America lost a great Senator tonight. Russ Feingold has been defeated in Wisconsin.

The other Republican wins tonight, modest in number, were expected. Losing Feingold is unexpected and disappointing.

We've got so few progressives in the Senate to begin with. Losing even one hurts, but this one especially. Feingold didn't always toe the Democrats' line. He supported gun rights. He was the lone vote against the Patriot Act. He opposed FISA. He was a maverick and he fought tirelessly for his positions.

Wisconsin has voted out one of the country's finest Senators. It not only shot itself in the foot, it hurt us all.

The AP and local news stations have called the Colorado Governor's race for Denver's popular Mayor John Hickenlooper.

Tom Tancredo was 20 points behind, and Republican Dan Maes is in the single digits.

This bodes well for Senator Bennet.

It happens every election night. You're watching one channel, and a particular host or pundit is so obnoxious or out to lunch in his/her commentary, you change the channel. Only to have it happen at the next station. And again. Until you turn back to the first one and repeat the whole process. Then you try hitting the mute button so you can listen to the ones you like.

I'm watching Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw and David Gregory on NBC and the local news. Sane coverage. On MSNBC, Olbermann, Rachel and Chuck Todd were okay, but Chris Matthews had a typical screaming fit, arguing with a female politician about the health care bill (on election night? Who cares?) and that was it for MSNBC.

So, who's really gotten your goat tonight? And where did you go to escape them?

Politico has good maps.

Democrats won their Senate races in Connecticut and West Virginia. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Brad Ellsworth in Indiana lost.

Republicans need to gain 10 Senate seats to take control. I don't think they'll do it.

Update: Marco Rubio wins the Florida Senate seat.

Kentucky and Indiana are mostly closed and votes are being counted. Should be easy Senate wins for the GOP in those 2 states. Dems have vulnerable House seats in both.

Florida mostly closes at 7 but stays open until 8 in the Panhandle (Central time there.)

I'll update periodically.

Rubio wins in FL. Coons wins in Delaware. Paul wins Kentucky. Coats wins in Indiana. No early surprises.

Blumenthal beat the WWE in CT.

Manchin wins in West Virgina.

Let the handwringing and hair pulling continue.

Also, we really need a college football playoff. Discuss.

Open Thread.

Here are mine:

GOP captures House winning 63 seats. Prominent losers include Grayson in Florida and a slew of Blue Dogs, including Adler in New Jersey, Altmire in PA, Childers in Mississippi, Shuler in North Carolina, Perriello in Virginia, and many many more. Surprise loss will be Frank Pallone in New Jersey.

Pelosi retires.

GOP picks up 9 in the Senate. In the prominent races, the GOP dominates- Rand Paul (KY), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey(PA), Mark Kirk (IL), Ken Buck (CO), Joe Miller (AK), Sharron Angle (NV), Dino Rossi (WA), and Ron Johnson (WI) all win. Joe Manchin become a virtual Republican to hold off Raese in West Virginia.

Harry Reid's political career is over. More importantly, so is Russ Feingold's.

In the governor's races, the only big win in a close race will be Alex Sink in Florida. Strickland goes down in Ohio and so on. California (Brown and Boxer) is the lone Dem bright spot outside of Alex Sink.

Though I won't do my official prediction until this afternoon, let's assume for the moment that the GOP sweeps the House and just misses on the Senate, as Matt Yglesias does here. I agree with Yglesias that the interesting upshot of this will be the irrelevance of "moderates" and Democrats in the Congress. Yglesias writes:

[E]gomaniacal senate moderates will be frustrated to discover that the legislative process now consists primarily of negotiations between Barack Obama and the House GOP.

Why? Because unlike the progressives in the House, the hard line GOP House members will not compromise (even if Boehner wants them too.) The test President Obama will face is immense. In many ways, bigger than the test faced by President Clinton in 1995. Gingrich was raring for a fight, but he had the control. Once Gingrich was broken, Clinton could make deals. Breaking Boehner won't lead to the same result. The crazies are in charge of the GOP asylum. Of course 1995 ended in government shutdowns. Does Obama have the stomach for that type of fight? How does that type of fight end? We live in interesting times.

Speaking for me only

I voted straight Democrat except for one race - the Florida Senate race. I voted for Crist over Meek.

On the issues, based on the candidates' stated positions, Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek would be my choice. But Crist will be Specter-like, imo, if he wins (maybe if he loses too. He's done as a Republican.) The last polls of the race have Meek with no chance and Crist with a slim one of beating Republican Marco Rubio.

Here's the question - does stopping Marco Rubio matter enough to vote for the candidate who agrees with me less? In terms of what happens in Congress for the next 2 years, not really I think. But what about the 4 years after that? Moreover, Rubio as an incumbent will be hard to beat. He's a good pol. And he will be a conservative Republican. The consequences in Senate races last longer.

I promise to work for Meek in his next race, but I'll vote for Crist in this race and hope he can somehow pull it out. Meek has no chance. (As for my election predictions, I'll wait until the end of the day to give you mine.)

UPDATE - I voted and the post has been edited to reflect that. I voted against all the constitutional amendments as well. I hate constitutional amendments by referendum. Hell, I hate referendums period.

Speaking for me only

No more polls, it's E-Day. My personal predictions:

• Voter turnout will not be much higher than usual for mid-term elections.

• The Dems will keep the Senate.

• The predictions of huge sweeps and upsets by tea-partiers on a national level, or across the board, won't happen. Any "landslides" will be localized, and more a reflection of the peculiarities of the particular race than a indicator of a trend or a movement. [More...]
  

The 9th Circuit hears challenges to Arizona's immigration law. More here. The LA Times says the judges seemed ready to uphold some parts of the law and toss others. What they didn't like:

the panel also seemed to agree with a lower court ruling that other provisions of Arizona’s law were "preempted" by the federal government's sole authority to regulate immigration.

The court appeared likely to reject provisions that would make it a state crime for a person to not carry immigration papers and that allows for criminal punishment of illegal immigrants who seek work in Arizona.

The bombs from Yemen were supposed to blow up in flight, according to John O. Brennan, the White House's senior counter-terrorism advisor.

Prop 19 is counting on a late ad blitz. With a recent big infusion from George Soros, and a lot of endorsements, can it pass? Vote Yes .

Oral arguments are today in Enron's Jeff Skilling's bid to vacate and dismiss 19 counts of his conviction. The Government wants the counts upheld or to retry him. The Supreme Court ruled the honest services theory was no good, so now they are arguing over what counts are affected and what's the remedy. "Skilling was found guilty of one charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, 12 counts of securities fraud, five counts of making false statements to auditors, and one count of insider trading." He got 24 years.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Every November 1, amendments to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines go into effect. Most of the talk this year has been about the reduction for crack cocaine penalties, which are minimal and don't apply to offenses committed before August 3, 2010 (although one judge in Maine last week said he'd apply them to someone awaiting sentencing on August 3.)

And many drug defendants, including those sentenced for drugs other than crack, may get higher sentences under the enhancements that Congress Passed as part of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

But, there is one change that applies to all defendants that may be helpful. For the first time, those at Level 13 with a Category 1 criminal history (no more than 1 point), with a guideline range of 12-18 months, don't have to get a prison sentence. That's because the Commission moved Level 13 from Zone D, where it's been since 1987 or whenever the zones were established, to Zone C. All Zone D sentences must be to prison. In Zone C, alternative sentences are possible. [More...]