We’re signing off now. You can follow the results through the rest of the morning at the Times’s election result page. Looks like Senator Ted Stevens has an early lead over his Democratic challenger, Mark Begich, in Alaska; with 37 percent of the precincts reporting, Stevens was up 49 percent to 45. Minnesota and Oregon were neck and neck.

With more than three-fourths of the precincts reporting in Minnesota, the two major-party candidates remained neck and neck. Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate, was drawing away nearly 16 percent — possibly hurting Al Franken, the Democratic challenger, more than the incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman.

Oregon remains too close to call. Georgia, on the other hand, may — just may — be averting a runoff; it appears as if Saxby Chambliss will capture more than 50 percent. The results of the Alaska race involving Ted Stevens, convicted last month on seven felony counts, will be known much later.

So if the Democrats take Oregon, that will give them six formerly Republican seats, still shy of the 60 votes.

Senator Mary Landrieu pulled off a win tonight, after several months of combating a fairly strong challenge from Mr. Kennedy, the Republican.

In other Senate races, Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss appeared to have fended off what had seemed a growing threat in recent weeks from Jim Martin, the Democrat. The returns were still coming in, and remember this state requires a win by majority vote, meaning there could still be a runoff.

What’s happening in Minnesota???? It’s still too close to call, as is Oregon, although it had appeared earlier that Senator Gordon Smith was extremely close to losing his seat.



The Republican leadership in the House seems to be crumbling a bit tonight. Roll Call reports that Representative Adam Putnam of Florida fired off a letter tonight, resigning from his post as head of the Republican Leadership Conference.

While we’re pacing and watching for solid results in a few critical races, we thought we’d return to a question that certainly will rumble through the Senate after the McCain-Palin loss tonight. What happens to Mr. McCain’s sidekick, Senator Joseph Lieberman, former Democrat-turned-independent turned, um, huge backer and campaigner on the Republican trail?

If the Democrats don’t need Mr. Lieberman because they can’t get to 60 votes anyway, will Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid take action against him? Lieberman, the Connecticut senator who was the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2000, remains chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and some of his critics have demanded that Mr. Reid strip him of the top committee post. Mr. Lieberman had already stopped attending Democratic caucus meetings on his own. We’ll have to see. Perhaps Mr. Lieberman’s votes — he often sides with Democrats on issues other than the Iraq war — will still be needed.

Our Los Angeles bureau chief, Jennifer Steinhauer, sends this along from Las Vegas:

While Nevada was just called for Senator Obama — a remarkable event for this usually reliable red state — voters here are waiting for the outcome of the state’s three Congressional races, where one Democratic incumbent is safe and two Republican incumbents are in tough battles to hold their seats, with a minority of precincts reporting. In the north, incumbent Republican Dean Heller is holding his own against Jill Derby, the underdog in a historically Republican stronghold in the second congressional district. In the south, in the suburbs of Las Vegas, Republican Jon Porter remained locked in a dead heat with Dina Titus in the third CD. In the small first congressional district, which encompasses the city of Las Vegas, incumbent Democrat Shelley Berkley is expected to win re-election by a wide margin.

The polls have closed in Oregon, and we’re still waiting to see the outcome of the contest between Republican Senator Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley, the first Democratic speaker of the Oregon House. Mr. Smith is seeking his third term, but the tide of Obama support in the state may have flooded down the ballot.

So where do we stand? So far, it appears that the Democrats have picked up five Senate seats — New Hampshire, North Carolina, New Mexico (Pete Domenici’s seat — he departed after six terms), Virginia and Colorado.

Still, other Senate seats seem securely in Republican hands. The duel to retain the Republican reign following Trent Lott’s decision to retire in Mississippi seems to be favoring Roger Wicker, a former congressman, over former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, the Democrat. Mr. Wicker was appointed at the end of 2007, when Mr. Lott stepped down. The state’s other senator, Thad Cochran, was re-elected handily.

So, at this point, even without knowing the outcome of the Minnesota race, or that of Georgia, the Democrats’ chances of getting to a 60-vote majority seem a little implausible.

Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is in a fairly close race with John Kennedy, a former Democrat-turned-Republican. Earlier this year, Republicans considered Senator Landrieu to be among the most vulnerable of Democratic incumbents, in part because Mr. Kennedy was well known in the state. But she battled back with a barrage of ads. Still in flux was the influence on the race, as the Times-Picayune reported a while ago, of the returns from Orleans Parish, which were rich with Landrieu supporters.

Still out, as well, with too few precincts reporting, is the Minnesota race between Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. Alaska won’t be known for a long while, either; polls close at midnight Eastern time.

Safe Race Seats: While we wait on some of the closer Senate and House races that haven’t been called, there are few updates along the way. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, handily won re-election.

Projections indicate that Mark Udall, the Democrat running against Bob Schaffer for Colorado’s open Senate seat, will assume the seat being vacated by Republican Wayne Allard. Republicans had tried to paint Mr. Udall as a Boulder liberal, but Mr. Schaffer seemed to lose more ground in the late summer.

After spending some time tooling around parts of the state last week, we were told by many people in Virginia that the presidential race would be close, maybe 4 to 5 points apart. And with so many new voters on the rolls, it seemed that some of the House races might draw closer, too. According to The Associated Press, Virgil H. Goode retained his Republican seat after a fierce battle with his Democratic opponent, Tom Perriello, who was fueled by funds from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But it was tight. We’re still waiting to see how another Republican, Thelma Drake, will do, in Virginia’s 2nd CD.

One of the most endangered Democrats, Carol Shea Porter, who was among those Granite State surprise winners two years ago, appears to be hanging on tonight in a rematch against Republican Jeb Bradley. Our colleague Carl Hulse reminds us that this bodes well for the Democrats, who are holding their House seats, while the Republicans may be losing some of theirs. If Chris Shays of Connecticut loses, which is possible, that would leave New England without a single House Republican.

CNN is projecting that Tom Udall, the Democrat, is the winner in New Mexico over Republican Steve Pearce. Added to Warner, Hagan and Shaheen, that makes four Democratic pickups. Mr. Udall’s cousin, Mark Udall, has his own race in Colorado, which still hasn’t been called. The Udalls have a rich history in the West. Their fathers — Tom’s (Stuart) and Mark’s (Morris) — were legendary.

CNN projects that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who battled mightily against his challenger, Bruce Lunsford, a businessman, will survive and be re-elected. Mr. McConnell poured extra money into his campaign in recent weeks and stumped throughout the state, even as he was hammered for his leadership on the economic bailout. But imagine being the minority leader with an even smaller minority.

Some may consider the turnover from red to blue in North Carolina’s Senate race a harbinger for the top of the ballot. The state’s early voters showed a higher percentage of African-Americans than their overall portion of the electorate, and they tend to vote Democratic.

But Senator Dole, who once made a bid for her party’s presidential nomination, seemed at times early on to have taken her re-election for granted. She wasn’t campaigning that hard or investing that much time on the stump earlier this year, at a time when the Obama campaign moved in with its sophisticated registration drive and ground game. In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began giving Ms. Hagan an enormous lift with a series of campaign ads. Some of them were quite artful, questioning Mrs. Dole’s real residence, or, as in this one depicting two men rocking on a porch asking whether she shouldn’t be the senator from China as all the jobs went overseas.

Some projections are showing that longtime Representative Tom Feeney, a Republican, may be losing to his Democratic challenger, Suzanne Kosmas in Florida. She racked up early leads as the returns were coming for the 24th CD that covers Titusville and New Smyrna Beach. She is a former state legislator whose used the airwaves in a well-financed campaign to hammer away at Mr. Feeney, the veteran lawmaker. Mr. Feeney was among those lawmakers who went on a golfing spree with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced (and now imprisoned) lobbyist. The Florida congressman’s trip was to Scotland.

Remember Larry Craig of the “wide stance” at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last year? Mr. Craig’s seat was always considered a safely Republican one, and it appears more than likely that Lt. Gov. Jim Risch will inherit the solidly red slot.

The Times calls the North Carolina Senate race for Kay Hagan.

Our colleague Sarah Wheaton caught up with Dalton Hatfield (remember him?), who became the darling of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s run for president when he sold his bike to contribute to her campaign. With a day off from his sixth-grade classes in McAndrews, Ky., Dalton has been working for Bruce Lunsford, a Democrat, in a competitive race to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. “We’re very confident,” Dalton, now 12, told Sarah.

He said he “was not that excited” after Mrs. Clinton withdrew from the race, but he got involved in the Lunsford campaign after she invited him to join her at a Lunsford rally. Since then, he’s been canvassing and putting up signs.

The Times calls the New Hampshire Senate race for Jeanne Shaheen, adding yet another seat to the Democratic column.

In a closely contested Senate race between two old foes in New Hampshire, NBC is calling a victory for former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen over Senator John E. Sununu, a moderate Republican. And Fox News projects that Kay Hagan will beat Senator Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.

In Maine, Susan Collins won re-election, despite a few moments there earlier this summer when her challenger, Tom Allen, tried to wrest the seat from her. And in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, longtime Republican and stalwart campaign supporter of Senator John McCain, won re-election.

The McConnell race: Even though Kentucky went red for Senator John McCain, as expected, in the presidential race, we won’t be calling the Senate race there anytime soon because there are no exit polls, too few precincts are reporting and it was considered a close matchup heading in to today.

In other races in Virginia, (besides the big one for president), there are two other House seats we want to watch: Republican Thelma Drake’s in the 2nd CD and the 11th CD seat being vacated by Representative Tom Davis, a Republican who is retiring.

In a profile by Peter Baker awhile back, Mr. Davis — who was ushered in 14 years ago during the Gingrich era — expressed his dissatisfaction with his party’s label under Mr. Bush. Mr. Baker wrote:

The revolution is over, the thrill is gone and the Republican brand under President Bush has, in Davis’s view, been so tarnished that, as he likes to say, “if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” These will be Davis’s last few weeks in Congress. He decided against re-election, disaffected by the partisanship, by a process he calls broken, by a party he considers hijacked by social conservatives. “We’re just not getting much done,” he said.

No Surprise Here: The Times has just called Virginia’s Senate race for Mark Warner, the former governor. Exchanging one Warner for another, so to speak, although the two hold very different views. Mark Warner had very little competition from former Republican governor Jim Gilmore, who in the early part of the presidential primary season tried to wade through the thick field of G.O.P. contenders but dropped out early.

Great Anticipation | 6:35 p.m. Get ready for a rush of news tonight on the congressional front, which promises cliffhangers in some Senate races, including a possible runoff in the deep South, as well as an anticipated rout of Republicans in formerly G.O.P.-safe districts.

While we don’t want to be predictive, we already know that the tightening of some Senate races – reaching even the longtime Kentucky seat of Minority leader Mitch McConnell — will make for an exciting night. (And by the way, Kentucky’s polls closed at 6 p.m., so we may know more about his contest against Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford sooner rather than later.)

Fanning out across the country, what’s at issue tonight is no less than a broadening of the majority in the Senate for the Democrats, who now hold a narrow 51-49 lead.

That seems certain, given that the Republicans have to defend 23 of the 35 seats up this year in a climate unparalleled in recent memory. President Bush’s unpopularity had been a worry-vane for members of his party facing re-election long before the economic meltdown this fall.

The question tonight is: By how much and by how many seats will the Democratic tide rise? All eyes will be watching to see if the Democrats can reach a 60-seat majority that would be, as our dear mentor and former colleague Adam Clymer would prefer we call it, a “filibuster-resistant majority.” If the Democrats reach 60, they would be better able to thwart Republicans’ efforts to block legislation by filibuster, a tactic they have employed frequently the last two years. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has stopped short of declaring that Democrats will reach the magic number, but some signs point that they’ll come fairly close.

The Republicans, led by Senator John Ensign, the head of the party’s Senate election arm, have been struggling to stave off substantial losses. At one point last summer, Mr. Ensign told a group of us that if they could keep their losses to four seats, that would be a good night. While it’s not clear that their opponents will meet the 60-seat hurdle, it’s fairly apparent that the Republicans will lose more than four. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is keeping score at its own Web site.

In both House and Senate races, in state after state, the foreclosure rates, the financial downturn, the earlier spike in gasoline prices, all turned into a groundswell of unhappiness with anything associated with the Bush administration, including his party’s followers. By contrast, the 2006 mid-term elections felled many Republican incumbents in the House, who were tarnished by the Abramoff lobbying and the page scandals (in seats in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere), while opposition to the war in Iraq helped elect their Democratic opponents. This year, the war subsided over time as an overarching issue, only to be replaced by the economic crisis and the $700 billion bailout.

We’ll be live blogging updates and results in critical Senate races and some of the most competitive House races (all 435 seats are up) throughout the evening, and using Twitter at times to telegraph our thoughts. In addition, we have a series of maps and dashboard graphics where you can watch the returns in real time, and map out your own game plans, depending on who’s winning where as the returns come in.

For the Senate, the Big Board page;

and the Senate map page. For the House of Representatives, the Big Board and the House map page.

For the presidential race, my colleague Katharine Q. Seelye will be live blogging the main event, and you can watch the returns or view what’s going on through the presidential map.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the most competitive Senate seats, or in some instances, simply interesting ones:

Georgia Wow, did this race turn downward for the incumbent Republican, Saxby Chambliss, within the fall season. Buffeted by the ill economic winds, and an extraordinary early voter turnout among African-Americans, Mr. Chambliss has lost what once seemed a sure re-election bid. His opponent, Jim Martin, has made significant gains in recent weeks, and this race is quite possibly going to spill over into runoff territory. Georgia law requires a runoff, which would be held on Dec. 2 if neither candidate gets a majority of more than 50 percent. My colleague Carl Hulse examined the consequences of a runoff, and the forces driving the close contest, just a few days ago.

New Hampshire: Senator John Sununu, a moderate Republican, has been defending one of the hottest seats going this year, in his re-election fight with former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, the Democrat. Two years ago, Democrats captured the House seats here, upending a tradition of Republican congressmen in this wildly independent state. My colleague David Herszenhorn, has been closely following this rematch between two bitter rivals in our “Hot Seat” series. His latest dispatch on Saturday signaled how vulnerable Mr. Sununu may be.

Virginia: What a difference a few years makes. In 2006, the Virginia seat that gave Democrats the razor-line edge in the Senate was the last one decided, remember? The incumbent George Allen, of “macaca-fame” wasn’t down by much and didn’t concede on election night as his challenger, Jim Webb, waited and waited.

Now, with the state’s elder statesman, the longtime veteran John Warner retiring at age 81 after five terms, the open seat has been one Democrat’s for the taking. Former Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) has raced so far ahead of his Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore (another of the state’s governors), from the get-go that you won’t need exit polls or a rising tide of blue votes in the state to call that one. The only question for Mr. Warner will be a win by how much?

North Carolina: Senator Elizabeth Dole, who was elected just six years ago, has faced a surprisingly rough re-election battle with some polls now indicating she may lose. First, Democrats went after her for not spending much time in her home state, with an address at the Watergate. Then in this last week, Mrs. Dole began broadcasting ads titled “Godless” against her opponent, Kay Hagan, stemming from a fund-raiser the Democrat attended that was sponsored by a group of atheists. The Dole ads were roundly criticized, and viewed as a desperate move against her opponent, who also teaches Sunday school.

Minnesota: Few races have been as downright nasty – or as flush with personal attacks — as the contest between incumbent Republican Norman Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. In their final debate on Sunday night, the moderator called it the most negative in Minnesota history. Mr. Franken painted his opponent as allied with Mr. Bush at every turn, while the Republicans repeatedly hammered the Democratic comedian-turned-serious candidate for writings that were considered offensive and his failure to pay several years of taxes. Ad after ad in this race took on the purchase of men’s suits or the derogatory language used by Mr. Franken. Mr. Coleman had been under fire for several years from more liberal constituencies because of his support for the Iraq war. Complicating the results in this contest is the candidacy of Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate, whose popularity in the polls has sometimes reached double-digits.

Alaska: By any stretch of the imagination, this race should’ve been cooked once Senator Ted Stevens, 84, was convicted two weeks ago in a public corruption case. Even before the trial, the longtime senator had been in a close race with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the Democratic challenger. But Mr. Stevens vowed to fight on, calling his trial unjust despite the fact that Minority leader McConnell, Senator John McCain and others called for him to step aside. This week Mr. Stevens put up a two-minute commercial appealing to voters, and still has broad support in his home state after seven terms. But the criminal case — coupled with other sprawling corruption inquiries that have ensnared several Alaska politicians has to be wearying for voters.

Oregon Another Republican incumbent with a rather moderate record, Senator Gordon Smith, also has watched his chances for re-election grow slimmer as his opponent, Jeff Merkley, gained ground. National Democrats targeted this race, another one in which ties to the Bush administration and its policies wafted across the state’s landscape. Mr. Merkley seems sure to benefit from the Obama-wave sweeping the state. This is the only state where Mr. Obama did an advertisement for a Senate candidate this year, one that was unveiled early last week as the state’s vote-by-mail only system reached its peak.

The House Democratic leaders say they expect to pick up somewhere between 20 and 30 seats tonight. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has out-raised and outspent its Republican counterpart in a cycle that has spelled trouble for many G.O.P. incumbents. The DCCC spent $73 million, against the NRCC’s R20 million through last week, according to recent reports.

Some seats we’ll be watching tonight, as outlined by Carl Hulse in a piece about how deeply into red territory the Democrats were going as they smelled blood in state after state.

Among open House seats Democrats say they have a good chance of capturing include those being vacated by Representatives Ralph Regula and Deborah Pryce in Ohio, Jim Ramstad in Minnesota, Jerry Weller in Illinois and Rick Renzi in Arizona. On the list of incumbents Democrats believe they can defeat are Representatives John R. Kuhl Jr. in New York, Joe Knollenberg in Michigan, Tom Feeney and Ric Keller in Florida, Don Young in Alaska, Robin Hayes in North Carolina and Bill Sali in Idaho.

Among other House races we’re watching:

In Pennsylvania, the ever-outspoken Jack Murtha, a Democrat, infuriated many constituents a few weeks ago by calling his region racist.

In Florida, scandal again dogs the 16th Congressional District, where Mark Foley’s page imbroglio in 2006 spelled trouble for several of his G.O.P. colleagues in other parts of the country. This time around, his Democratic successor Tim Mahoney, is involved in his own scandals involving extramarital affair(s), with questions about money that was paid to one of them.

Special thanks for Congressional race coverage goes to Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn.