Matt Weir / The Collegian

There’s no better place to get your election coverage than right here at The Collegian online. Will Republicans take back control of Congress? Will Meg Whitman upset Jerry Brown in the race for governor of California? Will Prop 19 pass? Find out these questions and more tonight. This space will be updated all night, so make sure to check back to see the latest.

Polls close at 8 p.m.

A few predictions for now: Brown handily beats Whitman, Boxer barely beats Fiorina, Prop 19 doesn’t pass, Republicans win 50-plus seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate.

Update:

Four Senate races have been called thus far: Republican Jim Demint in South Carolina, Democrat Patrick Leahy in Vermont, Republican Dan Coats in Indiana and Republican Rand Paul in Kentucky.

It’s looking like the Republican wave is going to be pretty big. Rand Paul’s win in particular is a big indicator””he is one of the rising “Tea Party” stars of the GOP.

Update:

CNN just called the Senate seat in Ohio for Republican Rob Portman.

Big states to watch in the Senate: California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado, Alaska and Nevada.

Update:

Five more Senate seats have been called: Democrat Chris Coons in Delaware, Republican Marco Rubio in Florida, Republican Kelly Ayotte, Republican Richard Shelby in Alabama and Democrat Barbara Mikulski in Maryland.

Significant is the seat in Delaware””Republicans would have probably won had primary voters elected moderate Mike Castle over Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell. Instead, Coons will win big. It will be interesting to see if this hinders Republican attempts to retake the Senate. As it stands now, they will likely fall a few seats short. The House, though, looks to swing back to the GOP.

Update:

Six more Senate seats have been called: Republican Richard Burr in North Carolina, Republican Johnny Isakson in Georgia, Republican Tom Coburn in Oklahoma, Republican John Boozman in Arkansas, Democrat Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut and Democrat Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

The most significant of these were Arkansas and West Virginia. Boozman defeated incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln, a key moderate in Congress, in Arkansas. This was a big repudiation of the health care law. Bigger though for the Democrats’ fortunes is Manchin’s victory in West Virginia. This was a key battleground seat where Manchin trailed in the polls for a good portion of the campaign season, but his late surge in the past week has propelled him to victory. What’s interesting is that he has campaigned as a conservative Democrat, even going directly against certain Obama positions. We’ll see how he votes in the Senate.

Update:

Five more Senate seats have been called: Republican Jerry Moran in Kansas, Republican John Hoeven in North Dakota, Republican John Thune in South Dakota (who ran unopposed) and Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer in New York. No surprises here.

It’s looking increasingly like Republicans will win at least 50 seats in the House, though the Democrats will most likely keep their lead in the Senate.

Update:

Republicans retained their Senate seats in Missouri, Louisiana, Iowa and Arizona””no surprises there.

Two key races to watch: 1) With 79.1 percent of precincts reporting in Pennsylvania, Democrat Joe Sestak leads Republican Pat Toomey 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent. This is a seat many assumed would go Republican. It would be a devastating loss on an otherwise glorious day for Republicans. 2) With 63.2 percent of precincts reporting in Illinois (Barack Obama’s former Senate seat), Democrat Alexi Giannoulias leads Republican Mark Kirk 48.5 percent to 46.1 percent.

Update:

In the Senate, four more races have been called: Utah for Republican Mike Lee, Wisconsin for Republican Ron Johnson, Oregon for Democrat Ron Wyden and Idaho for Republican Mike Crapo.

On the aforementioned races, Toomey has taken the lead over Sestak 51.8 to 48.2 percent with 96.4 percent of precincts reporting and Kirk leads Giannoulias 48.4 to 46.1 percent with 93.1 precincts reporting.

Also, results are coming in for races on the west coast: Harry Reid holds an early lead over Sharon Angle in Nevada, Dino Rossi leads in Washington and Michael Bennett leads in Colorado.

In California, Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina 47 percent to 46 percent for Boxer’s Senate seat, Brown leads Whitman 50 percent to 45 percent, Prop 19 is losing 43 percent to 57 percent and Prop 25 is winning 56 percent to 44 percent.

Update:

Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer have both been called to win in California for governor and senator, respectively. Surprisingly, though not to me, Prop 19 also is losing 56 percent to 44 percent.

If you wanna know why Whitman lost to Brown, this column explains it well.

Update:

Toomey and Kirk have won in Pennsylvania and Illinois, respectively. These are huge wins for the GOP.

Surprisingly, CNN has called Nevada for Harry Reid. This seems a bit early for me, seeing as polls had this race at a near dead heat. I would wait a little longer to call this race. At this point, Reid leads Republican Sharon Angle 50.8 percent to 44.5 percent with 40.6 percent of precincts reporting.

Update:

Prop 19 is projected to not pass. With 20 percent of precincts reporting, 56 percent of Californians voted no, 44 percent yes.

This may surprise many people, but a closer look reveals that this type of result is to be expected. While California is politically a very Democratic state, socially it is not quite as liberal as some think. Prop 8 passing in 2008 is an example of this. It wouldn’t surprise me if the vote on Prop 19 lined up similar to the way Prop 8 did in the state.

Update:

As of 10:05 p.m., four of my five pre-election results are correct. I called Brown over Whitman, Boxer over Fiorina, Prop 19 not to pass, the GOP to win 50-plus in the House (they have won 54 at this point) and eight seats in the Senate. There are two more chances for Republicans to flip seats, and they have to win both of them to win eight seats.

I’m also digging the “John Adams” music on CNN.

Update:

Prop 19 proponent Richard Lee has issued a statement, saying, in part,

“And so, while we didn’t bring in enough votes tonight to pass Prop. 19, we know that we have achieved an enormous moral victory, and that there are millions of people across the country who are prepared to help finish the job they started here today when we come back to the polls stronger than ever in 2012.”

Sounds like marijuana legalization will be at the ballot box again, and soon.

Update:

Apparently Barack Obama called presumptive Speaker of the House John Boehner. It must really be sinking in for the White House. We’ll see how they do without total control of the government.

Update:

So far, Republicans have gained 56 House seats and six Senate seats. Republicans have won 21 governorships to the Democrats eight. It was a pretty big wave that the Republicans caught, but they have to be a tad disappointed with the Senate results.