With 100% of the precincts reporting:

Lieberman (CFL) 562,850 (49.77%)
Lamont (D) 448,077 (39.62%)
Schlesinger (R) 109,329 (9.67%)
Ferrucci (G) 5,923 (0.52%)
Knibbs (CC) 4,638 (0.41%)

Lieberman’s margin of 114,773 votes over Lamont is 10.15% of the total number cast — which, in the BrendanLoy.com Senate contest “second tiebreaker,” is closer to Patrick Cullen’s prediction of a 12% margin than to Greg Rauen’s prediction of an 8% margin. However, because 10.15% is so close to the midway point between those predictions (10%), and because the Lieberman-margin tiebreaker will be decisive if the Democrats ultimately win Virginia, it will probably be impossible to definitively declare a winner until the official statement of vote from the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s office is released in December the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s office completes the official canvass in late November.

As an example of the potential volatility of the 10.15% margin, if a vote tabulation error in Newington is fixed before the statement of vote is released, it would increase Lieberman’s margin by 875 votes, to 10.22%. (It would also increase Lieberman’s statewide percentage total to 49.81%.) That would help Cullen, but similar small errors in the initial, unofficial tally could potentially help either candidate, making it impossible to be certain that Lieberman’s margin will remain above the 10 percent mark.

Personally, I think the CT Secretary of the State’s office should conduct a statewide recount to determine the outcome of the BrendanLoy.com Senate Contest. :) But I guess we’ll just have to rely on the first and only count, once that count becomes official and not just media-based. So in other words, stay tuned.

Incidentally, with Montana being called for the Democrat, there are only three contestants still alive to win the Senate Contest: Rauen, Cullen and me. I win the contest if George Allen (R) wins Virginia. If Jim Webb (D) wins, then the Lieberman tiebreaker decides the contest.

UPDATE: As long as we’re on the topic of Joe, the NYT Empire Zone Blog reports:

Despite the predictions of his netroots critics, Senator Joe Lieberman was not offered Donald Rumsfeld’s job as defense secretary.

At his post-election victory news conference at the Goodwin Hotel in Hartford, Mr. Lieberman said he did receive a congratulatory call from the Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, who also assured him he would retain his seniority — which could include the Democratic chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee.

There were no calls from the White House, he said, and no offers from the G.O.P. to lure him away. And he hastened to add that he would not accept such offers anyway.

America, I have some good news, and some bad news.

The good news is, we took the House away from the Republicans.

The bad news is, we gave it to the Democrats.

From the political to the celestial… I’m off to Chicago to see the Transit of Mercury at the Adler Planetarium. The transit starts at 2:12 PM EST (1:12 PM CST); I’ll probably get there around 2:30 PM CST, and will get to watch until sunset at 4:37 PM CST. Then I head to Midway to catch my 8:50 PM CST flight to Denver. (I have tickets to the ND-Air Force game on Saturday, and I’m heading out a few days early for interviews and such; I applied to a bunch of clerkships in Denver. Don’t ask for details about that, as they won’t be forthcoming. :) I’m scheduled to land in Denver at 10:20 PM MST. Becky will join me there tomorrow night, and of course we’ll be staying with Kristy and Vikki. Woohoo!

Anyway, the weather in Chicago is looking good for a transit viewing. Yay!

With 100% of the precincts reporting, Courtney (D) leads Simmons (R) in Connecticut’s 2nd District, 121,321 (50.035%) to 121,151 (49.965%). That’s a 170-vote margin, or 0.070% — which is 85 times bigger than the 2-vote margin Sam Gejdenson had after the initial count in the 2nd District’s 1994 race, but it’s still rather close. Obviously, there will be a recount.

East Haven and Trumbull have finally reported their results, and as expected, they were a shot in the arm for Lieberman: 59% to 31% and 58% to 31%, respectively. Waterford also went for Joe, 52% to 38%.

However, it wasn’t enough to push Lieberman’s statewide percentage over 50%. His percentage is up from 49.55% to 49.75% (49.79% if the Newington tabulation error is corrected), but it seems unlikely to increase much more, since the remaining outstanding towns (Simsbury, Wallingford and 13% of New Haven) aren’t likely to vote heavily for Lieberman like East Haven, Trumbull and Waterford did.

So it looks like Joe won’t get an absolute majority… unless the Newington tabulation error was replicated in various other towns (which seems entirely possible, given Lieberman’s unusual ballot placement; in transferring results from one record to another, officials may have simply forgotten about Lieberman) and is eventually corrected before the final, official statement of vote is released.

However, although the results from East Haven, Trumbull and Waterford weren’t enough to push Lieberman’s statewide percentage over 50%, they were enough to push his statewide margin over 10%, from 9.74% to 10.14% (or 10.21% if you correct the Newington error). That means Patrick Cullen is now in the driver’s seat in the BrendanLoy.com Senate contest. (As explained here, if the Dems win both VA and MT, Cullen wins the contest if Lieberman’s final margin is greater than 10%; Greg Rauen wins if it’s between 7.5% and 10%.)

UPDATE, 11:43 AM: Wallingford just reported. Lieberman won, 55% to 35%. His statewide margin is now 10.28% (10.35% if the Newington error is corrected). His statewide percentage is now 49.83% (49.87% if the Newington error is corrected). He’s getting close to 50%! But Simsbury is Lamont country, and it still hasn’t reported yet… nor has 13% of New Haven, where Lamont is winning 56% to 39% so far.

Both of these questions won’t be definitively decided until the official, final statement of vote from the Secretary of the State’s office — as opposed to unofficial media returns — is released.

I’ve updated the title of this post accordingly.

Damn straight I'm gloating. Fight on for Joementum! :) P.S. This is a new USC sweatshirt, by the way. Becky gave it to me for my birthday. It's awesome!

Looks like 99% of vote in, with one small county left, and the Democratic challenger, Jon Tester, seems to have a lead over Conrad Burns by about as many votes as there are residents of that county.

It’s looking like a Democrat sweep of both chambers of Congress.

“I, for one, welcome our new Democratic overlords.”

(Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

P.S. And another “Heh” to the Kossack rendition of “We Are The Champions.” :)

If I’m reading CNN’s key House races list correctly, the Dems have a net gain of 27 seats at the moment, with two Democratic-held seats and eight Republican-held seats still undecided. That leads to a possible net-gain range of 25 to 35 for the Dems. [CORRECTION: The net gain “at the moment” of this post was 28 seats, not 27. Thus the “possible net-gain range” was 26 to 36.]

Reviewing what I wrote here: if it’s a 25-seat gain, Ken Stern wins the BrendanLoy.com House contest; if it’s a 26-seat gain, Marty West wins; if 27, Joe Mama wins; if 28, A Nun Mouse wins; if 29, Patrick Cullen wins; and if 30 or greater, Tony Badger wins. If the candidate currently leading in each of the too-close-to-call races ultimately wins, the final net gain would be 29, and Mouse would reign victorious. [CORRECTION: This should have read “…and Cullen would reign victorious.” Also, Ken Stern was mathematically eliminated by the time this post was written, but my math error in the preceding paragraph obscured that fact.]

As for the Senate contest, reiterating what I wrote here:

• If the Dems win both VA and MT, Patrick Cullen wins if Joe Lieberman’s final margin in Connecticut is greater than 10%; Greg Rauen wins if it’s between 7.5% and 10%. With 95% of the precincts reporting, Lieberman’s margin stands at 9.74% … or 9.81% after correcting the Newington tabulation error. Bottom line, it would be very close, and declaring a winner would most likely need to wait for the announcement of the final, official Connecticut statement of vote.

• If the Dems win VA but not MT, I win unless Alan Schlesinger’s percentage of the vote (currently at 9.69%) dips below 8.5%. If that happens, Wobbly H wins.

• If the Dems win MT but not VA, I win.

• If the Dems win neither, Tony Badger wins unless Lieberman’s margin (again, currently 9.74%) dips below 9.5%, in which case A Nun Mouse would win.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank: “[M]ost of the [voting] problems were glitches rather than the Florida-style debacle.”

I repeat: what happened in Florida in 2000 was nothing but a series of “glitches” that came to seem like a “debacle” because they occurred in a statistically tied election that decided the presidency of the United States. If Virginia or Montana ends up being Florida-close (which appears unlikely at this point), I guarantee they will magically become “Florida-style debacles.” If they don’t, they won’t. Again: the “problems” are a given, and while they may be somewhat more or less prevalent in a given year or a given state, it’s really the margin for error (i.e., the closeness of the election), not the amount of error, that determines whether anyone cares about whatever problems happened.

…Joe Lieberman will be the deciding vote in the Senate.

That would be Joe Lieberman, the independent senator, “beholden to no political group, but only to the people of Connecticut and to [his] conscience.”

Joe Lieberman, who survived his trial by fire, and who now knows who his real friends are. (Chris Dodd, don’t expect a Hanukkah gift this year.)

Joe Lieberman, who won a decisive victory — with, if not an absolute majority, pretty damn close to one — on the basis of truly bipartisan (or rather, tripartisan) support: according to my analysis of the exit polls, roughly 25% of Joe’s votes came from Democrats, 37% came from Republicans and 38% came from independents/unaffiliateds.

All of which adds up to: Joe Lieberman, a man with nothing to lose, a man who owes nobody nothin’, a thoroughly vindicated soldier of conscience who returns to the Senate with a mandate to keep the Democrats honest. And he’ll be the 51st vote.

The Democrats, who three months ago summarily cast Lieberman aside like so much unwanted baggage, will now need him to keep their majority. Oh, sweet irony.

Still want to strip his seniority, bizzatches? I’d like to see you try.

P.S. Of course, in theory, every Democratic senator is individually “the deciding vote in the Senate” in a 51-49 split. But given Lieberman’s unique situation, I think it’s fair to say that the label fits him better than just about anyone else.

P.P.S. Remember what Lieberman said when I interviewed him: “I’m going to try my best to make sure that the Democratic Party, particularly if it comes into the majority in the Senate, doesn’t fall back in the partisan ways, and tries to change not just the partisan atmosphere but the way we behave. … I’ll go back feeling really empowered as an independent…to do everything I can to build bridges.”

In case anyone hasn’t heard, there is now Fantasy Congress in addition to Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Football, and Fantasy every-other-sports. You select real members of Congress for your team, and the object is to select congresspeople who will get the most bills into law. I wonder if enough people bug Brendan about it, would he start a league…?

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.

With 99.75% of the precincts reporting, Jim Webb now leads by more than 8,000 votes (0.35%) in Virginia. His margin right now is more than 15 times larger than Bush’s in Florida six years ago (and with ~3 times fewer votes cast). Barring massive irregularities, no recount is going to overcome that. As Rick Hasen’s Election Law blog said a few hours ago:

Here’s what would need to happen [for election litigation to have national significance]: control of the Senate or House would have to turn on the results of a single seat or a handful of seats, and those elections would have to be either (1) too close to call because the absolute margin of votes is very close (in the hundreds or low thousands) or (2) in dispute because of widespread problems or irregularities at the polls (such as a massive failure of equipment, shortage of ballots, etc.).

8,359 is not the “low thousands,” obviously. So we’re outside the “margin of litigation” here. Yeah, yeah, absentee ballots, military ballots, etc. But I think Webb is going to win. Which means, barring a comeback by Mr. Burns (heh) in Montana, the Dems are going to pull off the improbable sweep and take back the Senate. Wow.

Taking a more long-term view, Mark Schmitt is thinking about the Senate of the future and concludes, “If the Democrats handle the next two years well, they could have 56 or more seats in the Senate when the next president takes office.”