MT-Sen: Election Night Results - UPDATE VII

UPDATE VII: From Left in the West, "10:30. Morrison concedes." Gazette:

John Morrison - 19,860
Jon Tester - 34,416
421 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 48.56%

L-A-N-D-S-L-I-D-E

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UPDATE VI: Some fun with the numbers, from Tester Time on the HUGE win in Missoula, "That is 4000 more than voted in 2004 Primary for Governor." And Pogie notes, "With almost half the precints in, Tester? 33,112 Burns? 30,719." Great Falls (Cascade) is re-starting their count. And the Gazette:

John Morrison - 19,430
Jon Tester - 33,902
403 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 46.48%

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UPDATE V: The Gazette:

John Morrison - 15,932
Jon Tester - 28,657
288 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 33.22%

With a third of the vote in, things are looking amazingly well for Tester! Left in the West says, "Missoula is 97 out of 101 precincts: 11380 to 3047 votes. Unbelievable. Over half of Yellowstone in and Tester is still up by around 600 votes. Almost 50% reported in the Flathead and Jon is up by around 100 votes." Touchstone updates from the Tester party in Missoula:

Butte-Silverbow: 1,241 Morrison, 809 Tester.

It's packed right now, wall-to-wall people. It's hot. It's stuffy, but not out on the lawn. People are ecstatic, beaming. I'd definitely say the mood is upbeat.

I ran into Alex Taft of the Missoula County Dems. He joked about the "defense of marriage" amendment, saying it's a sure cure for the war in Iraq. We chatted about the race and the possible ramifications for Montana if Tester wins. We both agree: it'll be a madhouse. It'll also be a chance to show the nation how you win a campaign with open, clear stances on issues, like the war.

Chris Bowers has called it for Tester, "This is a truly remarkable victory for Montana, and for the netroots. Wow--a huge win."

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UPDATE IV: More at Tester Time. The Gazette:

John Morrison - 6,463
Jon Tester - 12,588
93 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 10.73%

4&20 seems to agree what I said early about the timing of the returns:

I was actually a little worried that the state's easy absentee voting would favor Morrison in this race, because Tester's momentum really only got going the past couple of weeks

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UPDATE III: From Touchstone, "Ravalli county: 67.8% for Tester." The Gazette now lists:

John Morrison - 4,237
Jon Tester - 7,572
40 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 4.61%

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UPDATE II: The Gazette has:

John Morrison - 3,295
Jon Tester - 6,063
28 of 867 Precincts Reporting - 3.23%

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UPDATE: Tester kicks ass in early voting in Helena (Lewis and Clark County):

I just got word that early voting releases from Helena broke three to one for Tester.

The Gazette seems to have the results including the most number of votes, right now they are saying it is:

John Morrison - 2,611
Jon Tester - 4,779

Considering Tester's late surge, I had expected Morrison to be winning the early numbers by a substantial margin.
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In addition to the links here, it appears that Gazette and the Tribune have live results pages. The Gazette is listing the following early voting results for Yellowstone County:

John Morrison - 1,140
Jon Tester - 969

Meanwhile, the Missoulian has the following early voting results for Missoula County:

John Morrison - 347
Jon Tester - 909

Could be a late night, but it is good to see Tester taking the early lead in the cities knowing how popular he is in rural areas.