In a surprise announcement, first-term Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt (R), son of House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, announced that he will not seek re-election this year.

Polls were consistently showing Blunt losing to the state's longtime Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, but it is unclear how Nixon might perform against a stronger Republican.

Reader PW writes:

My wife just came home from voting here in Webster Groves MO. She used the electronic touch-screen voting system. . . She touched Claire McCaskill's picture and the machine recorded a vote for Jim Talent. She then called one of the people running the polling center who helped her correct the problem. My wife then had to call the person over another time after it recorded her vote a Republican again. In her frustration she asked the person who was responsible for the design of this system. The polling person leaned in very close to my wife and whispered, "We're f----d."

The Missouri Senate race is perhaps the closest in the country, and polls are being watched very closely, by both sides, for any errors or malfeasance.