Polls are now closed in Illinois, where voters are casting ballots both in the Republican presidential primary and in downballot races throughout the state. We'll be liveblogging the results as they come in, with a heavy emphasis on the congressional contests.
Results: AP: House | House (by county) | Pres | Pres (by county)
CNN | Google | Politico (House) | Politico (Pres) | County Election Boards (PDF)
8:31 PM PT (Steve Singiser): We open up the 5th thread of the night with non Illinois news, and very good news for the Democrats. Though the AP hasn't called it yet, the Democrats just claimed their second pickup of the night in the Hudson Valley. In AD-103, Didi Barrett has a 51-49 lead over Republican Richard Wager with all precincts in.
8:36 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Meanwhile, in the highest-profile battle of the night in New York (SD-27), Twitter is kicking the AP's booty. AP has just 51 percent of precincts reported, while on Twitter, the latest offering had Republican David Storobin up with all the machine votes counted, but hundreds of paper ballots still to be counted. Democrat Lew Fidler is saying that the paper ballots went 5:1 Democratic. If true, that would likely reverse the current Storobin lead, which is apparently around 120 votes.
8:39 PM PT (Steve Singiser): In the one high-profile Illinois race that remains uncalled, our own JeffMd has dug into the county elections sites for updates, and he says that physician and frequent candidate David Gill has pulled ahead. The lead would be 487 votes, with about 88 percent of precincts reporting. However, Macoupin County has yet to report a single vote, and that might be good territory for his opponent, Matt Goetten. This is tonight's down-to-the-wire horserace, it would seem.
8:42 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Here is the latest on the other race on a razor's edge: the special election in New York's SD-27. With all of the machine vote counted, Republican David Storobin is, indeed, up 120 votes on Democrat Lew Fidler. But there are over 750 valid absentee ballots. Fidler needs 58 percent of those to win. If, as he claimed, they are 5:1 Democratic, he'd be in pretty decent shape. Both sides, for what it is worth, are claiming victory.
8:49 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Well, election junkies, we are down to just two races left undecided. One, the special election in NY SD-27, won't be decided tonight, because it is down to the absentee ballots. Meanwhile, in IL-13 (D), the hangup is ... well ... wide ballots. Macoupin County had an issue with the ballots that were incrementally too wide for the scanners. Thus, they haven't reported yet. The outcome for Democrats Matt Goetten and David Gill hangs in the balance there. Gill looks to have a narrow lead now, but everyone here at SSP/DKE labs best guess is that Macoupin should be Goetten territory. The only question left is: will it be enough to move him back to the front?
8:54 PM PT (jeffmd): Daily Kos Elections' resident Illinoisan here on the IL-13 Dem primary: With 71 precincts outstanding, David Gill leads Matt Goetten by 489 votes. Most of those precincts are in Macoupin County, just north of Madison County and west of Goetten's home county of Greene. (Gill is from Champaign on the other side of the district, where he's been racking up healthy margins.)
What will Macoupin look like? Well, speculating du derriere, I'll go out on a limb and speculate that Macoupin will be about 60% Goetten. Macoupin is fairly similar to Montgomery County to its east, where Goetten also got about 60% of the vote. This should be enough for him to pull out a narrow victory....
9:09 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Apparently, it's gonna be a long time before we get a winner in New York's SD-27. Those 750-ish absentee and provisional ballots will not be counted until a week from today, according to the NYC Board of Elections.
9:13 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Wow. Here is an impressive fail, buried deep in tonight's results: Newt Gingrich is going to run fourth tonight in Illinois. With 99 percent reporting statewide, Gingrich is 12,000 votes behind Ron Paul. Ouch!
9:17 PM PT (Steve Singiser): THIS is why I love the Daily Kos/Daily Kos Elections community. Only truly awesome political junkies would float a trial balloon like talking a pissed off and embittered Donald Manzullo into switching parties and running as a Democrat in the general. Don't even know if it is legally possible, but I just love to see y'all using your noodles out there!
9:20 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Maybe there is something to that previous comment:
9:27 PM PT (jeffmd): Many of you correctly pointed out that IL-13 candidate David Gill is from Bloomington and not Champaign. I stand corrected; feel free to blame the Chicagoan in me, as (said facetiously) it's all "downstate" to me!
Champaign County has reported entirely, boosting Gill's lead to 1,002 votes. Paging Macoupin County....
9:37 PM PT: This ganja break in Macoupin County is epic. Polls closed 4.5 hours ago!
9:40 PM PT (Steve Singiser): For those curious to see how Illinois broke down presidentially vis-a-vis delegates, the rough estimates I am seeing online are that Romney added another 41 delegates to his total, with Santorum locking down 10. Three delegates are too close to call.
9:43 PM PT (jeffmd): It's a choose your own adventure game: how many votes do you think exist in Macoupin County?
Divide 501 by that number and add 0.5. That's the percentage Goetten needs to get in Macoupin County to win.
So, for example, if you think there are 2000 votes in Macoupin, Goetten will need 75.05% of the vote there to win. It's fun! If you think there are 3000 votes in Macoupin, Goetten will need 66.70% of the vote there to win. Isn't algebra fun?
9:46 PM PT (jeffmd): Changing the rules a little bit -- with everything except Macoupin report, the game gets modified slightly. Divide 512.5 by the number of votes in Macoupin and add 0.5.
In my experience, Illinois reports absentees/early votes with its precincts (i.e., there's no early vote dump), so this should be the vast majority of what's out there.
9:47 PM PT: Got room for one last thread?