By 8:30, CBS News had called the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey for Democrat Bob Menendez. If you went to the Election Results page for the race at that time, however, it showed Republican Thomas Kean with more actual votes – 13,442 to Menendez' 12,629. (Of course, those numbers changed as the votes continued to come in.) Seem odd that the race would be called for the candidate in second? Yeah, it does to us too. But "the call" is nothing if not mysterious, as we explained in an earlier post. You might want to read it> if you're confused about how the networks are making these calls. It's not going to clear things right up by any means, but it might make the process seem a bit less arbitrary.
