"...but it's likely that most of these premature election calls for democRATs by the MSM are intended to demoralize GOP turnout on the West Coast, where polls are still open..."
I live on the West Coast and it's a very common tactic by the MSM scum - has been for a long time. I live in Oregon, and it's totally 'vote by mail' - or 'vote by mail-fraud' to the cynical :-) - which helps negate that here since most of us have already mailed in or dropped off the ballots. But, Washington, Cailfornia and the Mountain time zome states can be seriously affected.
This election in WA will be about 70% by mail so it probably won't be that much of a factor...and neither will the flooding unfortunately.
I used to live in California and I don't think the election news affects turnout significantly, because people don't listen to the election news until after they vote. But it still irritates me greatly the way the MSM tries to manipulate turnout. The good news is that the conservative Blogosphere is replacing the MSM as the new source of news and commentary for Republicans.