Updated 9:35AM: Thank you Mike Callaghan.
Update 10:55PM: Sigh. The race is over. [The Post has called it as well.] We gave it a good fight. A big thank you to everyone who contributed, volunteered, sent good thoughts, and otherwise followed this race. Your investment was well-made.
We tied up $2.2M in this district that would have gone to help those other vulnerable Republicans. This district is a better Democratic district than it was 2 years ago. We outperformed early expectations in this race. No doubt you'll see Mike Callaghan running again. Thank you all.
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Old updates and intro bumped to Extended
Update 10:45PM: The numbers are, quite honestly, not looking so good. The Panhandle numbers are significantly above the 2004 Dem showing--we're making great progress in turning this corner of WV Blue. Unfortunately, some other parts of the state haven't come through.
The county to watch is Kanawha--Dems narrowly carried it in 2004. It's the only big county left where we might be able to pick up enough votes to close the gap.
Update 9:40PM:The calls are flying back and forth between campaign offices. Folks are pouring over county-by-county returns. Here in the Panhandle we have people at area courthouses ready to call in precinct data as it is avaialble. Unfortunately, there's not much news yet. The one bit, which is encouraging, is that the early voting results for Berkeley county are running 11% better for Mike than they did for Wells in 2004. We're still in this race.
Update 8:30PM: We had a call from the State Party Chairman Nick Casey. He was quite positive. Even better, right now we're having a great time watching Sen. Byrd give his victory speech.
Update 7:40PM: Mike Callaghan just called in from campaign HQ! The (paraphrased) highlights: "I want to thank you for your work, thank you for making a better America. As you know my opponent spend $2.3million trying to put us down, but we're still in the battle, still in the hunt." He reported that there was good turn-out "down there," a heavy Democratic area of the state.
He wanted to call before the returns started coming in to say "from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I am feel honored and proud" to be with you "changing the direction of the country. We've stood up and done our part to take back America. You have my sincere thanks."
I skipped the long part of him enumerating all the things he thanked us for as well as the multiple interruptions of "We Like Mike" and "We Love Mike" chants!
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The second-hand news today is a talking-head on Fox News said WV-02 is a competitive race: too close to call. Could it be that Republicans are telegraphing poor late race polling?
I'll be providing updates from the Martinsburg field campaign office as the evening continues.
Shelley Moore Capito has run a terrible campaign. She's been caught asleep at the wheel by a surprisingly strong candidate in Mike Callaghan. She deserves to lose.
The local Capito field office went dark mid-afternoon... we hear they all left left town in time to make it to Charleston for their "victory" party. Meanwhile, at the Callaghan office we're doing everything we can to make sure it's an "end-of-campaign" party!
Instead of going dark early, we've been out past dark with sign-waves, canvassing, and continuing our phone banking. Volunteers are continuing to return back to HQ--there's a lot of good energy out there in the field today.
Win or lose, the 50-state strategy is taking fruit here in WV-02. Volunteers report this is the most organized mobilization and the highest volunteer level campaign in this area (even more than the 2004 presidential race!).
I'll continue posting updates as the evening continues.
I'm beat tired after starting with my first sign-wave before 7am this morning. After 4 sign waves and 2 precinct canvass drops, it's a great kind of exhaustion.