I'm opening up a separate thread for the Minnesota races, in order to keep all of that commentary together. Minnesotans had some tough choices to make, and so far it looks like they've followed the predictions. The only surprise so far is that Hatch has opened an eight-point lead on Pawlenty, but we're also seeing 43% of all MN-05 precincts reporting with the other districts in single digits -- so this lead is likely illusory.

Bachmann leads Wetterling by just two points in MN-06 .... let's hope she stretches that out a bit as more precincts report.

10:14 ET - Hatch is stil up by nine points. However, at this point, Hennepin County has reported 60% of its precincts, which makes this a very distorted result. Hatch is up 14 points in Hennepin, which may not be enough to beat the rest of the state. 59% of Ramsey also has been counted, which means that what we're seeing is mostly the urban areas of the state. If he can only maintain a 14-point lead in his power base, we're in good shape.

10:35 - John Kline is easily beating Coleen Rowley in my home district of MN-02, 58-38. That was never going to be much of a race anyway. However, Gil Gutknecht is down in the opening rounds of counts in MN-01, a race we thought would be close but a Republican hold. It's too early to tell, but it bears watching. Tim Walz ran a pretty good race in this district.

Bachmann is still only 4 points up on Wetterling in MN-06. We want to watch that one carefully, too.

12:21 - I've been on standby to go on CNN for some time, and did a lengthy interview on Pipeline, so I haven't had an opportunity to post any thoughts for the last hour or so. Let's recap the changes in Minnesota:

MN-01: Looks like Gutknecht will lose a close race.
MN-05: Ellison wins, as expected. Fine and Lee wind up with almost the same vote total.
MN-06: Bachmann appears to be cruising to victory; Wetterling gets to taste defeat -- again.

Hatch and Pawlenty are just about tied for governor as the outstate votes have started coming in. Hatch ran up a lead based on the Hennepin-Ramsey counts, but not enough, it appears.

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