So what's next for Harold Ford, Jr., now that his surprisingly strong challenge to GOP Senator-elect Bob Corker earned him national attention?

Sources tell Election Central that Ford is mulling a range of options, from a challenge to GOP Senator Lamar Alexander in 2008 to a possible talk show on CNN. The network has contacted Ford to discuss a possible on-air role, a source says.

A senior adviser to Ford says an Alexander challenge is "unlikely," because it would be a massive uphill struggle, but says it remains possible. "The typical Democratic performance in Tennessee is 43%, and we showed we can move the ball to 48%," the adviser says. "But Alexander has 30 years of good-will built up in Tennessee. The Alexander brand is strong. And the negativity thrown at Ford would be enormous, just as it was this time around. Ford had seven negative ads running against him at one time."

"I think it's accurate to say all options are on the table and no options are off," the adviser continues. "It's unlikely that he would challenge Lamar, but it's possible. He doesn't know what he wants to do."

A CNN talk show is also a possibility. On the morning after Ford's defeat on Election Day, CNN contacted Ford to explore the possibility of his becoming a talk show host, according to a source familiar with the discussions. "CNN's talent division contacted him three times before 10 A.M.," the source says. (A CNN spokesperson couldn't immediately be reached for comment.)

Ford is 36 years old.

Senator John McCain has launched his preliminary run for President, officially kicking off the 2008 Presidential race. A quick wrap-up of McCain news after the jump.

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Chuck Schumer -- one of the "architects," as it were, of the Dems' Senate takeover -- is confirming that he'll likely stay on as head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee for another two years at Harry Reid's request. "I'm likely to take it," Schumer has just told The Politicker blog's Jason Horowitz, confirming an anonymously-sourced report in today's New York Post. The Post recaps some of Schumer's tactics:

* Controlling the hires of candidates' top campaign staff.

* Giving $1 million off the bat to vulnerable incumbents in red states to scare off Republican challengers.

* Signing off on campaign ads and requiring candidates respond within 24 hours of an attack against them.

The Post, predictably, also claims that Schumer's success was based on his pick of "moderate" Dems to knock off GOP incumbents. While it's true that Dem Bob Casey, who took out Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, is anti-abortion, Ohio Senator-elect Sherrod Brown is a strongly progressive economic populist, while Montana Senator-elect Jon Tester is an organic farmer who called for repeal of the Patriot Act. Schumer's success was in picking strong and aggressive candidates, not simply moderate ones.

No, the election isn't over yet. Here are a few of today's updates from the eight remaining as-yet-undecided House races:

CT-02: Dem Joe Courtney picked up one more vote after the first of 65 town-level recounts. Reviews of nearly a quarter million more votes are scheduled through Wednesday. [Courtney: 121,316; Simmons: 121,149]

FL-13: The recount is set to begin Wednesday. GOPer Vern Buchanan had a 373-vote lead in the initial count.

OH-15: Ohio election officials are delaying the count of over 9,000 provisional ballots by one day to avoid disrupting the popular Ohio State vs Michigan football game on Nov. 18. GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce currently leads Dem Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,536 votes.

WA-08: GOP Rep. David Reichert is still leading Dem Darcy Burner in this slow-counting state, but many votes remain to be tallied as the vast majority of voters cast ballots by mail. [Reichert: 87,062; Burner: 83,942]

You can read a full rundown of the yet-to-be called races here. Our TPM Election Scoreboard with up-to-date info on all the races' outcomes is here.

Here's your Election Central guide to the intraparty wars going on between ambtious GOPers battling for leadership slots in the wake of Tuesday's disastrous loss and the (sometimes forced) retirement of much of the 109th Congress' GOP leadership. The jockeying reflects an intense debate about why the GOP lost on Tuesday and what it must do to move forward. Elections are set for next week. View our guide after the jump.

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The new Democratic majority will quickly move to bring at least a token number of troops home from Iraq when Congress convenes in January, the Associated Press reports:

First stop next year will be legislation calling for an undetermined number of troops to come home immediately. Though Democrats are divided over exactly what to propose, they say their effort will send a loud political signal to disgruntled U.S. voters, and to Iraqis to assume more responsibility...

Aides say when the new Congress convenes in January, Democrats plan to call for troops to begin coming home from Iraq and to increase money for veterans and training special operations forces.

One interesting dynamic to watch: How Joe Lieberman -- who opposes withdrawal -- will react to such moves. His allies are struggling mightily to spin his win as a victory of the mainstream over extremism. Yet exit polls showed that an astonishing 63% of Connecticut voters favor withdrawing "some" or "all" troops from Iraq. Only 31% oppose withdrawal.

So: If some sort of vote for withdrawal comes to the floor, will Lieberman support the wishes of mainstream Connecticut, or will he vote against withdrawal, thereby representing less than a third of Connecticut voters?

"Our party does not suffer the affliction of being a boiling mad collection of fringe interests with notions so cockeyed that they ultimately rub each other raw and make average Americans cringe. Republicans will never be that."

— Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, describing the Democratic Party in an interview with Reuters.

If what happened on Election Day is any indication, however, "average Americans" don't "cringe" at the party's ideas at all. Exit polls show that the Dems won the popular vote with a clear majority, 53%-45%.

Atrios says:

That's the phrase coming out of the mouths of all good Washington pundits right now, that the Democrats must govern from the center.

I have no idea what that means, and nor do they. There was a time when the "political center" had some actual meaning and some genuine relationship to voter preference, but it's now a concept which has been redefined to be equated with the elite consensus. Centrism is sensible, sensible pundits are sensible, so whatever sensible pundits think is correct is the center. Magic!...

The truth is any agenda that the Democrats are likely to work on is entirely mainstream, and this would probably be true even if they had an 80 seat majority in the House and a veto-proof majority in the Senate. Whether or not this mainstream agenda will be judged as "centrist" by the sensible people who make such determinations I have no idea.

The unfolding battle right now is over who gets to decide what constitutes mainstream opinion.

In addition to what Atrios points out, right now what's galling about the calls that Dems govern from the "center" is that those presuming to dictate what the majority wants from Dems are the same people who said for months that Dems would be courting disaster if they dared question the "commander in chief's" conduct of the war on terror during wartime or if they embraced the "extreme" positions of backing a change of course or some sort of withdrawal from Iraq.

To indulge in a bit of oversimplification, Dems didn't listen to what these pundits were claiming was majority opinion, and instead listened to what the American people had to say about what their own opinions were. And it worked out pretty well for Dems, didn't it. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere about how seriously we should take those who are again telling us what mainstream opinion does or doesn't want from the Dem majority right now.

Here's a simple explanation for why the GOP got routed on Election Day: Republicans were insisting that American troops should stay in Iraq, but the voters strongly disagreed — they want out. Exit polls show that a solid majority of voters — 58% — voiced support for withdrawing "some" or "all" of the troops, while only 38% of voters supported keeping the same troop level or sending more. (No timeframe was given for withdrawal in the question.) And here's a look at voter support for withdrawal in states with key Senate races:

* Virginia: Withdrawal has a 52%-40% advantage

* Ohio: Withdrawal leads 57%-39%

* Virginia: Withdrawal is favored 52%-40%

* Missouri: Withdrawal is up 50%-44%

* New Jersey: Withdrawal 62%-32%

* Pennsylvania: Withdrawal 60%-36%

* Tennessee: Withdrawal 46%-41%

* Rhode Island: Withdrawal 69%-26%

* Montana: Withdrawal 50%-44%

* Maryland: Withdrawal 62%-32%

And here's the most mystifying one of all: In Connecticut, where the Senator who opposes withdrawal solidly beat back a challenger who supports it, voters back withdrawal by...63%-31%.

Lincoln Chafee may be the most popular Senator ever to not win re-election, exit polls suggest. The exits showed that despite the fact that voters elected Dem Sheldon Whitehouse to replace Chafee, some 63% of those same Rhode Island voters actually approved of Chafee's performance in office. So how did he manage to lose? The exits also show that 63% of voters wanted Democrats to control the Senate. Bottom line: Senator-elect Whitehouse's argument — that a vote for Chafee was a vote to keep the GOP in control of the Senate — worked.

There's an interesting debate bubbling away in the lib blogosphere over who should get more credit for the Dem win, the netroots or the DCCC's Rahm Emanuel. The reason the argument's noteworthy is that it roughly foreshadows some of the coming battles over who has cracked the secret code of how best Dems can convert the party's gains into a durable majority.

In the crudest of summaries, the battle essentially lines up like this: Some say the netroots deserve credit because they had the guts, foresight and online organizational clout to push quirky but principled candidates whose strongly articulated opinions slowly generated appeal among voters. Others point out Rahm's fundraising helped "netroots" candidates at least as much as the bloggers did, and note Rahm's successful pragmatic candidate-recruitment. A third school of thought holds there's plenty of credit to go around and the two camps actually complement each other.

A quick wrap-up of opinion on all sides of the argument after the jump.

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Evangelical leaders, including Focus on the Family head James Dobson, slammed the GOP during a post-election panel discussion today while claiming Democrats have "moved into the vacuum that the Republicans have left" for so-called values voters. "If the Republicans are not going to support those principles, then somebody else is," Dobson told the panel. "We've been harder today on the Republicans than we are on the Democrats because in fact it's the Republicans who dropped the ball here." Though there was much speculation that white evangelicals would abandon the GOP this year, they ended up voting for the GOP in similar numbers to 2004, while other religious groups cut more than usual towards Democrats.

The Christianity Today headline below just about says it all:

An interesting postscript on the Maryland Senate race: Exit polls suggest that the "white lie" phenomenon, in which more white voters tell pollsters that they'll vote for the black candidate than actually go through with it in the end, may have helped doom black Senate candidate Michael Steele. This is a phenomenon more often noted against Dems, of course, since African-American candidates are Democrats much more often than they're Republican, but in this case, it may have harmed GOPer Steele as well.

Steele lost by 10 points — a higher spread than some pre-election polls suggested. Exit polls show that white voters split their vote evenly between Cardin and Steele, well short of the percentage of whites that ordinarily back the GOP candidate in seriously contested races in Maryland. In pre-election polls, meanwhile, respondents were promising to vote for Steele at a higher rate: a Baltimore Sun poll from five days before the election had Steele leading Cardin among whites by seven points. So the Republican candidate may have been victimized by the "white lie" after all.

In a little-noticed episode right before the election, Karl Rove began laying the groundwork for some post-election spin should the GOP lose: Rove had his allies leak word that he was "privately frustrated that individual candidates have not been more aggressive in drawing contrasts with Democrats on national security." In other words, Rove was saying, if the GOP loses, it'll be the candidates' fault, not mine.

In today's Washington Post, GOP strategists are shown continuing with this post-election spin, again trying to shove off blame for Tuesday's catastrophic defeat onto individual candidates who apparently lost because they didn't heed the national party's advice closely enough.

More after the jump.

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The AP reports that GOP Sen. Craig Thomas, recently reelected, has been diagnosed with a form of leukemia. The 73-year old Thomas was hospitalized in the Washington area with pneumonia Tuesday night, when he was re-elected with 70-percent of the vote. We here at Election Central wish him a speedy recovery.

Update: Thomas's office released a statement, expressing optimism about his condition. Key quote:

It is expected that Thomas will be able to perform all duties of his office following treatment. Dr. Brian Monahan, Director of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the National Naval Medical Center, said “The majority of people with Craig’s great physical condition and general health attain remission.”

The current Dem pickup stands at 28 House seats, with no losses and 10 races still undecided. Here's where they are now:

Dem-Leaning:

CT-02: Dem challenger Joe Courtney has declared victory with an 167-vote edge, but the miniscule margin automatically triggers a recount. The 167-vote margin includes absentee and military ballots, but not provisional ballots, which need to be verified before being counted. The recount must be completed by midnight next Wednesday.

GA-12: Incumbent Dem John Barrow leads by less than 1,000 votes, with a recount being likely. Barrow has declared victory. If Dems hold this seat, they will have completely shut out the GOP on House, Senate and governorship pick-ups.

Republican-Leaning:

FL-13: The race for Katherine Harris's open seat is potentially going to the courts. Dem Christine Jennings trails by less than 400 votes, with reports of voting-machine problems.

NC-08: Down by 346 votes, Dem Larry Kissell is calling for a recount in his race against GOP Rep. Robin Hayes, who has already declared victory. Provisional ballots won't be counted until Nov. 17, and the official result will not be certified until Nov. 28. In North Carolina, recounts have traditionally favored the candidate who leads going in.

NM-02: GOP Rep. Heather Wilson leads by 1,395 votes, with provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted.

OH-02: GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt has declared victory, but Dem Victoria Wulsin is waiting for all provisional ballots to be counted before conceding. Though a Wulsin victory is still a possibility, she seems to be facing a statistical uphill battle.

OH-15: With a lead of 2,835 votes GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce has declared victory, but Dem opponent Mary Jo Kilroy will not concede until some 20,000 uncounted absentee and provisional ballots are tallied, a sum which she feels could tilt the election towards her. Pryce has also announced she will not seek re-election for Chair of the House Republican Conference if she wins.

WA-08: GOP Rep. David Reichert holds a two-point lead over Dem Darcy Burner with three-fifths of the district's ballots now counted. If the final vote count ends with the candidates a half a percentage point or less apart, state law requires a recount.

WY-AL: Dem Gary Trauner, trailing Rep. Barbara Cubin by 970 votes, might request a recount after canvassing is completed. However, his current deficit is a few dozen votes larger than the margin that would provide for a state-paid recount. Cubin has declared victory.

Runoff:

TX-23: GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla fell short of 50 percent, and faces a runoff with former Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez

One key point that's been all but lost in the post-election coverage is this: The Dem routing of the GOP on Tuesday represents a huge vindication for those who demanded that Dems counterattack aggressively in the face of GOP national security attacks and stop scurrying for cover every time Karl Rove promised yet another "escalation" in such rhetoric.

No, I'm not talking about Rahm Emanuel, who was lionized at length today in the New York Times for aggressively taking on the GOP over Iraq. Rather, I'm talking about those who pushed for a fearless, genuinely oppositional Dem posture on national security issues early in the cycle, when it wasn't anywhere near as obvious as it became later that doing so would produce victory.

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Dems will control both Houses of Congress. According to MSNBC, the Associated Press is reporting that Conrad Burns has conceded the Montana Senate race to Senator-elect Jon Tester. Virginia Senator George Allen is expected to do the same at 3 P.M. today. From the New York Times:

Senator George Allen is expected to concede his re-election campaign against his Democratic challenger, Jim Webb, later this afternoon, according to two Republicans connected to the Allen campaign...

Many election analysts concluded that Senator Allen was unlikely to close the roughly 7,000 vote margin separating him from Mr. Webb, who has already claimed victory. And the Associated Press, a widely accepted authority for calling elections, agreed on Wednesday with Mr. Webb, declaring Mr. Allen, a Republican, the loser. A Webb victory gives the Democrats control of the Senate, with 51 seats.

A senior Allen adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday that if the margin did not narrow significantly, Mr. Allen would not challenge the result.

It's just about over.

Robert Novak's election post-mortem:

The apparent Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress left Republicans stunned and divided, unable to comprehend that the nation's political realignment creating a GOP majority had crested and reversed. The confidence that relied entirely on a generously funded Election Day organization now looks like arrogance. The party's cocksure political mechanics simply could not believe the outcome as the results poured in.

Democrats capitalized on a mood that was not so much pro-Democrat as anti-Republican. Republican leaders are still in denial in the wake of their crushing defeat. They blame individual losing candidates for failing to prepare themselves for the election, but the real fault lies with the GOP's Washington establishment, which played its hand at Republican governance so disastrously that by Election Day Republicans could hardly get a cab ride anywhere in middle America.

Novak also brings up the interesting fact that all six GOP House members who left their seats to run for higher office — either for governor or the Senate — lost, while half their abandoned seats went to Democrats. His full post-mortem is here.

Gallup has just released its comprehensive analysis of post-election polling data, and it shows that a key reason Dems won was that in addition to enjoying solid base support, they also made important gains among whites, married voters and rural voters -- traditionally GOP-dominated groups -- as well as among independents. Says Gallup:

An analysis of Gallup's final pre-election poll data shows that the Democratic victory in Tuesday's House elections was because of a rising Democratic tide that lifted support in almost all key subgroups. In addition to solid support from their core constituent groups such as liberals, nonwhites, women, urban residents, and older Americans, Democrats also owe a significant debt to independent voters, who tilted strongly in their direction. Whites and those who are married -- groups that usually favor the Republican Party -- were evenly divided in their vote. Democrats did better among rural voters, a change from previous voting patterns.

Opposition to the Iraq war appears to have helped the Democratic cause. Although supporters and opponents of the war voted about equally for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, the fact that opponents outnumbered supporters made Iraq a net-plus for Democrats. In general, it appears that Democratic efforts to get out the vote played a significant part in the win, because those who were contacted by Democrats and urged to vote for Democratic candidates strongly supported Democrats, even if they were also contacted by Republicans.

Key stats: Nearly half of whites and married voters voted Dem this year, more than in previous years. Even more interesting, some 55% of both rural and urban voters chose Dems -- whereas in past years rural voters were significantly less likely to vote Dem than urban voters were.

Gallup's full analysis here.

Good times! These are the good times! Leave your cares be-hind. These are the good times! Good times! These are the good times! Our new state of mind. These are the good times!

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As noted below, it seems likely conservative criticism will multiply should GOP Senator George Allen pursue a recount against Dem James Webb, because such a move could subject the GOP to more damage at a moment of extreme political vulnerability.

First the conservative blog Redstate.com slammed Allen for entertaining the idea. Now check out what James Taranto of the right-wing OpinionJournal.com has to say today about Allen's quixotic recount quest. Taranto says that it's not only unbecoming, but destined to fail, and calls the race for Webb:

The Democrats also will take a 51-49 majority in the Senate, having won every close race except in Tennessee--though it may be awhile before that's official, depending on whether Virginia's George Allen decides to take his razor-thin loss gracefully like Richard Nixon or brutishly like Al Gore.

Since a comparison to Al Gore is among the very worst insults Taranto could possibly dream up to throw at someone -- and since Taranto intends a comparison to Richard Nixon as something apparently to be desired -- this doesn't leave much room for doubt. Taranto is blasting the Allen recount idea, and should Allen continue with it, my bet is more conservatives will follow suit.

A bit more on this question of whether George Allen will really request a recount now that he's trailing Dem Jim Webb by some 7,000 votes.

RedState.com, the conservative blog, is now calling on Allen not to request a recount. The blog reports that "the RNC is mobilizing lawyers and publicists and whatnot to fight a protracted battle down in Virginia," and warns: "Let's not re-do Florida in 2000."

Under Virginia law, a recount wouldn't take place until next month, because it can't even be requested, let alone begin, until the official vote canvas happens and the vote count is certified, which would happen on Nov. 27. That means weeks would go by with control of the Senate hanging in the balance. The Allen camp is saying they won't make up their mind on the recount until they see some of the new numbers from the official canvas.

Let's be clear on a few things about this.

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During his victory speech last night in one of tightest — and dirtiest — races in the country, Jim Webb just couldn't resist one last stab at George Allen's personal character. After assuring supporters that the remaining votes would go their way, he added, "This is a great moment for all of us who believe in an inclusive society."

Will GOP Senator George Allen, who's currently trailing Dem Jim Webb by about 7,000 votes, request a recount, thus dragging out the question of who will control the Senate for at least another month? It seems that will depend on what kind of numbers come in for Allen after the official canvas is complete. Today's Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:

A senior advisor to George Allen's Senate campaign said Allen would wait until after the vote is official later this month to decide whether to seek a recount.

Ed Gillespie said Jim Webb was leading Allen by about 7,000 votes this morning, or about .3 percent of the total votes cast. He said that could change during the official canvas that is starting today in localities around the state. He said it is likely some vote totals will change as mistakes in tabulating totals are discovered....

"We'll want to see how the canvassing turns out" before deciding on whether to ask for a recount, he said.

It seems likely that the Allen camp has come to terms with the fact that a recount would almost certainly fail to overturn Webb's current 7,000-vote lead, and Allen probably won't ask for one unless the numbers shift substantially in Allen's favor. In other words, game's almost over -- Dems look like they're about to take the Senate, too. Or, as Webb put it late yesterday, "the votes are in, and we won."

And then there was one? The MSNBC, the Associated Press, and the Billings Gazette are all calling the Montana Senate race for Dem Jon Tester. Tester will give his victory speech at 11 a.m. Mountain Time, according to the Gazette. His current lead is now beyond even the 0.5% margin under which the Burns campaign could opt to pay for a recount. Burns hasn't conceded, but if and when he gives up and makes that difficult congratulatory call to Tester, that will leave one last GOP Senator — George Allen — between Dems and control of the Senate.

Update: The Times calls it for Tester, too.

Though the Democrats have conclusively gained control of the House with a pick up of at least 27 seats, 13 races have yet to be officially called by at least two major news sources. Here's why:

Update: CNN and NBC have both called GA-08 for Dem Rep. Jim Marshall and PA-06 for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach.

Update 2: In PA-08, GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick concedes.

* CT-02: Democrat Joe Courtney leads, but still too close to call, waiting for a recount. A Courtney victory would be another Dem pick up.

* FL-13: GOPer Vern Buchanan declared victory in this race to succeed GOP Rep. Katherine Harris, but Dem Christine Jennings won't concede until a recount, which won't be completed until Nov. 18. Voting problems are suspected to have occurred in the district.

* GA-08: Dem Rep. Jim Marshall leads GOPer Mac Collins by 2,048 votes — outside the 1% recount zone — but the race won't be certified until Friday. Called for Marshall.

* GA-12: Dem Rep. John Barrow declared victory, but it has not been confirmed by GA election officials due to server problems in one county.

* NC-08: GOP Rep. Robin Hayes declared victory, but a recount is expected as he only leads Dem Larry Kissell by 468 votes. A Kissell victory would be a surprise pick up for the Democrats.

* NM-01: No winner declared in this close race where provisional and absentee ballots are still waiting to be counted. A victory by Patricia Madrid would be another pick up for the Dems.

* OH-02: Dem Victoria Wulsin has refused to concede, but GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt leads by slim margin.

* OH-15: Fox News called it for GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce, but Dem Mary Jo Kilroy will not concede, waiting for absentee ballots to be counted.

* PA-06: The Philadelphia Inquirer has called it for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach, but no other official source has followed suit. Called for Gerlach.

* PA-08: Dem Patrick Murphy declared victory, but GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick refuses to concede. A Murphy victory would be another Dem pick up. Fitzpatrick concedes.

* TX-23: There will be a run-off election between GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla and Dem Ciro Rodriguez because Bonilla failed to win more than 50% of the vote.

* WA-08: GOP Rep. David Reichert leads Dem Darcy Burner, but more than 10,000 absentee ballots still need to be counted.

* WY-AL: Race between GOP Rep. Barbar Cubin and Dem Gary Trauner is too close to call and a recount is expected. A Trauner victory would be another Dem pick up.

Election Central just spoke with Bowen Greenwood, communications director for the Secretary of State's office in Montana, and we got a quick primer on Montana's recount law. If the margin is within 0.25% — Tester's current lead is higher than this, at 0.43% — the losing candidate can request a state-paid recount. If the gap is above 0.25% and less than 0.50%, as with Burns's current gap, the Burns campaign could post a bond to pay the full cost of a recount, which would be refunded if they won and forfeited if they lost.

According to the Washington Post, the recount law in Virginia is similar, but the threshholds are different — a state-paid recount is provided for a margin of less than 0.5%, while a candidate can post a bond and request a recount if the margin is less than 1%.

Here's a statement just out from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on the Montana and Virginia races:

Both Jon Tester and Jim Webb have won their races in Montana and Virginia but want to make sure that every vote is counted. We expect to have official results soon but can happily declare today that Democrats have taken the majority in the U.S. Senate.

Notes on the situation and process below... 

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Here's that video of Jim Webb addressing his supporters, shortly after they had taken the lead and a somber George Allen had already spoken to his own supporters about the ongoing count. Note that S.R. Sidarth (of Macaca fame) is one of the people standing onstage behind Webb.

With a recount looking likely in the race between Dem Jim Webb and GOP Senator George Allen, it looks as if we may not know who won the Virginia Senate race -- and possibly which party controls the Senate -- until next month. This morning's New York Times reports:

While a recount seems likely, though, if it comes it will not come quickly.

According to a statement issued this month by the state’s Board of Elections, no request for a recount may be filed until the vote is certified, which is scheduled to happen this year on Nov. 27th.

After certification, a losing candidate has 10 days to file a recount request in the state courts. The petition will be considered by a panel made up of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court in Richmond and two judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. Those judges then set out guidelines for conducting the recount...Last year, a recount involving the race for state attorney general did not begin until Dec. 20th.

Webb is leading Allen by around one-third of a percentage point with 99.75% precincts reporting, meaning it's all but certain that Allen will be entitled to a recount. See you next month.

Some new numbers out of Montana this morning: With 96% of precincts in, Jon Tester is clinging to the narrowest of leads — 1,556 votes. Still remaining to be counted: About two-thirds of remaining ballots in Gallatin County, where Burns looks to have a slim to nonexistent lead, as well as a meager six percent of precincts in Yellowstone County, where Burns appears to be narrowly ahead. There is also one rural county, Meagher, which has not reported any ballots as of yet. In other words: We may be looking at a Montana recount. As if Virginia weren't enough.

Update: With 99% of precincts reporting, including all of Gallatin County, Tester's lead over Burns has now crept up to 1,586 votes.

Here they are, all 27 of them:

* AZ-05
* AZ-08
* CA-11
* CO-07
* CT-05
* FL-16
* FL-22
* IA-01
* IA-02
* IN-02
* IN-08
* IN-09
* KY-03
* KS-02
* MN-01
* NC-11
* NH-01
* NH-02
* NY-19
* NY-20
* NY-24
* OH-18
* PA-04
* PA-07
* PA-10
* TX-22
* WI-08

And it could turn out to be 28, depending on the outcome of the pending recount of CT-02.

Update: A commenter points out that Dem Patrick Murphy is hanging on to a 1,521-vote lead in PA-08 over GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick with 100 percent of precincts reporting. So the Dem pickup could reach 29.

Dem Diane Farrell has edged into a lead over GOP Rep. Chris Shays. Farrell leads Shays 51%-48% with 48% precincts reporting.

CNN projects that Dems have won the House of Representatives. "They will be the majority in the House of Representatives," Wolf Blitzer says.

CNN just called Dem Kirsten Gillibrand over GOPer John Sweeney, Dem Gabrielle Giffords over GOPer Randy Graf and Dem Ron Klein over GOPer Clay Shaw. Two seats to go for Dems to win the House.

As Atrios would say, Bye Mike. CNN and NBC call it for Dem Ben Cardin. Dems have held on to the two at-risk Dem seats -- Jersey and Maryland. Now that Dems have knocked off both Ohio Senator Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, that means Dems are four seats away from taking the Senate.

Dem Sherrod Brown has successfully ousted GOP incumbent Mike DeWine, CNN says. With New Jersey safe, that means five Senate seats to go for Dems.

Update: Santorum goes down in Pennsylvania. Four seats to go for Dems.

CNN calls it: Dem Senator Robert Menendez defeats GOP challenger Tom Kean, Jr.

Kenneth Blackwell is finished. CNN's Wolf Blitzer just said the network is projecting that Dem Ted Strickland has won the race to be Ohio's next Governor.

Virginia Senator George Allen tried to make Dem Jim Webb's treatment of women a central issue in the campaign, attacking Webb on the stump and in ads for his allegedly misogynic fiction writings and his essays about the problems of having women in military academies. But CNN's exit polls are finding that these attacks may have failed: They find that Webb is winning over Allen among women 56%-43%.

The Associated Press has just posted a piece on its exit polls, and just like CNN's exit polls found, AP is finding that corruption is a key issue driving voters today. AP's exit numbers are also finding a surprisingly high number of evangelicals going Dem, a trend that many political analysts noted early in the cycle:

Those early exit polls also showed that three in four voters said corruption was very important to their vote, and they tended to vote Democratic. In a sign of a dispirited GOP base, most white evangelicals said corruption was very important to their vote — and almost a third of them turned to the Democrats.

AP also finds, unsurprisingly, that voters are heavily driven by the Iraq war:

Two out of three voters called the war very important to them and said they leaned toward the Democrats, while six in ten voters said they disapproved of the war. About the same number said they were dissatisfied with the president — and they were far more likely to vote Democratic.

Only two areas were keeping their polling places open late to compensate for delays and problems earlier in the day, we reported earlier.

Now a third -- Ohio's Cuyahoga County -- will extend voting hours for its residents, because of "technical glitches an delays in opening," the Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting.  Voters there will have until 9 p.m. local time to cast their ballot.

ABC News has just released some exit poll numbers, and strong majorities of today's voters disapprove of both President Bush and the Iraq war:

Preliminary exit poll results indicate that nearly six in 10 voters today disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job.

About four in 10 approve. That's down from 53 percent approval in 2004, and 67 percent just before the 2002 midterm elections.

About four in 10 "strongly" disapprove of the president's work, more than double the number of strong approvers.

Intensity of sentiment for and against, by contrast, was about equal in 2004: Thirty-three percent strongly approved of the president's performance, and 35 percent strongly disapproved. And in 2002, strong approvers dominated, quite a contrast from today.

The war in Iraq is a serious concern. In preliminary exit poll results, nearly six in 10 voters disapprove of the war, while about four in 10 approve. Approval of the war was higher, 51 percent, in the 2004 election. And about four in 10 now "strongly" disapprove of the war, up from 32 percent two years ago.