. >> ifill: jeffrey brown on who's voting and why, plus key congressional races with christina bellantoni and stuart rothenberg. >> woodruff: we get historical perspective from michael beschloss and richard norton smith. >> ifill: and hari sreenvasan shows how you can find the latest results online at our data-driven map center. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> music is a universal language. when i was in an accident i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own. with united health care i got help that fit my life, information on my phone, connection to doctors who get where i'm from, and tools to estimate what my care may cost. so i never miss a beat. >> we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. united health care. >> bnsf railway. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and fou

for more about this, i'm joined from washington by christina bellantoni. as most of you know, she is the politics editor of the pbs newshour. so christina, most experts basically think that the house is going to stay republican so let's talk a little bit about the senate. how consequential is this election when it comes to the senate? >> well, it's really important to keep in mind that it's already fairly narrowly divided and when you game out all of the different competitive elections, democrats playing more defense than they are offense and that's in part because they one so many seats in 2006. so chances are that the democrats are going to have a slimmer majority in 2013 and the republicans are going to be able to flip a handful of seats somewhere between two and five, but the democrats may flip a few seats. so in the end you're probably going to have a very narrowly divided senate that could make things difficult for whoever the next president is. >> ok, and so let's talk a little bit about policy. what are some of the issues and why is the senate so cr

most tellingly, not from the white house press pool glel glood we can ask our it colleague christina bellantoni, who checks numerous media. christine, are you checking your media? >> we have heard the vice president is making phone calls to the democratic candidates who look like they're winning. he made calls to tammy balded win in wisconsin, the congresswoman there potentially winning senate race there. he also called bob kerry who lost the race in nebraska. joe donnelly who won the race in indiana. bill nelson, one of the first senators we called who hadn't won reelection in florida. bob case nepennsylvania. by the way, it's important to point out when vice president biden voted today he was actually asked we the pool reporters traveling with him, "is this your last time you'll be on the ballot?" and he grind and said, "i don't think so." >> ifill: how old will he be four years from now? where is mark. >> it's obviously very early to talk about anything beyond this but you will start to hear people talking about anything beyond 2012, and particularly with the president winning a second term.

. >> brown: thank you, and with me is christina bellantoni and stuart rothenberg, editor of the rothen berg report to help sort through the senate races. let's start with florida, christina. >> none of the races that gwen and judy just mentioned called by the associated press were a big surprise but florida was an opportunity for the republicans. they thought this could end up being close. for a long time, senator nelson has been able to maintain his advantage there, even as the president and mitt romney are basically tied, in part pause he's as you been able to win the conservative democrats in the panhandle area of florida. but also this is just a state that has been so focused on for the presidential race, it hasn't gotten as much attention. >> brown: does it tell us much about the presidential race? >> i don't think so. if you talk to republicanned inners about connie mack's campaign, you get a load of criticism. he didn't raise money. he entered the race late. he didn't put together the kind of campaign that should have allowed him to win. bell nelson-- he is elected now to his th

christina bellantoni tweets that id heitka -- heidi heitkamp won her seat. the house republican conference schedules its leadership election for november 14. one more, tweet from the associated press -- virginia gov. bob mcdonnell says that republicans must figure out how to broaden their base of support. we will hear from house speaker john boehner in about an hour or so, his reaction to the presidential and congressional elections. that is coming up at 3:38 suspend -- coming up at 3:30 on c-span. claire mccaskill has been elected, getting 55% to the vote, beating todd nagin, who got 39.2% of the vote. here is our victory speech from last night. -- her victory speech from last night. [applause] >> thank you. 18 months ago, there was a lot at the political chattering classes that were spotting a lot of information about the senate race in missouri. they all said it is over, it's done. red.too red, just too there is no way that claire mccaskill can survive. you know what happened? you proved them wrong. [cheers and applause] with the stubborn determination, t

doug pinkham from the public affairs council, to his left come into his left, christina bellantoni formally of cq roll call, now at "the pbs newshour" and they know much more than 90 of the topic topic at hand so stand back and let them speak. >> i will go first. and what we do the pew research center is polling but we also do a great deal of demographic analysis and kelly which, the patterns that are going to be shipping this country in the electorate for years to come, and this election was a real interesting one from that perspective. maybe it's the way that americans learn about the changing demographics of the country. it takes an election like this. there really wasn't a huge change in the demographics of the electorate 2012 compared to 2008, but it changed just enough and it changed in a certain direction that it mattered a great deal. you know, we saw, you know, hispanics and minorities generally are still underrepresented in the electorate compared to the general public. but in key states we saw the hispanic turnout pickup if we saw the black turnout pickup in a few key states. and