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Jim Sweeney, veteran editorial writer for the Sonoma County Press-Democrat, held a solid lead in the Calbuzz Special Election Pool tonight, with about 50 percent of the vote counted.

It was a humiliating night for Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, who saw their quintet of budget fix propositions resoundingly voted down across the state.

But it looked like a good night for Sweeney, the only player whose pool entry matched the early vote order for the five props:

Prop.1B
Prop 1C
Prop.1D
Prop.1E
Prop.1A

But with Props. 1E and 1A less than a percentage point apart, it was still too close to call the pool, at least for a Calbuzzer who edited an early edition story electing Tom Bradley the first black governor of California in 1982. Still, Sweeney strengthened his front-runner position by also running strong on Prop. 1F, where he had predicted a 75.7 percent “yes” vote, only four-tenths of a percent lower than the actual vote at this hour.

We’ll post our analysis of the actual election at 12:01 a.m.