Election night liveblog 2021: Updating results and odds for Virginia Governor’s Race, mayoral races, more

12:30 a.m. update: Glenn Youngkin was declared the winner in Virginia at 12:29 a.m. But it does look like Phil Murphy will hang on in New Jersey despite being down right now.

He’s down a bit less than 20,000 votes with over 2.1 million cast, but most of the outstanding vote will go to Murphy and he should win by at least a point or two. He’s at .83 at Predict it for now.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the Virginia House of Delegates, which is now projected to be split exactly 50-50.

11:15 p.m. update: With over 98% of precincts reporting, 58.98% of the votes in the Buffalo’s mayoral election are for a write in candidate, while the only candidate actually on the ballot in India Walton has just 41.02%. That seems to indicate Byron Brown will take his fifth term as mayor, and he’s at .98 at PredictIt for that reason.

And New Jersey continues to get interesting. With 65% of precincts in the Garden State, it’s at 51.2% for Jack Ciattarelli, with Phil Murphy at 48.0%. You’d still rather be Murphy with the massive amount of vote out in the populated NYC suburbs. Murphy is still at .80 on PredictIt, and $100 will get you $109 at Betfair.

10:55 p.m. update: It’s getting interesting for control of the 100-seat Virginia House of Delegates, as there are now just a few outstanding seats that are in the air. Democrats have won 48, and Republicans currently control 49. It’s going to come down to the last four, of which someone is going to need to win three to get an outright majority in the lower house of the legislature.

Right now it’s .70 for the Democrats to win 48 or 49 total seats in the HoD at PredictIt, which would put Republicans in charge of one house of a divided legislature.

It does look like it’ll be 21-19 in the Virginia Senate in favor of Democrats.

10:35 p.m. update: Annissa Essaibi-George has conceded to Michelle Wu in the Boston Mayor race. In the 400+ year history of the city, Wu will be the first non-white male to hold the job.

In New Jersey, you’d still rather be Phil Murphy than Jack Ciattarelli, despite Ciattarelli leading 51.3% to 48.0% with 55% of the vote in. Essex County is all of 18% reported, and most of the northern NYC suburbs are very much out which are Democratic strongholds.

But Ciattarelli is very much going to “cover the spread” in this race, but right now Murphy is at .82 to .24 on PredictIt, and $100 on Murphy will get you $14 in profit on Betfair.

We still don’t have an update in the Florida 20th.

10:00 p.m. update: It’s getting interesting in Florida’s 20th Congressional District, which is a Democratic stronghold and where the winner will replace the recently passed Alcee Hastings.

Dale Holness was the favorite in the 11-person jungle primary, but he’s lost his favorite status at PredictIt. He was .65 yesterday, and as high as .92 just over an hour ago. But now Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has surged ahead and sits at .79 to just .34 for Holness.

But Cherfilus-McCormick leads by just 32 votes as of now: 11,372 to 11,341.

9:48 p.m. update: A loss for Democrats in Virginia wasn’t totally unexpected, especially in the last two weeks with momentum and pulls heading towards Glenn Youngkin. But a loss for incumbent governor Phil Murphy in New Jersey would be levels of catastrophic for the party it is almost hard to quantify.

It’s still early and just 30% of the vote is in, but right now Republican Jack Ciattarelli leads Murphy with 424,863 to 414,755. It’s gotten the attention of PredictIt, where shares of Ciattarelli have been mostly hovering around penny stock territory, but are now up to up to .14, with .89 for Murphy.

You’d still much, much rather be Murphy with the vote that remains, but it’s at least gotten to the point where we’ll keep an eye on it. The Betfair market on this race is rather illiquid, so it’s not a good harbinger of the race, but we’ll see if that begins to change at any point.

9:40 p.m. update: Still no E-Day vote in Buffalo, but we can put to bed a few races.

Eric Adams will be the new mayor of NYC. You couldn’t even bet on anyone else at Betfair, because there was literally not one dollar laid against him on their market.

Also 10 of 255 precincts are in for Boston, where Michelle Wu leads Annissa Essaibi George 2,679 to 1,998. Wu, a city council member and protege of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, is getting .99 for a $1 closing share at PredictIt. That puts her ahead of even Brown in Buffalo, where we still have no new hard totals, but Brown sits at .98.

9:10 p.m. update: Let’s talk Buffalo! With the early votes all counted, incumbent write-in (and that’s one you don’t see often) Byron Brown holds a big lead over socialist & Democratic primary winner India Walton, but by how much we’re not exactly sure. There are 10,015 total write-in votes, and Walton has just 5,278. It looks like Walton will be starting behind the 8-ball, but remember she’s literally the only candidate on the ballot. Voter will need to physically write in Brown to vote for him.

Heading into today’s contest, Brown was at .85 to .15 for Walton at PredictIt. It’s already moving in the incumbents direction, as Brown now sits at .91, to .10 for the insurgent Walton.

8:45 p.m. update: Well now that the big race is over... we’ll turn our attention to the state legislative balance in Virginia House of Delegates, and we’ll also be tracking the Buffalo mayor’s race when those polls close at 9 p.m. So don’t leave us, there’s still plenty of stats guys in front of touch screens, as well as some wagering to do!

8:35 p.m. update: Dave Wasserman doesn’t make these calls lightly, and when he does you can pretty much say it’s over. I can’t think of one he’s ever retracted.

Youngkin still at .94 at PredictIt, McAuliffe at .07. But there’s likely value on Youngkin at this point.

8:25 p.m. update: McAuliffe needs help, and he needs it in terms of early votes from absentee and mail-in that haven’t been counted yet. And as of right now, we just don’t know how many of those ballots are out there.

But the markets have all but called it for Youngkin, who now sits at .94 to .09 for McAuliffe at PredictIt. At Betfair, it’s $100 to win $5 on Youngkin.

In raw vote, it’s 709,999 for Youngkin, and 525,854 for McAuliffe. That number will greatly narrow... but when Fairfax County, Loudon County, and Prince William County fully report, will it close enough. Right now just two precincts of 250 are reporting in Fairfax County.

Something to keep in mind: Donald Trump was -3300 to win on Election Night in November of 2020. Vote totals move, and they can move fast with early votes. But this is the real issue so far:

8:05 p.m. update: Youngkin is up to 55.7% to 43.6% for McAuliffe, but as we said in our preview, this was the time of night where things should be shifting in his favor. It’s clear the Republican will far outperform Donald Trump in a state where the former President lost by 10 points in 2020. But is it enough to make up that deficit in an off-year election with turnout higher than expected?

At PredictIt however, the people are voting with their dollars for Youngkin, who is at .88 to just .16 for McAuliffe.

7:45 p.m. update: Right now on raw vote total, Glenn Youngkin leads with 52.4% of the vote, with McAuliffe at 46.9% with 26% of the vote in. But of course as in all statewide races, it’s where the vote is coming from that matters.

So far it looks like both candidates are where they need to be in their base areas: McAuliffe in the NoVa area and some of the larger counties, while Youngkin continues to outperform Donald Trump in the Southwestern part of the state.

Right now at PredictIt, Youngkin sits at .73, with McAuliffe at .31. At Betfair, $1 on McAuliffe will get you $2 in profit, while $1 on Youngkin returns just .43.

7:30 p.m. update: Glen Youngkin (R) leads Terry McAuliffe 55.93% to 43.33% with 350 of 2855 precincts reporting. PredictIt is currently pricing a Republican win at 71 cents while a Democrat win is at 31 cents.

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Welcome to Election Night 2021 coverage here at DK Nation!

We’ll be here all evening checking the odds on all the races and contests across the country here, but of course with more of a focus on the Governor’s race in Virginia between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin. We’ll be looking at raw vote totals, early ballots, and all the other data you can follow in plenty of places this evening.

But we’ll also focus on how the betting markets domestically and abroad are tracking who will be the big winners. Wagering on election outcomes is common in Europe and in many places across the world, but is somewhat limited in the United States to sites such as PredicitIt.

And keep in mind PredicitIt only allows bettors to take a position on a race up to $850 thanks to their exemption letter from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, so it’s not a perfect market, but still a very interesting one.

As we get started tonight, right now at PredictIt Republican Glenn Youngkin is at .55 at PredictIt, with Democrat Terry McAuliffe sitting at .49 based for futures contracts

And at Betfair, a market-based site in London, McAuliffe is also behind as he pays $112 profit for every $100 wagered, whereas Youngkin pays just $70.

We’ll be back as the polls close at 7:00 p.m. ET in Virginia.