E-Day is Here: The Newsletter Special Election Edition

For a better read, view this email in your browser. Nov. 4, 2014 No. 145 By Jonathan V. Last COLD OPEN I'm here a day early because I wanted to give you two quick lists to set the table for tonight's election coverage: What to watch for and what to live for. (Plus, our final over-under number of the cycle.) Here's what you should be watching for tonight: My buddy Jay Cost has an excellent scorecard for tonight, by time of poll closing. At 7:00 pm, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky close. They'll give you a good sense of what the environment really looks like. Watch to see if McConnell over- (or under-) performs; if Ed Gillespie is within single digits of Mark Warner; or if Michelle Nunn is under the 47 percent mark. All of these would be good indicators for Republicans. (The converse, obviously, would also be true.) At 7:30, polls close in West Virginia, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. Watch Hagan's numbers closely to see how she performs in heavily Democratic precincts in order to get a sense of whether or not Democratic voters are turning out. And watch New Hampshire all night long, as it's likely to be close. Again, if you see the numbers looking good for Republicans in North Carolina and New Hampshire, it's probably a sign that things are going to break well for them across the country. Polls close at 8:30 in Arkansas and 9:00 in Louisiana (which will likely go to a runoff in December), South Dakota, Montana, and Kansas. None of these are especially interesting, because I assume a high likelihood that whoever wins Kansas will caucus with Republicans. And finally there's Colorado, also closing at 9:00. What's of interest here is whether or not the new voting procedures produce a tidal wave of fraud, the way many readers seem to fear they will. Gardner is comfortably ahead. If the result differs markedly from all polling, it could be a sign that Republican fears were well-founded. Don't even bother waiting up for Alaska. That race could take 48 hours (or more!) to suss out. So what will the overall number shake out to be? We're likely to not know, for sure, by the end of the night. Alaska will be hanging out there. Georgia and Louisiana may go to runoffs. But when all is said and done, I suspect Republicans are going to have a very, very good night. Caveats: Anything is possible. If I had to rank outcomes by probability, from most probable to least, it would go like this: 1) 54 (R), 46 (D) 2) 53 (R), 47 (D) 3) 55 (R), 45 (D) 4) 52 (R), 48 (D) 5) 56 (R), 44 (D) 6) 50 (R), 50 (D) This seems to be, more or less, where Real Clear Politics' Sean Trende is. And the upshot here is that I'd put our final over-under number at 53.5 seats for the GOP. And I'll take the over. More down below. LOOKING BACK "Perhaps you're having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP's crowning glory_an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O'Donnell announcing that she's not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?) Fret not over Republican peccadilloes such as the Tea Party finding the single, solitary person in Nevada who couldn't poll ten to one against Harry Reid. Better to have a few cockeyed mutts running the dog pound than Michael Vick." _P.J. O'Rourke, "They Hate Our Guts" from our November 1, 2010, issue. Remember you get full access to THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive when you subscribe.   Not Obamacare! The NY Times on 2014.   Ditching Israel Embracing Iran.     THE READING LIST The definitive Glenn Beck profile. * * * The world's greatest counterfeiter. * * * The man who stole his wife's art. INSTANT CLASSIC "TIGHAR's contention is that Earhart and Noonan indeed got off course, radioed their low-fuel plight, and landed on the atoll's coral reef. They were able to continue radio transmissions from the downed aircraft for several days until tides and high surf soon washed the aircraft offshore, where it broke into pieces and sunk, leaving the two as castaways. "Gillespie's research leads him to believe that Earhart and Noonan lived for a time on the waterless atoll, relying on rain squalls for drinking water, and catching and cooking small fish, seabirds, turtles, and clams before perishing." _The Christian Science Monitor on new evidence on Amelia Earhart's disappearance, October 29, 2014 THE LAST WORD Most of the attention tonight is going to be on the Senate, but there are a handful of outcomes you ought to be watching for, because they will warm the cockles of your heart. * Sean Eldridge is going to lose his bid to buy the N.Y.-19 seat, and it is going to be awesome. Eldridge is a 28-year-old multimillionaire philosophy major from Brown who made his money the old-fashioned way: He married Facebook millionaire Chris Hughes. Hughes, in turn, made his money the old-fashioned way: He got rich by being randomly assigned as one of Mark Zuckerberg's roommates at Harvard. Eldridge has self-financed his campaign_which is already his second attempt to carpetbag a seat. And if there's any justice in this world, he's going to pull 35 percent of the vote tonight and lose by 30 points. Which will make it triply awesome when he makes his next run in 2016. In some other district. * Wendy Davis is going to lose, too. Remember Wendy Davis, who was going to turn Texas purple by riding a tide of popular support for abortion on-demand? The Wendy Davis whose entire biography turned out to be a spectacularly unattractive lie? She's going to lose, too. Just because her loss is a foregone conclusion, don't miss out on savoring it. She's probably already got her eye on Ronan Farrow's MSNBC time slot. * And if Mary Burke loses too_which is not a foregone conclusion_it will set up the most delicious schadenfreude of the night. Like Davis, Burke's biography has turned out to be not really as-advertised. And if Scott Walker guts out a win against her, here's Allahpundit on the lagniappe: If Mary Burke ends up losing narrowly to Scott Walker in Wisconsin because moron liberals outside Texas were too busy showering cash on Wendy's lost cause _ $30 million and counting! _ it'll be one of the great own-goals in modern political history. They could have gone all-in to take out Walker and eliminated a potential threat to Hillary in 2016 before the primary campaign even started. So get out the popcorn and hunker down. It's going to be a bumpy night. Best, JVL P.S. To unsubscribe, click here. I won't take it personally. MORE FROM THE WEEKLY STANDARD Mark Udall Aide Praises Cory Gardner "Best Senate candidate in the country." Read more...   Comstock Leans In Meet the Virginia Republican House candidate. Read more...   Whatever You Say What is slang, and where does it come from? Read more...     Online Store Squeeze the head to the left to relieve stress. Yes you can! Only at our store.     Subscribe Today Get the magazine that The Economist has called "a wry observer of the American scene."   Read probing editorials and unconventional analysis from political writers with a dose of political humor at weeklystandard.com. To unsubscribe, click here.