Will Florida gets its first female Governor? Will the country's first female Speaker of the House be forced to turn in her gavel? Will Kendrick Meek somehow shock the world by winning? Did anyone bother to get to know enough about the CFO race to bother voting? Join us tonight as we live blog the election results.
Results:
Governor:
Attorney General: Pam Bondi (Republican)
CFO: Jeff Atwater (Republican)
Agriculture Commissioner: Adam Putnam (Republican)
Senator: Marco Rubio (Republican)
Congressional District 25: David Rivera (Republican)
And the live blogging begins here:
7:00 - Let's hope this isn't a long night. Florida results may not come in for a while. On the national front, Republican have already made their first pickup in the Senate in Indiana, and Tea Partier Rand Paul keeps that Kentucky Senate seat in the party. We'll be paying attention mostly to Florida races, but throwing in some national news here and there.
7:08 - Well, until there's some actual news it's worth noting that three congressional districts in Miami-Dade will have new congressmen tonight. The race in District 25 is a "toss-up," but in two others the candidates ran unopposed.
In District 21 Mario Diaz-Balart will replace his brother Lincoln as the representative. Of course, he left his District 25 seat to get elected in this safer district. Which everyone knows, but we'll just mention it again. Carpetbagging!
7:15 - Oh, boy the absentee ballot results from Miami-Dade were just released! Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is cruising to an easy re-election in her district with about 80% of the vote so far against a no-name challenger. Unless something insane happens, no need to mention her for the rest of the night. Congrats Ileana, you will probably hold that seat until you die.
7:17 - Over in District 25, things aren't looking good for Joe Garcia. With 29,771 absentee votes counted so far, Republican David Rivera has 63% of the vote compared to Democrat Garcia's 32%.
7:20 - Here are the results from absentee voting in Miami-Dade only in the Senate and Gov races. It's important to note that Democrats knew that absentee voting wasn't going to be kind for them, and these results are a small fraction of the story.
Gov: Scott - 58.46%; Sink - 39.09%
Senate: Rubio - 60.92%; Crist - 18.56%; Meek - 19.73%
Interesting that Meek is beating Crist in absentee ballots. Though this is his home county.
7:32 - With more counties reporting absentee, early voting, and even some of today's votes the two state wide races are starting to shape up. According to CNN, so far Rick Scott leads Alex Sink 54 to 42 percent. Again, absentee voting was not expected to be kind to Dems, and it's a very small part of the picture.
In the Senate race, according to CNN, its Rubio at 53, Crist at 29 and Meek at 17
7:42 - Interesting. Rick Scott is apparently having his "victory" party in Ft. Lauderdale, one of the bluest counties in the state, as opposed to his conservative-leaning "hometown" of Naples. If he wins, he's gonna make sure he sticks it to the lefties all the way. .
7:47 - Miami Dade is now reporting early voting, and the races have tightened up.
Gov: Scott - 49.59%; Sink - 48.37%
Senate: Rubio - 51.81%; Meek - 25.92%; Crist - 21.50%
District 25: Rivera - 56.08%; 39.18%
Democrats weren't exactly high on their hopes of winning early voting either, but it's interesting that in Miami-Dade County, at least, they did a lot better in early voting than absentee voting. Very interesting how Meek has increased his lead over Crist in Miami-Dade. Did Crist not spend enough time campaigning here?
7:58 - Even as late as today, some Democrats had hope that Joe Garcia could prevail in District 25. There were few public polls taken in the district, so it was hard to get the pre-election pulse. A victory for Garcia would be one of the few Dem pick-ups in the country, but from the early number it ain't looking good. Will Garica lose worse to Rivera than he did to Diaz-Balart back in 2008?
8:00 - Polls are closed in all of Florida! MSNBC just projected that Marco Rubio has won the Senate race. No surprise there. Sorry Charlie.
8:03 - No one is making projections in the Governor race yet, though. It might be a while to figure out that one.
8:04 - In national news, Tea Party superstar Christine O'Donnell has lost in Delaware. She is not a witch, and now she is not a Senator.
8:05 - So Marco Rubio may or may not be secretly planning his Presidential campaign, but what do Crist and Meek do now? Will we see Crist get a commenter gig on one of the 24/7 news station? Will we see either run for office again?
8:12 - Ok, I have a bachelors degree in Political Science, which obviously means I know nothing about politics, but looking at the ways some of the early, un-called races are leaning it appears that Republicans will probably not win the Senate. Not that many people expected them to. So there's that.
8:16 - According to CNN the Gov race right now sits at Scott 51% to Sink 46%. Do not reach for the poison just yet sane folks. Neither Miami-Dade nor Broward have released their election day results yet, and those are the two most populous counties in the state, and Sink is expected to do strong.
8:26 - In Connecticut, former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon is projected to lose. It surely must come a shock to her that in Politics, unlike in wrestling, the winner is not decided beforehand. Her campaign manager hopefully has hidden all metal folding chairs.
8:39 - We don't have much news right now, we just want to point out that Meghan McCain projected that Charlie Crist would win tonight. She is a special girl, isn't she?
8:54 - The biggest house races in the state took place up in Central Florida, and involved Democrat first-term incumbents Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas. Well, both are projected to lose, and by pretty big margins. We're not sure what Kosmas will do, but we're pretty sure loud-mouthed "hot liberal mess" Grayson is a natural for some sort of MSNBC show.
9:00 - MSNBC just projected that Republicans will win control of the House. Our condolences to Nancy Pelosi. Their projection is 237 Republicans to 199 Democrats. Ouch.
9:13 - 193 of 826 precincts are reporting in Miami-Dade and Alex Sink is now leading Rick Scott in the county 50.60 to 47.43 percent. There's still a long way until we get a clearer picture on this race. Most precincts aren't reporting in Palm Beach and Broward either, and she has huge leads in absentee and early voting there.
9:18 - In results we can all get behind, the Miami Heat are tearing apart the Timberwolves 83-58. Three quarters of precincts have reported. Dumb joke.
9:20 - The Miami Herald is reporting calls in two cabinet races. Republican Jeff Atwater in the CFO race, and Adam Putnam in the AG race. Keep an eye on Putnam. He left a promising career in the House to run for this job. Don't be surprised if he runs for Governor.
9:30 - Senator-elect Marco Rubio is giving his victory speech from the (government owned) Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. "Senator-elect Marco Rubio," did anyone ever think we were going to be uttering that phrase just a year ago?
9:31- Rubio's speech sounds far less idealogical and wingnutty than Rand Paul's. It's "inspirational" and high on "rah! rah! America!" Hell, half of this is ripped directly from one of his campaign ads. The one people thought sounded awful presidential.
9:32 - Now he's big upping the exile community.
9:33 - "No matter where I go, or what title I achieve I will always be the son of exiles." Is there any quote more telling that Rubio has his eyes on a "title" greater than Senator? Is this the last speech in his Senate campaign or the first speech in his Presidential campaign?
10:13 - We're still here, we're just taking it slow until the remaining few races in Florida are called.
10:17 - No one has called it yet, but former Fox News analyst Pam Bondi is about to give her victory speech in the Attorney General race against Miami Beach's own Dan Gelber.
10:39 - So here's what been called in the Amendment votes:
Amendment 2 is projected to pass, Amendment 4 is projected to fail. Amendments 5 and 6 which deal with gerrymandering are likely to pass, while Amendment 8, which would repeal the class size amendment, may not reach the 60% threshold.
10:51 - Just to give you an idea how Liberal Broward County is, with 775 of 782 precincts in, Marco Rubio came in third place. That's only Broward of course. And they weren't Liberal enough to hand the lead; Crist takes the county with 36 percent.
10:55 - Oh look, Marco Rubio is a trending topic on the Twitter. It is basically people saying how they either want to move out of Florida or talking about how sexy he is. Twitter is democracy in action.
11:09 - To give you a reason why there hasn't been a call in the Gov race: Only 61% of Miami-Dade has reported, and 20% of Palm Beach.
11:14 - CNN has released its exit polls in the Gov race. 50% of Latinos voted for Rick Scott despite his anti-immigration stance. Also, they claim independents split for Scott 52 to 42 percent, which we can't quite wrap our head around. However, 60 percent of "moderates" voted for Sink.
11:18 - David Rivera has officially succeeded in District 25. He's leading Joe Garcia 51 to 43 percent right now.
11:41 - Meanwhile, on the state level, the Republicans will have veto-proof majorities in both houses of the state legislature. So really, honestly folks, even if Alex Sink does somehow win, it's not like she'll be able to do much.
12:01 - So assuming Joseph Lieberman doesn't jump parties, the Democrats maintain control of the Senate.
1:07 - We're waiting for someone to call the Governor race, but we're not sure that will happen tonight. Basically, the story is we're waiting for the final vote tallies in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach right now. Right now the margin is sitting at less than 60,000 votes.
1:10 - You know what all the sudden becomes interesting in such a close race? Minor third party candidates! This guy Peter Allen is at a little over two percent of the votes in the Gov Race. He's the founder of the "Independence Party of Florida" which is supposed to be based on Jesse Ventura's "Independence Party of Minnesota." We heard virtually nothing about him during the campaign, but he may be viewed as a spoiler tomorrow. Judging from his website he may have appealed more to right leaning voters.
1:42 - Unfinished Amendment business.
Amendments 2, 5 and 6 have passed. 5 and 6 deal with putting an end to Florida's out-of-control Republican favoring Gerrymandering, so that should be some good news tonight for Florida's democrats.
Amendments 1, 4 and 8 have failed. 8 would have repealed an earlier class size amendment.
1:45 - It doesn't appear we'll get any closure in the Governors race anytime soon. The Herald says it appears to be a win for Scott, but no one can say for sure. Yes, a man who ran a company that defrauded Medicare and flaunted divisive issues for political gain could very well be the next Governor.
Say what you will about its policies, but Florida has had some pretty decent Governors. It's hard to imagine a man like Scott measuring up at all to former Governors like Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham, Jeb Bush or the man he'll replace Charlie Crist. We'll have to wait and see, but it seems Scott will govern Florida in a way we've never seen before.
1:55 - Oh dear Lord, how did it get to be almost 2:00 am? Well we, hell, I started this live blog 7 hours ago, and have been blogging since 10 o'clock this morning before that. Consider this live blog dead. It's a brand new day in America tomorrow, for better or worse. See you then.
