Rubio wins Florida; Young leads Bayh in Indiana [Jeb congratulates Marco] [UPDATED, AGAIN]

Marco Rubio has been declared the winner of the Florida Senate race. Donald Trump once declared that Rubio couldn’t be elected dog-catcher in the Sunshine State. But today, Rubio will run far ahead of Trump there (the presidential race in Florida hasn’t been called).

In Indiana, Rep. Todd Young has a double-digit lead over former Senator Evan Bayh. That’s with one-third of the vote in. As we noted recently, Bayh began as the solid favorite but his campaign seemed to implode as Election Day neared.

The race hasn’t been called yet, but Bayh is looking like this year’s Mark Udall. [UPDATE: Now it has been called for Young. No Dem pick-up in Indiana]

Two other Senate races — North Carolina and New Hampshire — aren’t going well so far for the Republican incumbents — Richard Burr and Kelly Ayotte. However, the returns I’ve seen in those states consist of only about 5 percent of the vote, so I’ll wait before panicking about these contests.

UPDATE: Jeb Bush tweeted the following: “Congratulations on the great victory, @marcorubio! Florida is critical to keeping the Senate.”

Friends, again?

UPDATE: Ayotte continues to lag in New Hampshire, but Burr has pulled even in North Carolina. In both states, only a little more than 10 percent of the vote has been counted.

Meanwhile, I understand that FiveThirtyEight is saying that the GOP now has a better than a two-thirds chance of maintaining control of the Senate. That sounds optimistic to me, but they are the experts.

FURTHER UPDATE: Ayotte is now even in her race with 20 percent of the vote in. Burr has pulled more than 3 points ahead with 50 percent of the vote in. I’m becoming more comfortable with the FiveThirtyEight odds. However, it’s my understanding that there are lots of votes from Democratic counties in North Carolina left to be counted.

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