Some random thoughts on the 2010 elections  —  In my Wednesday Washington Examiner column, which had to be filed before the full returns were available, I tried to set the Republicans' historic gains in the House of Representatives in historic perspective, keeping in mind that the exit polls suggested …

Live Blogging the Election Returns  —  We will be covering tonight's election returns beginning at around 5 p.m. Eastern, an hour before the first polls close in Kentucky and Indiana.  —  You can follow along here and check out our hour-by-hour, district-by-district guide for watching the returns.

Where Do Democrats Go Next?  —  DEMOCRATS can recover from the disappointments of this election and set the stage for success in 2012.  But to do so we must learn from Tuesday's results.  —  Many of our problems were foreseeable.  A public unhappy about the economy will take it out on the party in power …

The Morning Briefing: The Tsunami  —  [UPDATE]: The whole of the Maine legislator has flipped to the GOP.  Several people I have talked to said such a deep and thorough shift to any one party has not happened in one election in the past 100 years.  —  This is an unusual Morning Briefing …

Michele Bachman Humiliates Chris Matthews: How's That Leg Tingle Doing Tonight?  —  Rep. Michele Bachmann went on MSNBC for an interview with Chris Matthews tonight and handled him with dismissive tone the hack deserved.  All he wanted to do was bait her with unprofessional journolisty questions …

Looking Like It Could Be 53  —  As of now the Democrats have 51 Senate seats in the win column.  Alaska seems like a battle between two Republicans, with Lisa Murkowski the apparent winner, though with write-ins there's no telling.  That leaves Washington state and Colorado.

Welcome, Senate Conservatives  —  Remember what the voters back home want—less government and more freedom.  —  Congratulations to all the tea party-backed candidates who overcame a determined, partisan opposition to win their elections.  The next campaign begins today.

Prop. 19 headed to defeat, exit polls show  —  California voters appear to have rejected Prop.  19, an effort to legalize marijuana and allow local governments to tax the sale of the drug.  —  Prop. 19 received national attention, but relatively little money was spent on the campaign.

Rand Paul Wins: What Does It Mean?  —  Tea party Republican candidate Rand Paul has won the Kentucky US Senate race.  Throughout the campaign, Democrat Jack Conway occasionally seemed to come almost within striking distance, but ultimately Conway, the state attorney general …

Take Your Olive Branch and Shove It, Democrats  —  Here's my post-election column.  I'll continue to update the results post here as we wait on key AK, WA, CO, AZ, and Florida returns.  —  The grass-roots conservative midterm message: No surrender, no compromise, no capitulation.  —  Share you thoughts!

Obama must slay the job-killing beast  —  President Obama could have focused on solving the financial crisis.  He did not.  He could have endeavored to conquer the looming threats to our future.  Instead, he added to them.  Now that voters have rejected his first two years in office …

Write-in vote lead has Murkowski smiling  —  ELECTION COULD MAKE HISTORY: Final counts may be weeks away; parnell, young post strong results.  —  scockerham@adn.com  —  Election returns Tuesday night showed Lisa Murkowski with a chance to become only the second candidate to run …

Wonkbook: Welcome to gridlocked America  —  Welcome to gridlocked America: The GOP is on track to win about 65 seats in the House of Representatives, and 47 or 48 in the Senate.  This is a huge victory: the Republican House majority will be the largest since 1928.

Lesson from Christine O'Donnell defeat: where tea party overreached  —  Christine O'Donnell's Senate loss to Democrat Chris Coons in Delaware shows that sheer numbers can trump tea party buzz and underscores the importance of thoroughly vetting candidates.  —  Washington  —  Christine O'Donnell lost on Tuesday.

The end of an era: ACORN files Chapter 7 bankruptcy  —  For over 40 years ACORN has fought the good fight.  From a few initial neighborhoods in Little Rock, Arkansas, we grew to become a large, active, national organization of low- and moderate-income families, mostly people of color …

The conservative movement is back & growing  —  We will win around 3 score House races (including several long-time liberal Democrats), several Senate races, a slew of governorships, and this will be spun as a loss.  We are fighting the Democrats on their dark blue turf …

The big tech pedigree doesn't help: Whitman and Fiorina go down in flames  —  Perhaps tonight's elections in California should be a lesson for technology executives at big tech companies.  The pedigree of being an executive at a major tech company isn't necessarily a winning background for California politics.

What the Wave Giveth, The Wave Taketh Away  —  Analysis by Amy Walter: At a very basic level, the 2010 election was simply the flip side of the 2006 coin.  Partisans motivated by their dislike of the current administration combined with a soured independent vote to turn the blue map red.

Feingold campaign manager: It ain't over  —  Feingold's campaign manager George Aldrich told the crowd in Middleton that only 40 percent of the vote has been reported.  —  “Russ is down by 80,000 votes, but...up to 1.4 million votes haven't been counted,” he told the crowd.

Recount again: Dayton's 0.43% lead is within the range for automatic recount  —  The Minnesota governor's race is so close it has come to this: another recount appears almost certain.  —  With fewer than 20 precincts left to report, DFLer Mark Dayton leads Republican Tom Emmer by less than one half of 1 percent — 43.67% to 43.24%.

Toomey captures seat of his old nemesis, Arlen Specter  —  Pat Toomey has won his race against Rep. Joe Stestak (D) and captured the Senate seat that Sen. Arlen Specter held for 30 years.  —  The victory is sweet vindication for Toomey who narrowly lost a bitterly contested GOP primary race …