51*

With Claire McCaskill unseating Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri, the battle for control of the Senate is over. Democrats now have 49 seats; soon will have 50, since Jon Tester has a 4% margin over Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana, with about 2/3rds of the precincts having reported.

And seat 51? Ah, Virginia... where Jim Webb is now 12,000 votes up on Sen. George Allen, with just 4 precincts left to report. They're headed to a recount; absentee ballots may also prove important. But margins this large always stand up.

What a great night.... Spent much of it at work; found CNN best for tv, Drudge best for web (why don't media web sites just post raw numbers in key races at the top of the page, instead of repackaging old news?)

Am now relying on CBS.com, they seem to be slightly ahead of everyone else at this point on both vote totals and also predictions, specifically calling McCaskill first. Although ABC.com was first to report that Talent had conceded; CNN.com has a horrible design that buries much of their good stuff, and MSNBC seems to be slower with their awkward graphical interface.

Good morning, Speaker Reid.

*As of 3:22 a.m., 4 precincts remain uncounted in Virginia and are likely to remain so until people wake up Wednesday morning. One is in Fairfax City, one is in Isle of Wright, and two are in Loudon. All are in counties where the reporting precincts went for Webb, who currently leads by 7,380 votes.

*As of 4:00 a.m., Montana is a bit tighter--Tester is up, by about 3,000 votes (out of about 289,000 total votes, so it's stronger than in Virginia actually; but it's been shrinking steadily for the last couple of hours). MSNBC just talked to the local NBC reporter, who essentially said we won't know for sure until around 9 a.m. EST but it's looking like Tester will win (they should just turn the show over to the local guy, he's got the goods everyone's looking for). So then Chris Matthews, in a stunned voice, said well, it looks like the Democrats have their 6, and are going to win the Senate. Setting loose a funny free-for-all with his four panelists. The pundits seem to be going to bed; so am I....