More state projections: Trump takes West Virginia, South Carolina; Ohio too close to call

The min­utes con­tin­ue to tick by and the pro­jec­tions con­tin­ue to roll in. Sort of.

News net­works tend to be skit­tish about call­ing a state for a can­di­date when there isn’t enough data to def­i­nite­ly indi­cate which way the vote is going to go, so many of the pro­jec­tions so far have real­ly been non-pro­jec­tions — in oth­er words, too close to call or too ear­ly to call.

As was not­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, Trump is pro­ject­ed to take Indi­ana and Ken­tucky; but now West Vir­ginia and South Car­oli­na have been called for him as well. He was expect­ed to win eas­i­ly in all those states. Indi­ana has backed the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for the last few cycles, with the excep­tion of 2008, when Oba­ma nar­row­ly won it.

Ohio has joined the list of states too ear­ly to call. How­ev­er, Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Rob Port­man is pro­ject­ed to have won reelec­tion, defeat­ing for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov­er­nor Ted Strick­land, who did­n’t wage a very good campaign.

“Strick­land says he called Port­man to con­cede and “wish him well in rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of Ohio in the Sen­ate,” reports Burgess Everett.

Mean­while, in Flori­da, ear­ly tal­lied votes sug­gest good news for Hillary Clin­ton, but there’s a long night of count­ing ahead.