Kirk Wins Obama's Old Seat

UPDATED: Mark Kirk has taken Barack Obama's old Senate seat, pulling ahead of Democratic rival Alexi Giannoulias.

Mark Kirk's lead is growing.  After Cook County came in early, Giannoulias' lead has done nothing but shrink.  Cook is now 89% in and Kirk's lead is growing.  He is now up 48%-46.5% with 86% reporting.  Unless something dramatically shifts, Kirk should stay ahead.  Barack Obama's Senate seat.....two years later?  That would be big.

Posted at 11:00pm

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BOOM!  Kirk just moved ahead.  With 78 % accounted for, Kirk now leads 47.4-47.1.  84% of votes are counted in Cook.  The question then becomes whether Kirk can win enough votes to stave off the 16% of Cook that will tilt towards Alexi.  I suspect that the answer to this is yes.

Posted at 10:48pm

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Mark Kirk is slowly whittling away at Alexi Giannoulias' lead.  About an hour ago, it was 20 points.  Now, with 53% of the vote counted, Giannoulias leads Kirk 49.7-45.1.  One thing does  bode well for Kirk: He is performing well in the suburbs.  Kirk is dominating both Lake and Dupage Counties.  In 2008, Barack Obama won Lake County 56-43 over John McCain.  Two years later, with 84% of the county's votes calculated, Kirk leads Giannoulias 56.4%-38.8%.  Along the same lines, in '08 Barack Obama won suburban Dupage County 55-44.  With 33% of Dupage's votes in, Kirk is out to an early 59-36 lead.  If you had told either side that Kirk would do this well in those counties, neither would tell you that Giannoulias would still win.  But we shall see...

Posted at 10:28pm

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For anyone watching the early Illinois results, with 17% of precincts reporting, Alexi Giannoulias is "blowing out" Mark Kirk 60-35 with the independent Jones stealing 3%.  Of course what that number doesn't tell you is that 45% of Chicago votes are in and Chicago is dark blue.  Only a very small percentage of non-Cook County votes are in.  The numbers should level out once Chicago gets done and downstate votes start getting counted.  Until then, these numbers won't tell us much.

Posted at 9:11pm

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Earlier today, Dan White, Illinois' top election official, predicted a voter turnout of around 50 percent. He told reporters that “We’re expecting average turnout.  It’s good.  It will be a little above 50%.”  Chicago and Cook County were projecting about 53% turnout today.  Giannoulias needs to score big in those locales in order to have a shot.  Voting on the south side of Chicago is reportedly down.  Also, White predicted that downstate turnout should be higher than the Chicagoland area, which bodes very well for Mark Kirk’s chances.

Posted at 7:25pm