from ZeroHedge:

Update 20:45 EST: Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly has lost to Republican challenger Mike Braun in Indiana, a major blow to Dems that means Republicans will likely expand their majority in the Senate. And as Lexington Kentucky’s Andy Barr has won re-election, dealing a major blow to Democrats’ ambitions for winning a solid majority in the House. Because of this, real-time projections that Democrats will retake the House have fallen to 50%.

For those keeping score at home, the GOP has retained two competitive seats (VA5 and KY6), while Dems have swung two (VA10, FL27)

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Democrats have dodged what would have been a major blow to their Congressional ambitions now that New Jersey’s Senate Race has been called for Bob Menendez. Menendez has managed to win a third term, averting what would have been the first Republican senatorial victory in New Jersey since 1972, despite being admonished by the Senate in April for accepting unreported gifts and travel from a friendly Florida doctor who is now imprisoned on insurance fraud charges. That admonition came after Menendez survived a trial, and then was acquitted during a retrial, on corruption charges of his own. The Feds dropped their case against Menendez afterwards, but doubts about Menendez’s ethical bearings helped make the race somewhat competitive.

Menendez defeated Republican Bob Hugin, a former chairman of Celgene Corp., a millionaire who self-funded his campaign.

Despite, this Bloomberg pointed out that hopes for a “blue wave” type victory have continued to fizzle, as Republicans are still easily winning seats that would have been competitive if Democrats had a real shot at a sweeping victory. Case in point: CBS News has declared the open seat in Florida’s 15th congressional district will likely go to Republican Ross Spano, meaning that Dems have missed another important opportunity to flip a seat.

As the odds that Democrats will win a large majority in the House sink, pollster Nate Silver revealed that he’s switching his forecasting models to a more conservative setting.

Well, I’m trying to do 6 things at once — we think our live election day forecast is definitely being too aggressive and are going to put it on a more conservative setting where it waits more for projections/calls instead of making inferences from partial vote counts.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) 7 November 2018

Update 20:26 EST: Not so fast on the blue wave: moments ago, online forecasting site FiveThirtyEight lowered its odds for Democrats to take a majority in the House to just 54.5% chance; down from 90% in its first forecast.

Update 20:20 EST: And now some good news for Republicans, who managed to hold Florida’s 25th district, where Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is projected to win re-election, according to AP. That was another seat where if we were seeing a “Blue tsunami”, the Republican could have been in trouble.

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