John Girardi with Bill Pantele's mayoral campaign has been roving the polls since they opened this morning. By noon, he expresses renewed confidence based on informal exit polling in the campaign beyond the 1st, 2nd and 4th districts, which were presumed by many as solid Pantele territory.

“Bill's looking real good in the 5th right now,” Girardi says. “It would be dangerous to assign numbers to it, but I won't say it's surprising.”

Across town at Toad's Place, the scene of this evening's planned Obama and Virginia Democratic rally, the scene is disarming. The front door is open, but doors to the club where tonight thousands likely will gather remain locked. Nobody is around save a few construction workers who are doing renovations in office space on the second floor of the club. — Chris Dovi