Polls are closed in South Carolina, where voters in the state's 1st Congressional District are choosing a replacement for Tim Scott, who was appointed to fill former Sen. Jim DeMint's seat earlier this year. Though SC-01 is a dark red seat, Republican Mark Sanford's personal foibles have combined with Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch's family connections (she's the sister of Stephen Colbert) to make this a competitive race. You can check out our helpful county-level benchmarks
here, and we'll be liveblogging the results below.
Results: AP (summary) | AP (by county) | SoS (summary) | SoS (by county) | HuffPo
5:05 PM PT: A ton of precincts just came in, mostly from Beaufort County. With 28% reporting, Sanford is up just 50-49.
5:08 PM PT: Sanford's edge in Beaufort is 53-47. According to our county benchmarks, for ECB to have a shot, she'd need to lose here by only around 50-49—unless, of course, she outperforms elsewhere.
5:10 PM PT: A tough batch in Charleston makes it 51-48 Sanford.
5:14 PM PT: And another rough batch from Berkeley. With 42% reporting, it's 54-46 Sanford. ECB needed to lose Berkeley by about 4 points. There are still precincts outstanding, but right now she trails by 21 in the county.
5:21 PM PT: 54-45 Sanford with 52% reporting. Not seeing how ECB pulls this one out.
5:26 PM PT: The AP hasn't called it yet, but it's still 54-45 Sanford with with 59% reporting.
5:30 PM PT: Well, I do like this idea:
Operative pal sends DM praying - not for the first time! - for a Sanford-Sanford (Mark v. Jenny) 2014 primary.
— @kkondik via web
5:32 PM PT: Still no AP checkmark, but:
5:33 PM PT: Well, here it is:
.@AP has called the special House race in South Carolina for former SC Gov. Mark Sanford
— @joshledermanAP via TweetDeck
5:41 PM PT: One more open thread, for post-mortem chatter.