Election 2012 | What Happened In Kentucky, Indiana on Election Night

Update 12:09 a.m.: Here's a rundown of what happened tonight, with updated stories. Democratic Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly was elected to the U.S. Se nate.  Meanwhile, Republican Mike Pence will be Indiana's next governor. In Kentucky, Democrat John Yarmuth was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Republican Thomas Massie was elected to the House. The newly elected members of the Jefferson County Public Schools board are not of the pro-neighborhood schools, anti-tax variety. Kentucky Democrat state Sen. Perry Clark held on to his seatagainst Republican challenger Chris Thieneman. Updated 11:30 p.m.: NPR is also calling the election for Barack Obama. Update 11:19 p.m.:  Barack Obama has been re-elected president of the United States, CNN and MSNBC are projecting. More to come.  Update 11:11 p.m.: Latest on the presidential race from NPR.Obama now leads 234 to Romney's 203. In the latest round of projections, NPR called California, Hawaii and Washington for Obama. Romney picked up Missouri and Idaho. Update: 11 p.m.: Tony Bennett, the former Greater Clark County Schools superintendent, has lost his bid for re-election as Indiana superintendent for public instruction. Here's more: The victory by Democrat Glenda Ritz was seen as a victory for Indiana teachers who have felt Bennett blamed them for school failures. Many educators have opposed changes under Bennett that include expanding charter school access, limiting teachers' collective bargaining and basing teacher pay raises on annual evaluations. Bennett also pushed for the state's private school voucher program and oversaw the first state takeover of troubled public schools. Ritz is an elementary school library media specialist in Indianapolis. She has pledged to roll back many of Bennett's changes, including a reading test that third-graders must pass to advance to fourth grade. Update 10:49 p.m.: Indiana Republican Rep. Todd Young has defeated Democratic challenger Shelli Yoder in the Ninth District, covering southern Indiana, the Associated Press reports.  Update 10:48 p.m.: Here's how the JCPS board races played out. Update 10:23 p.m.: Here's where presidential race stands, according to NPR. Romney has carried: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. Obama has: Connecticut, Deleware, D.C., Illinois, Main, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Romney leads 163 to 153. Plenty of key states have not yet been called, including Florida and, of course, Ohio. Update 10:03 p.m.: Republican Mike Pence has defeated Democrat John Gregg in the Indiana governor's race, The Associated Press said. Pence will succeed Gov. Mitch Daniels, who is slated to become the president of Purdue University. Update 9:59 p.m.: Add NPR to those calling the Indiana senate race for Joe Donnelly. Update 9:46 p.m.:  In Indiana, NBC News and Fox News are projecting that Democrat Joe Donnelly has been elected to the U.S. Senate over Republican Richard Mourdock. More coming soon. Update 9:44 p.m.: Fresh off defeating challenger Chris Thieneman, state Sen. Perry Clark said: “I think I’ve got 17 years of reputation of being a fair and balanced and just person. Even though sometimes I do have little whimsical thoughts that go outside the norm. But sometimes you need that, that’s how we stretch, that’s how we move, that’s how we progress.” Read more here. Update 9:35 p.m.:  Latest on a couple of Jefferson County judicial races. Judge Irv Maze won a narrow victory to retain his seat on the Kentucky Court of Appeals over his challenger, Circuit Court Judge James Shake. Maze, a former county attorney appointed to the Court of Appeals in April to fill a vacancy, won 50.59 percent of the vote -- a margin of less than 4,200. The10 ^th Circuit Court race went to Judge Angela McCormick Bisig, who defeated challengers Eric Ison and Wanda Mitchell Baker with 53 percent of the vote. Update: 9:15 p.m.: Here's where NPR says the presidential race stands. Romney has: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska's, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. Obama has: Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Main's, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. In the Electoral College, Romney has 154 and Obama has 124, NPR said. Update 9:07 p.m.: More on Massie's win. With nearly half the precincts reporting, Massie has nearly 60 percent of the vote with Adkins trailing with 36 percent. Tea Party supporters gave Massie a large financial boost in the primary elections to help him beat two well known Republicans. Massie said the Tea Party has a strong presence in Congress and District 4 constituents have similar concerns: jobs and the economy. “Some people have called Tea Party extreme but what I find extreme is a $16 trillion dollar debt and a trillion dollar deficit," Massie said. "So most of the people in the fourth district realize that balancing the budget is not an extreme position to take and that’s the position that I’ve taken.” Massie said balancing the budget is possible in part by cutting discretionary spending, but any cuts should not affect seniors and veterans. District 4 spans 20 counties in northern Kentucky. Update: 8:49 p.m.: Republican Thomas Massie has defeated Democrat Bill Adkins for the 4th Congressional District, covering northern Kentucky. Update 8:38 p.m.: In the Sixth Congressional race, Republican challenger Andy Barr has defeated Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler, the Associated Press is reporting. Update 8:28 p.m.: In the closest Jefferson County School Board race, Chuck Haddaway has won the District 4 seat covering areas of southwestern parts of the county. The final tally was down to three candidates, Melissa “Missy” Smith (27 percent of the vote) and Lloyd “Chip” White (28 percent of the vote), who was backed by the teacher’s union. Haddaway earned 33 percent—or 9,554 votes-- from 80 precincts. Haddaway is a parent and is on the SBDM at Carter Traditional elementary and family resource center at Okolona Elementary. Haddaway also serves on state boards and Kentucky League of Cities. Here a rundown on Haddaway's opinions for these key issues: How to improve student achievement: Haddaway supports preparing students for career. He says any student should be able to excel in any school across the district. He wants to focus on graduation rates and part of that is supporting the new state assessment, including the common core standards. Student assignment plan: Haddaway supports the recent changes to the JCPS student assignment plan but wants to continue to monitor it. He says it needs more time to see if it will be successful. Further he feels like parents have options around the district, but all the schools need to offer a good program. School budget/taxing: Haddaway says he doesn’t like new taxes, but he trusts that the board were efficient and conflicted with the decision to continue to raise taxes. He further feels like more cuts in administration could happen.

Here are all the results from JCPS District 4: Melissa Smith - 28% Lloyd "Chip" White - 38% Eric Bullock - 7% Chester Flake 3 %  

Update 8:27 p.m.: The balance between Republicans and Democrats in the Louisville Metro Council will remain unchanged. Fourteen of the 26 council seats were up for a vote. Eight of those contests drew candidates from both parties. Of those, no seats switched parties, leaving Democrats with a strong majority in the body, holding 17 seats to the GOP's nine. One uncertain seat was in the 14th district, which covers southwestern Jefferson County. There, outgoing Democrat Bob Henderson's aide Cindi Fowler defeated GOP challenger Bob Heuglin. Elsewhere, incumbents retained their seats, and Tea Party Republican Marilyn Parker defeated Democratic challenger Teague Ridge. Parker previously upset incumbent Republican Jon Ackerson in the GOP primary for the seat. The competitive district results: District 8 Incumbent Democrat Tom Owen defeated Republican Kirt Jacobs District 12 Incumbent Democrat Rick Blackwell defeated Republican Richard Rosenberger District 14 Outgoing Democrat Bob Henderson's aide Cindi Fowler defeated GOP challenger Bob Heuglin District 16 Incumbent Republican Kelly Downard defeated challenger Tim Martin. District 18 Tea Party favorite Marilyn Parker, who unseated incumbent Republican Jon Ackerson in the GOP primary, defeated Democrat Teague Ridge. District 20 Incumbent Republican Stuart Benson defeated Democrat J. Joseph Cohen. District 22 Incumbent Republican Robin Engel deafeated Democrat Robert Zoeller Jr. District 26 Incumbent Democrat Brent Ackerson defeated GOP challenger Sarah Provancher. Update 8:11 p.m. Democratic state Sen. Perry Clark has defeated his Republican challenger Chris Thieneman. With 87.8 percent of precincts reporting, Clark leads Thieneman 58.1 percent to 41.7 percent for the District 37 seat, according to the county clerk's results. Update 8:06 p.m.: Polls have closed in more states and NPR is calling several more states in the presidential election.  Here's the new rundown. Romney has: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia. Obama has: Connecticut, Deleware, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusets, Rhode Island and Vermont. Update 7:51 p.m.: Here's a rundown of where the presidential election stands, according to NPR. Romney has won: Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia Obama has won: Vermont As it stands, Romney has 49 electoral votes, Obama has three. Update 7:50 p.m.: With all precincts reporting, Democratic state Rep. Steve Riggs has defeated Republican challenger Nicholas X. Simon, according to the clerk's office results. Update 7:45 p.m.: Republican Marilyn Parker has defeated Democrat Teague Ridge 59 percent to 39 percent for the Louisville Metro Council District 18 seat. Parker beat incumbent Jon Ackerson in the Republican primary. Also, Democratic Metro Council member Brent Ackerson -- Jon Ackerson's son -- has held onto his District 26 seat against Republican challenger Sarah Provancher. Update: 7:40 p.m.: David Jones Jr. has won the District 2 seat to the Jefferson County Public Schools board. With 75.5 percent of precincts reporting, Jones leads with 48.2 percent, according to results from the Jefferson County Clerk's Office.  Elizabeth Berfield is running second to Jones in the District 2 race, with 26.9 percent. And Chris Brady has won the District 7 seat to the JCPS board. With 93.8 percent of precincts reporting, Brady leads the field of five with 35 percent. Update 7:20 p.m. Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat for Kentucky's Third District, has been re-elected, the Associated Press reports. Yarmuth defeats his Republican challenger Brooks Wicker. Update 7:12 p.m.:  The hunting and fishing amendment to the Kentucky constitution has been approved in referendum, the Associated Press reports. Update 7:08 p.m. NPR is projecting that Republican challenger Mitt Romney has won Indiana and Kentucky. NPR is also projecting that Romney has won Georgia and South Carolina, based on exit polls. President Barack Obama has won Vermont.  Update 7 p.m.: Polls have closed in Kentucky, and major television networks are calling Kentucky for Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Kentucky gives Romney eight electoral votes.  WFPL will be providing on-going coverage of the national, state and local elections in Kentucky and Indiana throughout the evening. Listen at 89.3 WFPL and follow along at WFPL.org. Earlier: Go here for coverage of the polls in Jefferson County.