Last U.S. Senate debate in Virginia tonight plus state of the race

In the spirit of ABC News panel on presidential debates and Rock the Vote in Madison, Wisconsin, today, here's another press release about a campus event about elections I included in the tip jar of Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (2012 Nobel Prizes edition).

Virginia Tech: Virginia U.S. Senate candidates hold final debate on campus Thursday, Oct. 18
Oct. 11, 2012

BLACKSBURG, Va., – Virginia Tech and WSLS-TV will co-host the third of three U.S. Senate debates between Democratic candidate and former Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine and Republican candidate and former U.S. Sen. George Allen on Thursday, Oct. 18, beginning at 7 p.m. in Haymarket Theater at Squires Student Center on the Virginia Tech campus.

WSLS senior political reporter and anchor Jay Warren and WSLS political analyst Robert Denton, the W. Thomas Rice Chair and professor of communication at Virginia Tech will moderate the one-hour televised debate.

The debate will be broadcast live on WSLS TV; the Virginia Tech community can view the debate on campus cable channel 10 or on WSLS-HD on channel 66. CSPAN (campus cable channel 17) will also televise the debate; the broadcast time has not yet been determined.

Where's what I wrote about the state of the race on Saturday night at Daily Kos.

As of October 13th, the presidential swing states are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin, while the states with competitive races for the U.S. Senate are Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Virginia. Since last week's report, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin have moved back into the competitive column with 60-80% likelihoods of Obama wins, while North Carolina has moved out with an 80+% chance of a Romney victory. Also, Virginia's senate contest has returned to the competitive column because Tim Kaine's likelihood of being elected dropped to just under 80%. That's the bad news. The good news is that Heidi Heitkamp now has more than a 20% probability of winning North Dakota and Nate Silver gives Tammy Baldwin more than an 80% chance of victory in Wisconsin.

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver estimates a 52.6% of Romney winning the presidential contest in Virginia, while Tim Kaine has a 79.5% likelihood of being elected as Senator. Here's to Kaine leaving Allen in his dust tonight.

I'll leave you with video of the second Kaine-Allen debate.