GOTV

Well, that's it. The polls open in just a few hours, so the campaign's as good as over. Thank God we won't be subjected to all these political ads any longer.

Late polls seem to be good for the Democrats, and the Pew poll I referred to last night seems to be an outlier. The professional prognosticators Larry Sabato fires up his crystal ball and projects Democrats winning 6 seats in the Senate (just enough to take control) and 29 in the House (14 more than needed for control). No mealy-mouthing here, he projects a winner for every Senate and House seat in play (as well as for each of the governor races). The Cook Political Report is not quite as precise but is projecting a 4-6 seat gain for Dems in the Senate and a 20-35 seat gain in the House. Whatever movement Cook was showing in the last days has gone toward Democrats. You can also see PDFs of the specific Cook ratings for the Senate and House. Rothenberg is a bit more optimistic, calling for Senate gains of 4-7 seats and House gains of 30-36 seats.

At this point, though, it all comes down to turnout. Off-year elections are always lighter than presidential years, so expectations must be low to begin with. The Repubs have shown themselves to be much better at motivating their base to come out to vote, and although anecdotal evidence is that they're more demoralized and disillusioned with what they've been getting lately (God knows I'd be demoralized if I were in their shoes), the Repub powers that be have been working hard at suppress the Democratic vote, and we won't know how successful or unsuccessful they are until tomorrow night.

It's time to go into wait-and-see mode (actually, it's time for bed).