Bad news from Robert E. Lee's home state: George Allen (R) is leading R-turned-D James Webb, the former Navy secretary, by nine points in what was expected to be a dead heat. Only 10% of the precincts have been counted, but it can't be good to be 27,000 votes behind.

EDIT: now it's just pulled dead even: With 20% counted, The numbers are Webb 49.49%, Allen 49.33%, a difference of less than 1,000 votes out of almost 400,000 counted.

Two other key Virginia races:

VA-2, Democrat challenger Kellam slightly leads Repub incumbent Drake 50.27%-49.63% with only 10% counted, and in VA-10, Repub incumbent Wolf leads Dem Feder 53-45, with 27% counted.

Democrats are desperately hoping to knock off two Kentucky Republican incumbents in the House, and so far, they have reason to be hopeful in one of them: In KY-3, Dem John Yarmuth has a 50.1-48.8% edge with 65.7% of precincts reporting. In KY-4, Dem Ken Lucas is nine points behind Geoff Lucas, but that's only with 2.6% of the precincts.

Burnt Orange Report has the gory details.

$5,000 reward out there, people.

Here's the key number you need to know for following the battle for control of the Senate: 10.

There 33 seats up for grabs. Of the seats not up for grabs, 40 belong to Republicans and 27 belong to Democrats. That stacks the odds quite a bit against the Dems, but polls are showing that Dems are strong in most of the races. So the number to follow is whether the Repubs can win just 10 of the 33 to create a 50-50 split, in which case Vice President Dick Cheney would cast the tiebreaker vote in close Senate votes.

CNN has already called the low-hanging fruit, the obvious races: Lugar (R) will win in Indiana, and Bernie Sanders (independent, but usually votes with the Dems) will win Vermont. So the Republicans have nine to go.

And realistically, there are six more seats that are considered safe for the Repubs, so really, they have only three to go. Fortunately for the Dems, there are eight seats that are considered neck-and-neck: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Arizona, and Montana.

Polls close at 6pm (Central Time) in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia, followed by North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia at 6:30. We'll update you as soon as we get any numbers and can start getting a feel for how the battle for Congress is going, and then we'll post early voting numbers for Texas after polls close here at 7pm. Remember to stay with the Austin Chronicle Election Blog throughout the night as your one-stop shop for election results ranging from the local bonds all the way up to the fight for Washington D.C.

Here's the list of "victory parties" (they always call them that, even when the candidate in question has no chance of winning) that we know of at the moment. We'll update this list as we receive more info. For the most part, we expect Austin candidates will all converge at the celebrations of their respective political party to be with like-minded revelers.

High GOP trickification is afoot in several combative districts nationwide. A sampling of GOP vote suppression and all-around fuckery follows:

In Maryland, homeless people were bussed in from Philadelphia, took a meeting with incumbent Republican governor Bob Ehrlich's wife (!), and then proceeded to pass out campaign literature identifying Ehrlich as a Dem.

In the tight Virginia race between George Allen and Jim Webb, the FBI is looking into claims of phone calls directing voters to make-believe precincts.

There's also reports of Latino voter harassment in Arizona and Colorado.

And if isn't enough, melted-plastic automaton Laura Ingraham is urging her listeners to phone-jam a voter protection hotline. Luckily, her audience doesn't know how to use such complicated technology.

If you see any forms of voter intimidation, or receive any mysterious calls saying your polling place has moved to Baghdad, call the Election Protection Coalition at 866/OUR-VOTE (866/687-8683).

The Texas Longhorns men’s basketball team now has a pair of exhibition victories in the bag, and for the most part, so far so decent. The starting guard combination of freshman D.J. Augustin and sophomore A.J. Abrams seems to contain enough quickness, instinct, and pure ability to man the backcourt with authority. Potential shortfall number one comes in the form of the starting frontcourt combination of sophomore Connor Atchley and freshmen Kevin Durant and Damion James lacking much of a truly physical presence. That’s where 6’10”, 300-plus pound freshman Dexter Pittman is guaranteed to fill in, but all things currently point to coach Rick Barnes needing to do one of his very best jobs of coaching in order to get this youthful team up to par with the expectations being thrust upon them. All too often in their game against Xavier, there were four offensive players standing motionless way too close together along the three-point line. While the intent has been set for this spry team to run like the wind, it’s the Horns half-court offense that will make or break it as it attempts to knock the likes of the now-mighty Texas A&M Aggies down to size.

2K Sports College Hoops Classic: Chicago State vs. St. Bonaventure: Thu., Nov. 9, 5:30pm. UT Vs. Alcorn State: Thu., Nov. 9, 8:30pm. Consolation game: Fri., Nov. 10, 5:30pm. Championship game: Fri., Nov. 10, 7:30pm. Frank Erwin Center, 1701 Red River. For more, see TexasSports.com.

Well, sort of official: Those are the results from 8,000 Austin ISD students as part of the National Student/Parent Mock Election, an exercise to teach civic participation to schoolkids. Man, look at those Libertarian numbers! Glad they'll have something to toast at their party at Legends tonight.

Overall results:
U.S. Senate: Radnofsky (D) 46%, Hutchison (R) 38%, Jameson (L) 16%
U.S. Representative, Dist. 10: McCaul (R) 40%, Ankrum (D) 37%, Badnarik (L) 23%
Governor: Perry (R) 29%, Friedman (I) 25%, Strayhorn (I) 22%, Bell (D) 19%, Werner (L) 5%
Attorney General: van Os (D) 40%, Abbott (R) 31%, Roland (L) 28%
Lieutenant Gov.: Alvarado (D) 53%, Dewhurst (R) 27%, Baker (L) 20%
State Senator, Dist. 14: Watson (D) 56%, Howard (L) 44%