CBS is calling Pennsylvania for Dem Bob Casey over Little Ricky.

Headlines:

ALL CITY OF AUSTIN BONDS BONDS PASSING EASILY

LEGE: BOLTON NARROW LEAD OVER WELCH

LEGE: WATSON, DUKES, HOWARD, NAISHTAT, RODRIGUEZ, STRAMA WINNING EASILY

DISTRICT COURTS: BAIRD AND NARANJO WELL UP ON REPUBLICANS

COUNTY: DEMS ALL WINNING EASILY EXCEPT PCT. 2 JUSTICE OF PEACE

At this point, the Texas House Dist. 47 race is the only nail-biter. The early voting totals: 12,185 votes for teacher favorite Valinda Bolton, 11,449 for Bill Welch, the favorite of voucher sugar daddy James Leinenger, who pumped $500,000 into his campaign last month.

It's all over but the counting. Very early numbers are trickling out, only 14 precincts out of 8,510, and obviously from conservative areas. Which, um, is most of Texas.

Remember former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, he of the 80-pound cardstock?

Well, he summarily got the crap kicked out of him in his bid for Governor by Democrat Ted Strickland. Blackwell trailed so bad, CNN just called it for Strickland with zero-districts reporting. Trailed so bad, he was pulling this shit in the gubernatorial debate:



Nice knowing ya, shitbird!

Bad news from Robert E. Lee's home state: George Allen (R) is leading R-turned-D James Webb, the former Navy secretary, by nine points in what was expected to be a dead heat. Only 10% of the precincts have been counted, but it can't be good to be 27,000 votes behind.

EDIT: now it's just pulled dead even: With 20% counted, The numbers are Webb 49.49%, Allen 49.33%, a difference of less than 1,000 votes out of almost 400,000 counted.

Two other key Virginia races:

VA-2, Democrat challenger Kellam slightly leads Repub incumbent Drake 50.27%-49.63% with only 10% counted, and in VA-10, Repub incumbent Wolf leads Dem Feder 53-45, with 27% counted.

Democrats are desperately hoping to knock off two Kentucky Republican incumbents in the House, and so far, they have reason to be hopeful in one of them: In KY-3, Dem John Yarmuth has a 50.1-48.8% edge with 65.7% of precincts reporting. In KY-4, Dem Ken Lucas is nine points behind Geoff Lucas, but that's only with 2.6% of the precincts.

Burnt Orange Report has the gory details.

$5,000 reward out there, people.

Here's the key number you need to know for following the battle for control of the Senate: 10.

There 33 seats up for grabs. Of the seats not up for grabs, 40 belong to Republicans and 27 belong to Democrats. That stacks the odds quite a bit against the Dems, but polls are showing that Dems are strong in most of the races. So the number to follow is whether the Repubs can win just 10 of the 33 to create a 50-50 split, in which case Vice President Dick Cheney would cast the tiebreaker vote in close Senate votes.

CNN has already called the low-hanging fruit, the obvious races: Lugar (R) will win in Indiana, and Bernie Sanders (independent, but usually votes with the Dems) will win Vermont. So the Republicans have nine to go.

And realistically, there are six more seats that are considered safe for the Repubs, so really, they have only three to go. Fortunately for the Dems, there are eight seats that are considered neck-and-neck: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Arizona, and Montana.

Polls close at 6pm (Central Time) in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia, followed by North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia at 6:30. We'll update you as soon as we get any numbers and can start getting a feel for how the battle for Congress is going, and then we'll post early voting numbers for Texas after polls close here at 7pm. Remember to stay with the Austin Chronicle Election Blog throughout the night as your one-stop shop for election results ranging from the local bonds all the way up to the fight for Washington D.C.