With 95% of the precincts reporting, CNN’s results have Lieberman at 49.55% of the vote. That goes up to 49.59% once the tabulation error in Newington is corrected (assuming it is, at some point, corrected).

So… can Joe make it to 50%? The five towns that haven’t reported any results yet are East Haven, Simsbury, Trumbull, Wallingford and Waterford… plus 13% of New Haven. In the primary, East Haven and Trumbull were Lieberman strongholds, the former by a 2-to-1 margin; Simsbury was Lamont country; the others were roughly split down the middle. Given that, I think it’s entirely possible Joe could hit 50% when all the votes are counted. Which would be quite remarkable, really, given his ballot placement and everything that’s happened.

Here are some pictures by Chris McLemore from tonight’s Donnelly victory party:

A campaign staffer reacts with glee as results come in.

Congressman-elect Donnelly works the crowd.

Donnelly talks to the media.

Thanks, Chris! Great photos!

And, from Connecticut, here is a photo of campaigners at Newington’s Elizabeth Green School polling place, taken by my mom:

My dad never posted the E. Green precinct results, as he was having technical difficulties, and then they became quickly obsolete. But here they are now:

Lieberman 664 (49.2%)
Lamont 559 (41.4%)
Schlesinger 116 (8.6%)
Ferrucci 6 (0.4%)
Knibbs 5 (0.4%)

That’s compared to the August primary results in the same precinct, when Lieberman beat Lamont 52.8% to 47.2%.

Townwide, Lamont actually won Newington:

Lamont 4,961 (45.4%)
Lieberman 4,721 (43.2%)
Schlesinger 1,128 (10.3%)
Ferrucci 71 (0.6%)
Knibbs 56 (0.5%)

That’s a bit strange, considering Lieberman won Newington back in August, when Lamont won statewide. This time, Lieberman won statewide, and Lamont won Newington! I guess Newingtonians are just contrarian. :)

UPDATE: Actually, Lamont didn’t win Newington. It was a clerical error — Joe’s total is 875 votes too low. Once the mistake is correct, Lieberman won my hometown handily, 47.4% to 42.0%. Woohoo!

“I’m Joe Lieberman, and I approve of this election.”

Says the campaign has been a struggle, “but we never wavered in our beliefs or our purpose, did we? And we never gave up, did we? And tonight, thanks to the voters of Connecticut, our journey has ended in hope and victory.”

Thanks the voters of Connecticut, who “chose progress over partisanship, problem-solving over polarization, and the mainstream over the extreme.”

“I will return to the Senate with the foremost goal of breaking through the partisan gridlock in Washington.”

“Elected today by voters of all political persuasion, I promise you I will go to Washington beholden to no political group, but only to the people of Connecticut and to my conscience.”

“I will be an independent senator. … We are sending a message to the leaders of both political parties. Yes, [the people] want change. But they don’t just want change in who runs Congress, they want change in how we run the country. I would like to see this election as a declaration of independence from the partisanship of politics.” (or words to that effect)

Says we can bring about a “bold transformation” in our politics.

“I want to thank Ned Lamont, who graciously called a while ago to congratulate me and wish me well. Hadassah and I wish him and his family well. He was a worthy and very tough opponent. He helped bring new voters and new volunteers into the political process, and that’s good for our democracy. I hope they’ll stay, and I hope they’ll be open to finding common ground…to build a better country.”

P.S. Kos, gracious in defeat: “The White House celebrates Joe Lieberman’s victory. So do war mongers.”

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joe 49%, Ned 41%, Alan 10% with 2% reporting.

Exit polls show a close Lieberman Lamont race.

My lifelong friend Diane from Connecticut sends along this report via e-mail:

There is some super intense anti-Lieberman campaigning going on here at Central [Connecticut State University], sponsored by LaRouche PAC. I first saw a stack of booklets in the library with the title headline “Youth Vote Decisive in Defeating Joe Lieberman,” which piqued my curiousity. The first article opens with: “When Lynne Cheney and her Dick want a dirty job done in Washington, they have invariably turned to ‘neo-con’ Joe Lieberman.” This 10 page booklet goes on to link Lieberman to various illegal acts and ill intentions. On leaving a class, I walked by a large booth with a half-dozen people handing these out and greeting each passerby with “Did you know we’re sending Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman back to hell together?” A guy talked to me for a while about how the two had managed to remove dozens of college professors for speaking out against the war in Iraq. He couldn’t name me any specific names. I was just walking through the dining hall on my way out for the day and this literature is on every table.

I don’t know much about politics, but this seems pretty crazy to me - and convenient that these claims are coming out the day before the election. I get the feeling this is going on at campuses all over the state …. just thought you might be interested to know.

First the LaRouchies crashed the debate, then they heckled Joe at a restaurant, and now this: distributing false, libelous propaganda to college students on Election Eve. These conspiracy clowns are becoming less amusing and more irritating by the minute.

All recent polls show Joe Lieberman leading Ned Lamont by 11 or 12 points, including a new Quinnipiac poll that has him up 49% to 37% to 8%. I think Schlesinger will end up in the low double digits, and as a result, Lieberman’s margin will end up in the high single digits. But things are looking good for Senator Joe.

Meanwhile, all three Republican House members from Connecticut — Simmons, Shays and Johnson — are in trouble. But the conventional wisdom is that a strong pro-Lieberman turnout will help the Republicans. My dad and I think this CW is very possibly wrong, as GOP gains caused by votes from conservative Lieberman supporters who wouldn’t otherwise vote could potentially be swamped by GOP losses due to the “Lieberman Dropoff,” a.k.a. the “Reverse Coattails Effect.” But practually no one except my dad and I are talking about the “dropoff” — it’s one of those election-nerd things that the media always misses — so if two or three of Connecticut’s Republicans hold onto their seats by narrow margins, the media and the Left will blame Lieberman, whether there’s any factual basis for it or not. So I really, really hope at least two of the Dem challengers win, because being blamed for causing the Dems to lose several House seats (and possibly the House majority) is the last thing Lieberman needs, or deserves.

Taking a bigger-picture view of tomorrow’s election, three consecutive late polls show substantial shrinkage in the Democrats’ national lead on the “generic ballot” for Congress. This could mean nothing, or it could mean quite a lot, as Mickey Kaus notes: “In 2002, remember, it was a generic ballot shift at the last minute…that signaled a disappointing day for Democrats.”

The blogger formerly known as Mystery Pollster isn’t sure what to make of it: “While these shifts this MAY signal a sharp change of opinion going into the weekend, the magnitude of the drop is quite uncertain with only three polls. We routinely see lots of variation across polls, especially when looking at the generic ballot margin. … It is likely that the individual polls are overstating the extent of the downturn.” But, more broadly speaking, there has been a downturn:

Across the board, in Senate, House and Governor’s races, the wave boosting the Democrats crested about 10 days ago. Since then the advantage Democrats have built throughout the year has been reduced by from 1.5 to 3.5 percentage points. While forces are still a net positive to the Democrats, these forces are weaker than they were during the week before Halloween. This implies that the most competitive races will now be harder for Democrats to win and easier for Republicans to hold. This implies that the anticipation of a major surge to Democrats now needs to be reconsidered. While race-by-race estimates still show an 18 seat Democratic gain, and 27 seats as tossups (see our scorecard at Pollster.com here), this reduction in national forces makes it less likely the Democrats sweep the large majority of the tossup seats and could result in total gains in the 20s rather than the 30s or even 40s that looked plausible 10 days ago.

Kaus muses: “Is it all John Kerry’s fault? Ten days ago was Thursday, Oct. 26.–but Kerry’s comments didn’t come until four days later. That means the Dems had started downhill before Kerry even opened his mouth.”

Maybe so, but Kerry opening his mouth didn’t help. It rarely does.

UPDATE: Two newer late polls, from Fox and CNN, show larger Dem leads. Again, see here. But frankly, when it comes to polling, I trust Gallup and Pew more than I trust Fox and CNN.

UPDATE 2: Connecticut Local Politics says the Fox and CNN polls mean it’s time to “cancel the panic button.” Andrew Sullivan is encouraged by the Fox poll, which shows “Democratic generic lead of 13 points. This lead is the biggest recently reported by the same poll: it was 11 points a week ago and nine two weeks before that.”

With regard to the earlier polls, Kevin Drum writes:

The media/blog theme of the morning seems to be a barely concealed panic over the shrinking Democratic lead in various generic congressional polls. This is crazy. When you have a lead of 15 points or more, there’s only one direction to go. Of course the Democratic lead is shrinking.

A lot of the Dem lead in September and October polling was, I think, an expression of a vast, pent-up frustration with the Republican Party. But as election day nears, and advertising ramps up, and the reality of pulling the lever becomes more concrete, people tend to put away their frustration and get back to work, voting for whoever they usually vote for. Not all of them, but enough to make the political landscape look a little more normal.

In other words, there’s really nothing unexpected here, and I’m surprised that people with decades of experience in politics are nervous about this. As near as I can tell, Dems are going into Tuesday with a lead in the generic polls of 5-10%, which is huge, and with pretty good prospects in upwards of 40 congressional districts. The Senate races look about the way you’d expect, with Republicans gaining ground or holding on in red states (Montana, Tennessee, Arizona) and Democrats gaining ground or holding on in blue states (New Jersey, Maryland). Missouri and Virginia continue to be wild cards.

For what it’s worth, I think Democratic performance in close Senate races is the key variable to watch. In 2004 there were five Senate races decided by a swing of a percentage point or less, and Republicans won four of the five. If Republicans show the same prowess this year, Dems will only pick up a couple of seats. Stay tuned.

The Hartford Courant, the New Haven Register, the New York Post and Daily News, the Providence Journal and the Washington Post have all endorsed Joe Lieberman for Senate, but on Sunday the New York Times endorsed Ned Lamont.

The Lieberman campaign issued a scathing response. Excerpt:

[T]he Times’ ill-informed and tendentious endorsement of Ned Lamont reads as if the editors had outsourced the editorial writing to the same crew of blindingly angry bloggers who have teamed with the Lamont Campaign to twist Joe Lieberman’s record beyond all recognition.

What resulted -– a cant recitation of discredited arguments, along with a willful ignorance of Senator Lieberman’s many accomplishments for the state and the country –- reveals far more about the Times’ knee-jerk biases and lack of rigor than either of the candidates.

The Times most obviously shows its narrow-mindedness by reducing the entire campaign to the war in Iraq, despite the fact that two-thirds of voters in Connecticut consistently say it is not their top concern. Even worse, the Times shows its disinterest in the truth by regurgitating several of the bloggers’ biggest falsehoods and grossly mischaracterizing Senator Lieberman’s position on Iraq.

The fact is, as the Times itself reported last week, Joe Lieberman has openly and frequently challenged the Bush Administration’s conduct of the war — just not in the shrill and hateful terms that the Times and the blogger extremists confuse with strong leadership.

Ouch. And, Amen.

The editorial page of The Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest-circulation newspaper, is generally liberal in its positions on issues and candidates. For this election the Courant has endorsed: (a) the progressive Democratic challengers for Governor & Lt. Gov. over Republican incumbent Jodi Rell and her runningmate; (b) the incumbent Democrats for the four other statewide executive-branch elective offices; and (c) surprisingly, all 5 Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, 3 of whom are challenging incumbent moderate Republicans whom the Courant has often supported and/or praised in the past.

And, for the United States Senate, the Constitution State’s left-leaning newspaper-of-record today urges the re-election of yet another good progressive Democrat: Joe Lieberman.

…This election is not solely about a war gone sour. There are critical domestic matters long simmering - the solvency of Social Security, health care access, huge budget deficits and more. For the most part, bitter partisanship rules. It will take more members of Mr. Lieberman’s ilk to restrain a free-spending, scandal-plagued Congress and an increasingly powerful president, or to turn attention to other urgent matters such as the environment and energy independence.

…Mr. Lieberman is cast by some as a Republican in disguise, enabling the GOP in its wild spending sprees and ethical lapses. The record shows Mr. Lieberman to have a moderate-to- liberal voting record much on the order of Democratic colleague Sen. Christopher Dodd. This session alone, Mr. Lieberman voted for stem cell research funding, against the Bush tax cuts, for guest-worker programs, and against federal cuts in welfare, child support and student loan programs.

To be sure, Mr. Lieberman has long challenged Democratic orthodoxy, especially on security and moral matters. That’s fine. His challenges have often nudged Democrats to the middle…

…In 1991, Mr. Lieberman told a conference organized by the Heritage Foundation and the Progressive Foundation that “the old assumptions of the left and right are no longer working” and that the political system needed to embrace “a new consensus that drops ideology and replaces it with rationality.” He has been true to this vision for the past 18 years, earning bipartisan political capital that will be needed in the difficult six years ahead.

Read the whole thing.

(Their thoughtful & spot-on gubernatorial endorsement of John DeStefano is worth a Re-link & a Read, too, especially since it’s the second Courant editorial published today which mirrors My opinions exactly. :)

Today I spent three hours calling Joe Lieberman supporters from the state Lieberman headquarters. I was given a stack of voter sheets of people throughout Connecticut who had registered their support for him via e-mail. Most were in Fairfield County (Connecticut’s Gold Coast) and a lot were Republicans. Also a number were Independents. And, yes, there were Democrats, too. Which is also remarkable, given the recent choice by Democratic leadership and activists for Ned Lamont. Almost without exception, these are voters who want a centrist candidate and/or admire Lieberman’s 18-year record and conscience. Strangely (to me at least), it was very easy to talk to all of them about someone who had been a 3-term Democrat. Some Republicans and Independents had voted for him each time he had run as a Democrat . Many said “I don’t agree with him on some/most/almost all issues, but I know he is principled and I trust will make reasoned choices for Connecticut (and the nation).”

These conversations were refreshing experience for me. I have in the past worked as a phone volunteer calling Democrats for Democrats. This was something new: These were voters who, though party members, will be voting “outside the box” to support a seasoned politician on the merits of issues rather than party line.

Here in Connecticut, voting machines had their party levers removed long ago, but what I had mostly heard and seen up to now was party lever thinking. Pull away a party affiliation and people start to think in other ways.

I call this a Good Thing.

A group of free speech-hating, LaRouche-supporting thugs tried to drown out Senator Joe Lieberman in Monday’s final U.S. Senate debate in New London, CT, apparently desiring that the voters of Connecticut not have the opportunity to hear the candidates speak. They had been rowdy and rude at times throughout the debate, but it was during Lieberman’s closing statement that it got really bad, as they started… singing. Moderator George Stephanopoulos seemed powerless to stop the hecklers, as did Lamont (who may have feared that these idiots were some of his less savory supporters), Lieberman himself, and the rest of the audience. It was left to the excitable Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, to put the morons in their place. Video here. (Hat tip: Derek Muller.)

My dad watched the debate live, and here’s how he characterized it in comments:

Joe’s [debate] win was greatly Enhanced by the antidemocratic antics of neo-stalinists in the audience who tried, repeatedly and at length, to drown him out while moderator George Stephanopoulos dithered & Ned Lamont sat stunned with his trademark deer-in-the-headlights Look. :> Finally it took a menacing Advance & a mighty Roar by the large & stentorian Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger, God bless him :) ~ “LEAVE THIS HALL! SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR SENATOR LIEBERMAN!” ~ to shut the littlebaby fascists up. Apparently they were then, belatedly, escorted from the theatre, presumably shuddering in Shock & Awe. :)

Based on the video, the exact quote was “Show some respect to Senator Lieberman! Leave this audience now!” But, close enough. :) Schlesinger stood up as he said it, and immediately as he finished, Lieberman walked over and shook his hand. The audience cheered. Lamont, still seated, belatedly nodded — several seconds after Schlesinger had finished and the audience had begun cheering (”deer in the headlights,” indeed) — and clapped politely.

Conservative blogger Allahpundit, at the above video link, says of Hollerin’ Alan: “A good man. Not a man we can afford to vote for, but a good man.”

P.S. It’s not in the video, but according to the New Haven Register, when order was restored Lieberman said: “Thank you, Alan. I’m real glad you came out from under that bus you said you were under [a reference to something Schlesinger said in the first debate -ed.]. You have made a real contribution to this campaign in the last few debates, and I thank you for the constructive ideas you have offered.”

Anyway… more on the hecklers here:

(more…)

Bill Quick — the guy whose blog, Daily Pundit, permanently features a front-page image of the World Trade Center exploding — didn’t vote Republican in 2006. He explains why by linking to a list of issues that he says will inspire “large chunks of [the Republican] base and other normally dependable voters…to stay home in disgust.”

Hat tip: InstaPundit, who himself did vote Republican, albeit reluctantly — saying, “the Republicans don’t really deserve my vote…but nonetheless the Democrats have blown it again” — much to the chagrin of Andrew Sullivan (though said chagrin is apparently rather poorly informed).

Me? I’ll be voting for the Democrat for my local, hotly contested House race. (Heaven help the Democrats if Pelosi breaks her anti-impeachment pledge, because I’m depending on that, and they’ll lose my vote for a long, long time if they’re lying to me.) As for the Senate, there is no Democratic nominee running against Dick Lugar (R), so I have to decide whether to vote for Lugar, vote for Libertarian candidate Steve Osborn, or cast a write-in vote for Joe Lieberman — a protest vote, of sorts, against both major parties. At the moment, I’m leaning toward the latter option. After all, I did introduce myself to the senator last week as “the inaugural member of the ‘Indiana for Lieberman’ party.” :)

UPDATE: Instalanche! Welcome, new readers!

Glenn Reynolds characterizes my view as “Brendan Loy doesn’t care” about “what happens if Democrats win.” That’s not really correct. Don’t forget that I was a Democrat for most of my life, only very recently declaring my independence, so it’s not like I disagree with everything the party stands for. On the contrary, I am likely to agree with the sort of moves a Democratic Congress would likely make vis a vis social issues such as gay rights, stem-cell research, abstinence-only education, etc.

As for the hot-button economic issues…

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The National Review’s John Derbyshire says conservatives should stay home on Election Day:

The only thing we can usefully do then is to assert our existence as a voting bloc in the one way that’s available to us: by not voting. That lays down a warning to any future GOP administration that might be tempted to go as badly wrong on important conservative issues as this one has.

This nation survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will survive Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, when our kids are voters, some GOP administration and Congress might be tempted to violate core conservative principles as egregiously as this one has. But they will hear key voices, the voices of party elders and wise commentators, warning: “Remember the Great Congressional Massacre of ‘06! Let’s not risk that happening again!” And Congress and the admin. will then turn the wheel to the right.

So stay home Nov. 2nd—-Er, for the sake of the children.

A few observations. First, I doubt that “staying home” on Thursday, November 2 will send any particular message to the administration, unless there’s some sort of anti-immigration protest happening that day. Electorally speaking, it would be much more relevant to “stay home” on Tuesday, November 7. :)

Secondly, and more importantly, I get Derbyshire’s point, but I don’t understand why he stops at “not voting.” It’s one thing to “stay home” if you’re simply disgusted with both parties and thus don’t care who wins. But if you are specifically hoping to achieve a particular result — the “the Great Congressional Massacre of ‘06,” i.e. a Democratic victory — wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for that result? I’m not sure how good Derb is at math, but let me clue him in: if you’re a normally solid Republican who wants the Democrats to win this time around, voting for the Democrat in your local race is twice as effective as merely “not voting” for the Republican. Instead of a one-vote Republican net loss (one less vote than usual for the GOP candidate), you produce a Republican net loss of two votes (one missing vote for the GOP candidate, and one extra vote for the Dem candidate).

That said, if people really do want to simply not vote for either major-party candidate for Congress, I would encourage them to see if there are any palatable third-party candidate in the race who are worthy of a “protest vote.” And I would also encourage them not to literally “stay home” unless there are no races on the ballot that are worthy of their vote. Even if you hate all the candidates for your local House district and Senate seat, surely there’s some Judge of Probate or Fire Commissioner race that’s worth voting on. There are lots of elections on Election Day!

Oh, and hey, if you live in Connecticut and don’t care about the U.S. Senate race, I’ll happily “vote swap” with you… just tell me which Indiana race you care about, and I’ll vote the way you want me to in that race, if you promise to vote for Lieberman. :)

A new Quinnipiac poll, taken after Monday’s debate, shows Joe Lieberman opening a 17-point lead on Ned Lamont:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman now holds a 52 - 35 percent likely voter lead over Democratic candidate Ned Lamont, with 6 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger and 7 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 49 - 39 percent Sen. Lieberman lead over Lamont, with 5 percent for Schlesinger in a September 28 poll by [the same polling organization, Quinnipiac University].

So, Schlesinger’s “bounce” is just a single percentage point, despite an entertaining debate performance in the debate that made him, ever so briefly, a media darling. I’m honestly surprised.

The “bounce” is slightly more noticable among Republicans. Within that subset of poll respondents, Alan’s support is up six points, from 12% to 18%, since the previous poll. But looky here, get a load of where that support is coming from:

THEN: Joe 69%, Ned 15%, Alan 12%
NOW: Joe 70%, Ned 9%, Alan 18%

That’s right, Schlesinger is stealing Republican support from Lamont! Huh?!? That makes no sense, but I’ll take it! :)

It’s not like people didn’t watch the same debate we did. “35 percent of Connecticut voters watched Monday’s candidate debate,” and “another 35 percent said they heard or read about the debate,” according to the poll. But only “3 percent say they changed their mind about whom they would vote for as a result of the debate.”

“Ned Lamont needed to score a knockout in the debates to catch Sen. Joseph Lieberman, but he apparently didn’t lay a glove on him,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.

“Lamont’s negatives are up and he has fallen farther behind in the matchup against Lieberman because of his drop among independent voters and men.

“Observers had speculated that Alan Schlesinger would benefit from the debate exposure and take Republican votes away from Lieberman,” Dr. Schwartz added. “Instead, he took Republican votes away from Lamont.”

Do you think Ned is regretting the little pep talk he gave Alan about how he should ignore the media and keep on fighting? Heh!

P.S. Joe’s biggest gains between the previous poll and the one occurred among independent voters: his lead there improved from 50-36-4 to 58-32-5. From a 14-point margin to a 26-point margin in just over three weeks! Nice!

There was no major movement among Democrats, except some minor (probably statistically insignificant) slippage into the undecided column, as Lamont went from a 57-37 lead to a 55-36 lead.

UPDATE: It’s official, Ned Lamont’s campaign staff has gone completely insane. The Hartford Courant reports:

Lamont’s campaign took issue with the results, saying the poll bordered on the irresponsible because it surveyed voters before a debate broadcast Thursday night in which staffers believe Lamont turned in a strong performance.

Wait, wait, wait. How is it “irresponsible” to take a poll in between two debates? Can someone please explain this to me? Is Quinnipiac supposed to ask Ned Lamont’s permission before conducting a poll, so that they can do it at the most convenient, advantageous moment for him? Anything less is “irresponsible”! Cripes, what idiots. “We’re behind in the polls, so let’s blame the pollsters! How dare they take a poll when we’re behind?! They’re supposed to wait until we’re ahead!!”

UPDATE 2: Kos points out that Quinnipiac’s track record in the Connecticut Senate race is somewhat less than stellar:

The numbers and trends suck, but this one ain’t over. Do we remember this now-classic Q-poll result?

Lieberman (D) 41
Lamont (D) 54

That was two weeks before the primary. The Lamont campaign screamed that there was no way they were so far ahead. At the time, their internals had them lagging Lieberman. Lamont went on to win the primary narrowly.

The Q-poll completely blew the primary. If Connecticut Dems (now including Dodd) work for what’s right, we’ll prove Quinnipiac wrong in Connecticut twice in a single year.

Kos sounds almost messianic at the end of his post: “This is the year we’re turning the political world upside down. And Lieberman is destined to be a casualty.”

We’ll see.