, those odds would have been 2:0.

At around 9:00, the AP called Virginia for Jim Webb. Republicans "in touch" with the Allen campaign say that Allen plans to concede.

I think I just fainted.

Some wrap-up notes:

• Montana's been called for Tester, embiggening the odds that control of the Senate will be decided by a crotchety old state court judge in Richmond. Someone better keep an eye on Katherine Harris: she's got a lot of free time now, and this is what she's good at. (Note: The Hotline's Marc Ambinder is reporting that "senior Republican officials and White House aides" think Virginia is lost, and will pressure Allen to concede.)
• Steny Hoyer wants the Majority Leader's office.
• Denny Hastert doesn't want the Minority Leader's office. (But Boehner does.)
• There was also something about Rumsfeld; not sure what it was....
• From The Hotline's extensive collection of election scorecards comes a breakdown of the celebrity-guest effectiveness of the various White House '08 Democrats. In order of efficiency:
  • Obama, 80.4% (37 races won, 9 races lost)
  • Biden, 76.9% (20-6)
  • Edwards, 75.7% (44-14)
  • Kerry, 71.6% (58-23)
  • HRC, 70.0% (28-12)
  • Feingold, 68.8% (11-5)
  • Dodd, 68.0% (17-8)
  • Vilsack, 58.3% (14-10)
  • Richardson, 57.1% (24-18)
  • Bayh, 54.2% (13-11)
  • Clark, 42.9% (12-16)
  Partly, of course, those numbers are dictated by the races in which the bigwigs chose to become involved (in several of Wes Clark's races, for instance, he could have provided a fifteen-point bump without actually affecting the outcome of the election). My biggest surprise is Biden: who'd have guessed there were even 26 candidates who liked the man enough to ask him to campaign for them?

For a quick summary of last night's results, check out On Call's headline-style wrap-up.

(And note: there's been no announcement from Montana yet, but Tester's margin has narrowed to 2,000 votes.)

Just after 8:00, CBS called Pennsylvania (Casey) and Ohio (Brown). That's two of the six. (Though it's worth noting that none of the other networks are calling those two yet.)

8:35: MSNBC calls Pennsylvania for Casey.

8:45: PBS calls Pennsylvania for Casey, too. Way to be, Pittsburgh!

9:00: On Call reports "various calls" (including MSNBC and PBS, the two I'm keeping an eye on) for Menendez in New Jersey (which is not one of The Six, but was pretty competitive at the end, so it's notable). Also, CNN jumps on the Casey bandwagon, and calls Minnesota Senate for Amy Klobuchar.

9:05: CNN has clearly spent at least one hundred million dollars on stand-up desks and flat-panel monitors, and they would like everyone to know it.

9:10: With 68% reporting, George Allen is up by 4,000 votes. Also, I think Jeff Greenfield's job title tonight is "sidekick."

9:15: CNN and MSNBC project Connecticut for Lieberman. I sure hope he's a Democrat.

9:20: MSNBC projects that Ben Cardin has beaten noted crazy-person Michael Steele (Maryland, like New Jersey, is not one of The Six, but was close enough to bear watching). And On Call reports that John Yarmuth has unseated Anne Northrup in KY-03, which is (I believe) the second House pickup of the night.

9:27: CNN projects Rhode Island for Sheldon Whitehouse. That's three of six, baby!

9:33: CNN projects IN-02 for Joe Donnelly, making the House Democrats +3.

9:46: With 82% reporting, George Allen is up by 27,000 votes. Webb insists everything's okay (the 18% still waiting to be counted are all NoVa, he says), but I'm starting to get a little nervous.

9:57: Chris Matthews is apparently as proud of the fact that he knows the phrase "right now" as CNN is proud that it has one trillion billion dollars' worth of flat-panel televisions.

10:00: Rick Santorum concedes.

10:10: On Call is projecting that Paul Hodes has beaten Charles Bass in NH-02, and Chris Murphy has beaten Nancy Johnson in CT-05. That's +5 for the House Democrats (assuming I haven't missed any).

10:12: With 89% reporting, Allen's up by 24,000 votes. Sheesh.

11:05: A whole wave of House projections in the last hour. Democrats have picked up CT-02, FL-22, IN-08, NC-11, OH-18, PA-7, and PA-10. If my math is right, that puts the House at 220R-215D, putting the Democrats three seats away from a majority.

11:08: Hey, hey, hey. CNN projects NY-20, IN-09, and AZ-08 for the Democrats. You can do the math.

11:09: CNN projects that the Democrats will take the House.

11:14: With 96.60% reporting, George Allen is up by 13,000 votes, or 0.59%. Anything closer than 0.50% will trigger an automatic recount, so Webb's really counting on some last-minute help from the eighty or so precincts left.

11:17: Still waiting on projections from Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Montana, and Arizona. Whichever party takes three of those five will control the Senate.

11:37: The Washington Post has apparently withdrawn its Maryland projection. I'm not buying it, though: no way does Michael Steele win that race.

11:41: With 97.42% reporting, Allen's lead is down to about 5,000 votes, or 0.21%. With a total of only sixty precincts remaining, there's basically no way this doesn't go to a recount.

12:14: CNN is reporting that Webb has taken the lead in votes, but I'm going to stick with the Virginia Board of Elections, since that's what I've been watching all night. With 99.18% reporting (twenty precincts left), Allen still has a 1,900-vote lead.

12:44: MSNBC calls Tennessee for Corker. Democrats have to go 3-for-3 in the states that are left.

12:52: Still watching:

• Missouri: 69% reporting; Talent (R) 49.84; McCaskill (D) 46.76
• Montana: 31% reporting; Burns (R) 41.10; Tester (D) 56.72
• Virginia: 99.26% reporting; Allen (R) 49.36; Webb (D) 49.44

1:03: Big update from Missouri. With 80% reporting, Claire McCaskill takes a 14,000-vote lead. 49-48.

1:09: The Terminator was reelected as governor of Culleyfornia.

1:28: Still watching...

• Missouri: 81% reporting; Talent (R) 48.01; McCaskill (D) 48.70
• Montana: 52% reporting; Burns (R) 45.42; Tester (D) 53.04
• Virginia: 99.47% reporting; Allen (R) 49.36; Webb (D) 49.43

2:09: Talent concedes! MSNBC calls Missouri for Claire McCaskill! And then there were two! (Sorry for all the exclamation points; I'm genuinely excited.) (!)

2:27: Brian Schweitzer announces that we'll have a final call on Montana within the hour. Thirty-minute drumroll, please....

2:48: MSNBC just cut to Norah O'Donnell so that she could explain that if the Democrats manage to pick up only one of the remaining two Senate seats, as opposed to both, the Senate will deadlock at 50-50 and Dick Cheney would have to break the tie. Thanks, Norah.

3:34: Brian Schweitzer is clearly a liar.

3:42: Montana has already started to recount votes. They continue to insist, though, that a result is coming soon.

3:55: After a brief phone conversation with a local news reporter in Helena, Chris Matthews, Bob Shrum, and the rest of the talking heads (or "babbloons," an entertaining word that I just coined [a portmanteau of "babbling" and "baboons"; I may be getting a bit punchy]) are "about 90%" convinced that the Democrats are going to get The Six they needed.

4:40: Still no decision in Montana, and they're saying now that they won't have anything before 7:00. I'm guessing I'll still be awake at that point, but in the interest of getting some actual work done, I think I'm going to call an end to the live-blogging. Bonsoir, mes amis.

Take a look at this picture of the Clintons voting this morning. Notice that they're standing in line.

Now, it's not that I think the Clintons should be automatically bumped to the front as soon as they walk in the door. But if you're standing there and you notice that the two people behind you are Bill and Hillary Clinton, how do you not say to them, "You guys can go ahead"?