Tonight we're liveblogging primary results in four states: Michigan (polls close at 8pm ET), Missouri (8pm), Kansas (9pm), and Washington (11pm). Our writeup of all the key federal and statewide races can be found
here. For an excellent, comprehensive summary of the key state Senate races in Kansas, check out
ptgkc's post.
Results: Kansas | Michigan | Missouri | Washington
8:07 PM PT: No call yet in MI-03 (D) but...
Democratic U.S. House candidate Steve Pestka claims victory over Trevor Thomas.
— @WOODTV via GroupTweet
8:10 PM PT: The AP is apparently calling MO-Sen (R) for Todd Akin.
8:17 PM PT: This alone is a good enough reason to pull hard for Claire McCaskill:
If elected, Mr. Akin would be the new "Mr. Akaka" during the endless #Senate quorum calls. Name comes before "Alexander."
— @nielslesniewski via TweetDeck
8:18 PM PT (David Jarman): We're getting our first glimpse of the early votes in Washington, if you go to the SoS site (nothing from the AP yet). There's a lot, over 100,000 of them. Initially, Rob McKenna leads Jay Inslee in the gubernatorial race (remember, Washington uses a Top 2 primary), 46-44.
8:20 PM PT (David Jarman): We also have 12,000 votes in WA-01. John Koster's far in the lead (by virtue of being the only Republican), at 55. In the race for 2nd place, and thus the Democratic nod, it's Suzan DelBene at 22, Darcy Burner at 13, Laura Ruderman at 4, and Steve Hobbs at 3.
8:21 PM PT (David Jarman): Back in Michigan, the AP has called the Republican nomination in MI-11 for Kerry Bentivolio, Paulist reindeer farmer. No call yet for Syed Taj on the Dem side, but he's still in the lead. Everything's coming up Milhouse for the Dems in this race all of a sudden.
8:24 PM PT (David Jarman): No sooner than I spoke than they called MI-11's Dem side too, for Syed Taj, who wins 61-39 over LaRouchie William Roberts. It was 65-35 for Bentivolio on the GOP side.
8:26 PM PT (David Jarman): One other interesting House result in Washington, in new WA-10. As expected Dem Denny Heck and GOPer Dick Muri are poised to advance, but they're only at 33 and 30. Fellow Republican Stan Flemming is at 17, and previously unheralded Dem Jennifer Ferguson is at 14.
8:29 PM PT (David Jarman): One more check mark to report in Michigan: Gary Peters gets the AP call in MI-14, beating fellow Rep. Hansen Clarke, 47-35. The only major uncalled race in Michigan, is MI-03, but Steve Pestka has already declared victory there. (In case you were wondering at MI-07's Dem primary, Kurt Haskell beat Ruben Marquez -- who seemed like the preferred Dem here, but never put much effort into the race -- 62-38.)
8:35 PM PT (David Jarman): Well, the AP has already called WA-Sen for Maria Cantwell, not that there was much doubt there. She's at 50%, with Republican Michael Baumgartner at 34% and a whole lot of no-names (including Mike the Mover) eating up the balance.
8:37 PM PT (David Jarman): In WA-06, lone Dem Derek Kilmer is at 55, certainly a good sign for November. Looks like his GOP opponent will be Bill Driscoll, though he's at only 18%.
8:45 PM PT (David Jarman): Still trying to get a handle on WA-01... the SoS site has a pretty solid performance for John Koster, who's at 53, followed by Suzan DelBene at 23, Darcy Burner at 14, Laura Ruderman at 4, and Steve Hobbs at 3. That seems to be early votes from around the district. On the other hand, we've got a ton of King County votes on their website, with Koster at 39, DelBene at 23, Burner at 17, Ruderman at 11, and Hobbs at 5. Not sure if these numbers have been intermingled at all, but they definitely present different pictures of Dems' strength for November (if you add up all Ds vs. Koster, the only R).
8:48 PM PT (David Jarman): Back to Washington's gubernatorial race, which is of no interest other than the predictive value of all Dems vs. all GOPers. Dems total up to about 47, and Republicans total up to about 50. Alone, it's McKenna 46, Inslee 43.
8:48 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Downballot in Michigan, a potentially super-awesome story is pending. You might recall that in the Spring, Democratic Rep. Roy Schmidt defected to the GOP at the 11th hour, denying Democrats the right to field a candidate. Later, it was discovered that Schmidt orchestrated his party switch with GOP state house Speaker Jase Bolger, and even had attempted to orchestrate a fake Dem opponent for the Fall.
Well, karma may well be a bitch for Schmidt. Not only did the Democrats successfully qualify Democrat Winnie Brinks for the November ballot (via a successful write-in effort), but Schmidt is himself losing his GOP primary to a write-in opponent (Bing Goei) who has been in the race three weeks.
8:49 PM PT (David Jarman): Briefly switching back to Missouri, it looks like we've closed the books there too, with an AP call in MO-01. Lacy Clay defeats fellow member Russ Carnahan, 62-35, with 90% reporting.
8:55 PM PT (David Jarman): Our Jed Lewison has been manning the calculator behind-the-scenes, and pulling together data from all of the county websites, we've arrived at the following percentages in WA-01 (which don't match either the AP or SoS, but should be most accurate): Koster 44, Del Bene 23, Burner 15, Ruderman 7, Hobbs 7, Rauniyar 2, Ishmael 2. That's a cumulative total of 54 for all Dems, so if that carries over into November, we're sitting in a good position.
8:59 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Meanwhile, in Kansas, the ballot is littered with moderate Republicans who will be former state Senators after this term. The roll call of already confirmed or likely primary losers include: Tim Owens (SD-08), Bob Marshall (SD-13), Roger Reitz (SD-22), Pete Brungardt (SD-24), Ruth Teichman (SD-33), and Stephen Morris (SD-39)
It may well also include, before the night is through, Jean Schodorf (SD-25) and Dick Kelsey (SD-26). Plus, one incumbent is guaranteed to lose in SD-15, where it was incumbent-on-incumbent tonight. So, when all is said and done, we could see nine incumbent state Senators fall to defeat.
9:00 PM PT (David Jarman): Looking at some of the downballot statewide Washington races, the AP has already called the AG race for Dem Bob Ferguson at 49 and GOPer Reagan Dunn at 40, with fundamentalist Stephen Pigeon pulling 11 from Dunn's right. In the SoS race, as expected, lone GOPer Kim Wyman looks to advance at 43, but the Dem slot is up for grabs. Kathleen Drew is tops with 19, followed by ex-Seattle mayor Greg Nickels at 14 and turncoat-ish state Sen. Jim Kastama at 13.
9:03 PM PT (David Jarman): Wow... this seems hasty, but apparently she can do the math. Multiple sources have Darcy Burner conceding the WA-01 race to Suzan DelBene. Guess we won't be waiting until Friday after all.
9:09 PM PT (David Jarman): All right, that's more like it. Looks like a bunch of King County votes showed up to the SoS site finally, and now Jay Inslee's running ahead of Rob McKenna in the gubernatorial race, 47-43. One other statewide race to keep an eye on is Auditor: lone Republican James Watkins is poised to advance at 46, but it's a close race for the Dem slot, with state Rep. Troy Kelley (a moderate) at 24, state Sen. Craig Pridemore (liberal) at 20, and state Rep. Mark Miloscia (pro-labor but socially conservative) at 9.
9:14 PM PT (David Jarman): The other House race in Washington we were prepared to watch tonight has certainly turned into a nothingburger; WA-07 has already been called for Jim McDermott, who gets 69%. Upstart Dem Andrew Hughes is currently getting all of 6%, and looks to finish 3rd, behind Republican Ron Bemis.
9:16 PM PT (David Jarman): If you're concerned about how Washington's perennial favorites are doing, well, they're running in different races, so it's apples and oranges. But Mike the Mover is pulling in 2% in the Senate race, while Goodspaceguy is getting 1% in WA-07.
9:25 PM PT (David Jarman): The AP is starting to break out the check marks, and they show up in the race that I thought would be lingering with us for days. They've called WA-01 for John Koster (R), at 44, and Suzan DelBene (D), at 23. (That's with Darcy Burner at 15, and Laura Ruderman and Steve Hobbs at 7.) Despite the slightly different district lines, Koster and DelBene also advance out of the primary for the short-term special election (with Koster at 35 and DelBene at 25), which should minimize everybody's confusion.
9:27 PM PT: The liveblog continues here.