For Channels 10 and 12, the early moments of election coverage were all about taking advantage of their exit polling.

At 9 p.m., as the polls closed in Rhode Island, both stations announced a flurry of projected victors: Sheldon Whitehouse for U.S. Senate, Patrick Kennedy and Jim Langevin for U.S. Congress, Patrick Lynch for Rhode Island Attorney General.

Meanwhile, Channel 6 was late to the party, returning to the ABC reality

hit Dancing with the Stars after a brief election update, without projected victors, at 9 p.m.

The key difference between Channel 10 and Channel 12 in

the early going was on the hotly contested issue of the Narragansett Indian casino.

Channel 12 projected the voters would reject the casino almost as soon as it came on the air with extended election coverage at 9 p.m.

Channel 10 delayed making the call until about 9:25 p.m.

Channel 12 spent the first 15 minutes of its live election cover

age on the casino issue, first airing a relatively long interview

with former Gov. Lincoln Almond, a casino opponent, and

then talking to former West Warwick Mayor Michael Levesque, a casino supporter.

``What went wrong?'' Channel 12's Sean Daly asked Levesque,

and later referred to Levesque's ``waffle of an answer'' about

what casino proponents will do next.

Meanwhile, Channel 10 stayed with the big picture at first -- a

great night for Rhode Island Democrats.

``This is a classic protest election,'' Brown University political

scientist and pollster said, saying that Rhode Islanders wanted to

express their dissatisfaction with President Bush, particularly in the Senate race.

The one race that was too close to call was the gubernatorial contest between incumbent Donald Carcieri and Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty. At first, the numbers seemed to favor Fogarty, but as the evening went on Carcieri

built a lead.

By 11:30 p.m., pollsters Joe Fleming at Channel 12, James

Gaffney at Channel 10, and analysts Joe Paolino and John

Holmes on Channel 6 -- which finally got into the game after

Dancing with the Stars -- were saying that it was going to be

very difficult for Fogarty to overcome Carcieri's lead.

Channel 12 debuted a new political analyst, Cranston Mayor

Stephen Laffey, who lost to Chafee in a hotly contested Republi

can senatorial primary.

Laffey, whose term as mayor of Cranston is coming to an end,

indicated he wasn't finished with Rhode Island politics. Laffey he had some harsh words for the condition of the state Republican party, suggesting it was time for some party leaders to resign.

There was relatively little national reporting last night from

the three network affiliates. Channel 10 had a brief report from NBC at 10

p.m., and Channel 6 went to ABC's election coverasge at 11:30 p.m.

``We think local races are of more interest to our viewers,''

Channel 12 news director Joe Abouzeid said last week.