Davis remains confident that bad weather didn't sap supporter turnout

   Democrat Jim Davis made his first statement to the press at 8:20 p.m., encamped in an 11th-floor, three-room suite at Tampa's Grand Hyatt Hotel, with about 30 friends and relatives, including his wife, Peggy; his mother and brother, both named Cody Davis; sons Peter, 16, and William, 14, and running mate Daryl Jones.

   Rain fell heavily in the late afternoon, but Davis said he didn't think it kept his supporters away from the polls.

   "We have had a great few days on the road, and there's a lot of energy, a lot of interest. People want change...We  think tonight is going to be a very powerful night," he said.

   The campaign had gone "in many ways exactly as I had hoped," he said. "...It is such a humbling experience...I think we succeeded in letting the voters know what our vision is."

   In a ground-floor ballroom, about 50 supporters noshed on a ginger/rosemary-seared pork tenderloin, grilled portobello and goat-cheese quesadillas, and beef tenderloin on pumpernickel rounds.

   Paul Fernandez, 54, a Tampa postal worker, wore an American Postal Workers Union Local 259 t-shirt and sipped a beer.

   "Voters are very dissatisfied with the Republicans," he said. "We're going
backwards. The governor has refused to deal with the insurance crisis."

   He decried what he called "the most negative campaign I've ever seen," and predicted that Democrats would re-take the U.S. House because "the war is a disaster."