Senate 2012: Full Results

by The Daily Beast

Warren’s a win in Massachusetts, Akin is legitimately out in Missouri, and Wisconsin has sent the first openly gay senator to the Capitol. See those and more results from this year’s Senate contests.

Michael Dwyer / AP

See full results from this year’s Senate contests.

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Those Neocon Blues

by Eli Lake

Over cocktails and shrimp appetizers, conservative elites get philosophical about politics as Romney prospects dim. Eli Lake reports.

Edward Linsmier / Getty Images

Inside the suburban Virginia home of prominent conservatives Danielle Pletka and Stephen Rademaker, men in sports jackets and women in cocktail dresses sip wine and snack on shrimp cocktail. Muted televisions tuned to Fox News broadcast the latest exit polls in the background.

Dick Durbin’s Good Karma

by Lloyd Grove

The veteran Obama mentor says results so far put the president about where the campaign expected he would be—and that there’s ‘plenty of room’ for the Democrat to hit and surpass 270 electoral votes.

J. Scott Applewhite

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois was bullish on Barack Obama’s prospects as Election Day drew to a close.“We’ll take that,” he said with a jolly laugh after I read him the preliminary exit-poll results from the battleground states.

Florida County on Edge

by Winston Ross

Hillsborough County goes blue and Romney supporters get glum. Winston Ross on swing state stress.

Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images

TAMPA, Fla.— Next to the giant, plastic American flag on the wall at the Americans for Prosperity’s Hillsborough County headquarters is a calendar, titled “days until lame duck,” starting with the number 1. Fox News is on the projector screen, laptops showing the latest results are on the table, and the chicken wings are getting cold.

Campaigning Is Like Childbirth

by David Freedlander

Mitt’s youngest son, Craig, kicked off the GOP election-night party with a metaphor for the ages. David Freedlander reports.

Timothy A. Clary / Getty Images

Mitt Romney’s election-night party began in earnest tonight when Craig, the candidate’s youngest son, took the stage at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center to welcome the former Massachusetts governor’s most ardent supporters.

Women to Watch

by Abigail Pesta

With a record number of women—184—running for House and Senate seats this year, Capitol Hill got an injection of estrogen. Here's who to keep an eye on. Abigail Pesta reports.

AP Photo (2)

Heading into this week's election, women held a wimpy 16.8 percent of seats in the U.S. Congress—a lower percentage than in the government of Iraq. But estrogen levels on Capitol Hill spiked this year, with a record number of female candidates competing for Congress, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

Black and Back for Barack

by Allison Samuels

Faced with the possibility that Obama might lose, African-Americans show their support where it counts—at the polls. Allison Samuels reports.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

75-year old Yancy Jones wasn’t sure he’d make it out today to vote for the next president of the United States. The Inglewood, Calif., native is still struggling with the aftermath of a severe stroke he suffered in March that’s limited his speech and his ability to stand for long periods of time.

Referendum on Obama’s Race

by Winston Ross

In Tampa, Winston Ross catches up with Chante Jones, a black voter who says an Obama victory will signal that America has become a more tolerant nation. Was 2008 “a fluke,” she wonders, “or a paradigm shift?”

J Pat Carter / AP Photo

TAMPA—Chante Jones is sipping on what is likely to be her first of several margaritas Tuesday night at a restaurant called Lee Roy Selmon’s in this city’s International District, with one eye on the folks she invited to this election-watch party and another, nervously, on the television screen.

Demography is Destiny

by Matthew Zeitlin

The results show the electorate is changing dramatically, and not in the GOP’s favor.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

This is the end of an era, regardless of the results. The 2012 election likely represented the last gasp of an older and whiter coalition that opposed Obama in 2008, voted Democrats out of the House majority in 2008, and aimed to unseat the incumbent president.

The 9 Key House Race Results

by Allison Yarrow

Democrats wanted to claim Michele Bachmann’s seat, while Richard Tisei gave the GOP a ray of hope in Massachusetts. Allison Yarrow runs down nine of the tightest races.

AP Photo (4)

There was little chance that Democrats would seize control of the House this year, but after their brutal losses in the Tea Party takeover just two years ago, there were some congressional races that could grow their ranks. Former Republican presidential candidate and lightening rod Michele Bachmann was at risk in a newly redrawn district, while Democratic firebrand Alan Grayson of Florida was seeking to reclaim a seat.

A Jazzy Tuesday Night

by David Freedlander

With polls showing a Romney deficit, partisans at the election-night party are drinking, chatting, and crossing their fingers. David Freedlander reports from the ballroom.

Mike Segar / Reuters-Landov

Romney Headquarters, Mass.—It is still early here at the Mitt Romney election party at a convention center in downtown Boston, with polls in Massachusetts still open for another hour and the candidate himself just returned from a hastily-scheduled swing through the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Romney: I Only Wrote Victory Speech

Obama says he wrote two.

Justin Sullivan

Impressive display of confidence, or delusional thinking? Mitt Romney told reporters on his campaign plane election night that he’s only written one speech—a victory speech. He says he felt “intellectually” that he’d win the race for a long time, adding that he has few campaign regrets.

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Is NBC’s Democracy Plaza Too Much?

by The Daily Beast

You can’t miss NBC’s election coverage. It’s being broadcast from Democracy Plaza—a massive red-and-blue lightbulb extravaganza in New York’s Rockefeller Center. But in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, should the network have scaled down?

Francine Daveta / NBC via Getty Images

Eight days after Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, some people are still suffering without heat or electricity. So why is NBC using so many lights? Once again on Election Day, NBC has turned 30 Rockefeller Plaza into a red-and-blue bulb extravaganza called Democracy Plaza.

Obama’s Twitter Surge

by Jamie Reno

The president’s last-minute social media push leaves Romney looking like a Luddite. Jamie Reno reports.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

Will a last-minute paid Twitter campaign put President Barack Obama over the top tonight?This morning, the Obama campaign launched a #voteObama Twitter directive aimed at securing last-minute votes and swaying independent voters.

Nine Bogus Campaign Claims

by Abby Haglage, Lizzie Crocker

When you’re vying for the role of president of the United States, skewing the numbers and facts is the name of the game. From Obama’s “apology tour” to Romney’s “tax evasion,” the most bogus claims of the 2012 campaign.

Gregory Bull / AP

1. Romney: “Our Navy is smaller now than it was in 1917.”In one of the more meme-worthy incidents of the campaign, during the third debate Obama rebuked Romney's oft-repeated claim that“our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917.

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U.S. Politics

Stewart: Florida Does It Again!

On 'The Daily Show's first post-election episode, Jon Stewart questioned the Sunshine State's relevance. Sorry, Florida, we elected a president without you.