| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty November 4, 2014 Here it is. Happy Election Day, America. If you haven’t voted yet, go out and do so. (Presuming you’re legally eligible to vote.) Once. This morning I’m off to Ebolatown Dallas to join the live Election Night coverage of The Blaze, which is carried on DISH, Cablevision, Cable ONE, Atlantic Broadband, Armstrong, Buckeye CableSystem, and RCN. As I hear things throughout the day and into the evening, I’ll be posting them on Campaign Spot. As seen in yesterday’s big roundups of the Senate and gubernatorial races, I’m sidelining my gut for the final poll averages — and foreseeing a good, but not spectacular, night for the GOP. Perhaps the night will turn out much better; there’s always an analyst projecting bigger wins, and there is always appetite for affirmation that an epoch-defining victory is imminent. A Quick Roundup of Some Early Voting Numbers . . . Colorado Let me blow your mind: As of the afternoon of Monday, November 3, an astounding 1,463,766 voters returned ballots in Colorado. Out of that total, 590,653 are registered Republicans; 469,900 are registered Democrats. That’s a 40.3 percent to 32.1 percent split in favor of the GOP and a 120,753 vote margin. That’s amazing. If you have a hand in Colorado GOP’s get-out-the-early-vote efforts, I want to shake your hand. Georgia It’s just one “exit poll” of early voters, but it sounds pretty plausible and in line with late general polling: The Hicks Evaluation Group and Apache Political conducted an exit poll of early voters in Georgia about their selection three statewide races: US Senate, Governor and State Superintendent of Schools. The survey found both Deal and Perdue in the lead and with slightly more than 50 percent of the vote and Richard Wood with a slight lead over Democratic Nominee Valarie Wilson in the race for Georgia’s top educator. Both Democratic candidates, Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter are within striking distance, however, it appears that support for the Libertarian candidates is falling and coalescing around Republicans. “This survey is positive and troubling for both parties. What we are seeing is regular voters voting early, not new voters. This shows that the faithful in Georgia still lean Republican, but to a much smaller degree than in the past,” said lead pollster and President of the Hicks Evaluation Group, Fred Hicks. Georgia has good news, bad news, more good news, and perhaps more bad news for Republicans. The good news is Perdue is leading. The bad news is that reaching 50 percent is a tall order with the Libertarian candidate in the mix. The good news is that Perdue will be heavily favored in the runoff. The last bit of bad news is that if Republicans need Georgia to get control of the Senate, they’ll have to wait until January 6. Iowa Don’t you love the inevitable, “your early vote is just your base that would have voted anyway, while our early vote is a demonstration of our ability to motivate new voters” arguments? As of Thursday, Democrats held a narrow lead over Republicans in early voting: 40.9 percent to 39.2 percent, also according to the United States Election Project. Iowa Republicans are encouraged by those results because historically, Democrats lead early voting by a much wider margin. Republicans credit their success to a concerted effort to prioritize early voting, arguing GOP voters are more motivated to turn out for Ernst than Democrats are for Bruce Braley. But Democrats say they remain confident. Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Christine Freundlich said the GOP’s “reliable voters who vote on Election Day are now just voting early” instead. North Carolina At first glance, this looks astonishingly dark for Thom Tillis . . . Registered Democrats made up 48 percent of all early voters, Republicans 32 percent, and unaffiliated voters comes in at 20 percent. A total of 1.1 million people took part in early voting. Jay Cost makes the argument that the early vote actually looks ominous for Hagan -- for example, 52 percent are above age 60 (!) and another 29 percent are 45 to 60. In short, that’s a very gray electorate in North Carolina so far. In 2012, Romney carried the 65 and older vote in North Carolina 64 percent to 35 percent. The 45 to 64 vote split for Romney 53 percent to 47 percent. Just 5.1 percent of the early vote is 29 or younger. There are still a lot of votes coming today, though. In 2010, 2.6 million people voted in North Carolina’s Senate race. For Those Who Insist Faulty Voting Machines Never Help the GOP SkyNet is doing its part for a Republican-controlled Senate . . . are you? Out in North Carolina: Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice. “I called one of the poll workers over,” Bostick said. “She said do it again. And again, I touched the screen at the proper place for Kay Hagan, and it again reported it for Thom Tillis.” On his fourth attempt, the machine registered the vote for Hagan. Another poll worker decided to cancel the ballot altogether and directed Bostick to an adjacent machine, where he was able to cast his ballot without any issues. The problematic machine was taken out of service. On Wednesday, another voter had reported a similar problem at the Craft Recreation Center. In that case, the voter also tried selecting Hagan but saw the machine had recorded him as choosing Tillis. He also was moved to another machine, which registered his selections without any problem. “HAL, I’d like you to process my vote for Kay Hagan.”
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
“What’s the matter, HAL?”
“I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”
“HAL, count my vote for Kay Hagan!”
“This conversation cannot serve any purpose anymore.” What to Watch for Tonight Credit where it’s due; the Daily Kos Elections guys have put together a fantastic graphic showing the poll closing times in each state: 
Their graphics are terrific, but their analysis is what you would expect. Here’s their assessment of South Carolina: If Democrats are on the upswing, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley may be in trouble. Haley came unexpectedly close to losing to Democrat Vincent Sheheen in 2010 of all years, but she's seen as safer this time around. Haley’s lead in the two polls conducted in October: 17 points, 20 points. Yeah, that’s safer. She “may be in trouble” if an alligator chases her. The first key state to have polls close will be Kentucky. Some folks say that if Mitch McConnell wins big, expect a big night for the GOP, but color me skeptical that a deeply anti-Obama state is a perfect indicator of the national mood. Whether or not you believe 2014 is going to be a “wave” election, waves don’t always crest equally across the country. At 7 p.m. Eastern, polls in part of Florida close, but the panhandle is still voting. Think the networks remember, or has it been too long since 2000? A quick detail about New Hampshire: NEW HAMPSHIRE permits its 13 cities to keep their polls open until 8 PM Eastern Time by local option — however, as there ARE only 13 cities among New Hampshire's 234 County subdivisions [the 221 "non-cities", of course, being the proverbial New England Town(ship)], the fact is that the vast majority of NH's polls have closed by 7 PM Eastern Time and the networks have no problem considering this hour as the earliest hour of potential projection. Expect a long count for New Hampshire. The 7 p.m. crowd includes Georgia, but expect the counting for that one to stretch on a while. Polls in Virginia close at this hour, and Mark Warner will be expecting a quick call. At 7:30, polls in North Carolina close. This one might be the most key one of the night; if Kay Hagan loses, Democrats almost certainly lose the Senate. A point about the “if we won X, we’re definitely winning Y!” thinking: Was 2010 a wave election? With Republicans gaining 6 additional Senate seats, 63 U.S. House seats, and 8 additional governor’s mansions, and adding more than 660 state legislative seats across the country, most observers would say yes. It was enough of a “wave” or pro-GOP year for Republicans to win Senate races in traditionally “blue” or purple states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but . . . Republicans also lost Senate races in Nevada and Colorado. In California, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman didn’t perform much better than past losing GOP statewide efforts. Republicans picked up some U.S. House seats in New York, but their statewide candidates for governor and both Senate races lost handily. Democratic incumbents like Ron Wyden in Oregon, Patrick Leahy in Vermont, and Patty Murray in Washington won reelection without breaking a sweat.
At 8 p.m., the great bulk of states on the East Coast close their polls. For Senate watchers, the biggest deals are Kansas and the accumulating returns in Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina at that hour. In fact, once we know the winner in those four, we’ll know pretty well how the night went for Republicans. Keep in mind I picked the Democrat to win New Hampshire and North Carolina, the “independent” to win Kansas, and Georgia to go to a runoff . . . and the GOP still controlled the Senate.
At 8 p.m., how many milliseconds will it take the networks to call the Texas governor’s race? 8:30 p.m.: Arkansas, which has completely dropped off most people’s lists of competitive or exciting Senate races. At 9 p.m.: Colorado. Vote-counting may go quicker than you think because of the enormous early vote. On paper, Louisiana should be dramatic, but we’ll know it’s going to a runoff early. At 9 p.m., polls in Wisconsin close. Say it with me: “Critical Waukesha County.” Expect the counting in this one to go on for a long while, too. At 10 p.m., polls close in Iowa. Expect the counting for this one to go on well past bedtime. Most concur with Harry Reid’s assessment that the party that wins this Senate seat will win control of the Senate. Alaska doesn’t close its polls until midnight Eastern time. So this, too, will leave the question of which party controls the Senate up in the air until the early morning hours of Wednesday. Resolved: Let’s Have No Ads with Candidates’ Families in 2016 Our Eliana Johnson passes along a key observation from Frank Luntz: For future candidates, Luntz offers a general rule of thumb: Don’t put your family in your ads. “I’m sick and tired of candidates running ads of their spouse telling people how good they are,” he says. “If you use your spouse it means everybody else hates you. If you use your children it means your spouse hates you.” ADDENDA: Rich, assessing an off-the-record event with Jeb Bush a few nights ago: “All the signals are that he is preparing to run.” From Our Sponsor:
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