Election Results

If you haven't heard by now, Barack Obama has defeated John McCain to become the 44th President of the United States. The first bi-racial President. I don't think many Americans could say that they didn't see this coming. Obama has held significant leads over John McCain in electoral and popular polls for the past six weeks or so.

It was a short election night. The first votes were counted around 7pm, giving Obama an early victory in Vermont, while McCain won the uncontested state of Kentucky. It wasn't long before Pennsylvania was put in the blue column, and McCain's chance of victory began to look slim. They started counting the votes in Indiana, with Obama and McCain neck and neck. Obama held a commanding lead as the votes began to be counted in Florida. When they called Ohio for Obama at around 10pm eastern time, I knew the race was over. Obama would be the next President of the United States.

Obama won in an electoral landslide: 364 electoral votes to McCain's 163, twenty six states and one tie - Missouri. McCain just might win Missouri, as he has a small lead there and the votes are still being counted. The Show Me didn't live up to it's repuation of voting for the winner. Ohio prevailed, though. Next time, Missouri, next time.

For the first time in 40 years, Virginia voted for a Democrat, 22 years for North Carolina, and 44 years for Indiana. Colorado went blue, the first time in 16 years. Obama defeated McCain by landslide margins in both Nevada and New Mexico, 56-42 and 57-42 respectively. The Hispanic vote really helped him there. McCain won by a weak 9 percent in his home state of Arizona. I'm disappointed that Arizonans didn't send him a message. Oh well. Rumor has it Janet Napolitano is going to run for congress when her gubernatorial term is up in 2010. She will probably take McCain's senate seat if he decides against running for reelection. If he does, she'll probably defeat him.

It is likely, that for the first time in the state's history, Nebraska will split its electoral votes. Obama will be awarded one, bringing his electoral vote total to 365.

Obama won the popular vote, 53 to 46 percent, garnering 64, nearly 65 million votes to McCain's 57 million. Obama outperformed Kerry among virtually all demographics. He lead strongly among women, independents, Hispanics and people under 64.

Democrats increased their majority in the house and gained 5 seats in the senate, and a few of them are still being contested.

I bet the Republicans are fuming. They were hoping so much for a Bradley effect. Much to their chagrin, Obama performed as expected, and even outperformed the polls in several states. Obama won Pennsylvania by 11 points, 55-44 - stronger than Gore AND Kerry's wins, 51-46 and 51-49 respectively. For the most part, the polls were right on the money. Who said polls don't mean anything?

Unfortunately, my predictions were off quite a bit. Although, I nailed the popular vote, the senate seat and house projections were off by one, though there are still some seats undecided. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com correctly predicted the popular vote and incorrectly projected the winners of Missouri and Indiana. The site pretty much lives up to its slogan, Election Projections. Done Right. Dissapointedly Obama didn't win Georgia. The voter turnout wasn't as high as many expected. I expected 180 million people to turnout, only 130 or so million people did so. Silly me. How many registered voters are there in the country anyway? They said a lot of Republicans stayed home. I guess they were disgusted. Do you blame them? I don't. They got their asses whooped.

Here's the electoral results (map provided by Electoral-Vote):


Won't it feel good to have a President that can inspire us? One with great orotorical skills. One we actually care to listen to and who makes you listen? With McCain, it would have been Bush all over again. I'm glad America made the right choice this time. It was a clear mandate. America has spoken. The country is screaming for change. And as Obama said in his victory speech, change has come.

Electoral Analysis

The latest polls show that McCain is in trouble in Georgia and other, formerly Republican strongholds. McCain leads Obama by a mere 2 points (48.8-46.2) in Georgia, and 5 points (49-44) in his home state of Arizona, where a few polls show the race as close as 2 points.

Both candidates are tied in usually reliable Republican states like Indiana, Montana, North Dakota and the ultimate swing state of Missouri. McCain has weak leads in South Dakota 50-41, Mississippi, 53-45 and West Virginia, 51-43.

Obama is ahead in every swing state, with his lead growing every day and is getting stronger in Democratic states, while McCain is getting weaker in Republican states.

Latest polls:

State Obama McCain

Nevada: 50 43
Colorado: 51 44
Ohio: 50 43
Virginia: 51 44
N. Carolina: 49 47
Florida: 48 45

Obama is strong in all of the states Gore and Kerry won in 2000 and 2004. As long as Obama hangs onto all the states Gore won in 2000, which total 264 electoral votes, he will need to pick up just one more state equaling 6 electoral votes or more to get to the magic number of 270.

Here are the states Obama has a chance of picking up, in addition to the states Gore won in 2000:

Virginia with its 13 electoral votes, on top of the 264 safe Gore electoral votes, would put Obama over the top with 277 electoral votes.

Colorado, a state with 9 electoral votes, would give Obama a 273-265 lead over his opponent. There is a good chance of a pickup in the state, as he has been leading consistently since February.

Nevada would put Obama at the 269 mark, and if he doesn't pick up Virginia, or any other battleground state, then the race would be a tie and this could benefit Obama with a Democratic congress.

Ohio would clinch it for Obama. With it's 20 electoral votes, he wouldn't need to pick up any other state. McCain needs Ohio to win and without it there is just no realistic victory for McCain.

North Carolina, with it's 15 electoral votes would be a big blow to McCain and like Ohio, McCain can't win without it.

Florida, the state's 27 electoral votes that determined the 2000 election, is a Republican stronghold, and without it, Bush wouldn't have won and McCain can't win without it, either.

A Georgia win for Obama would cripple McCain with it's 15 electoral votes. And a win here is possible, with a high turn out among African American voters. African Americans make up 29% of the electorate in the state and is enough to swing the state to the blue column.

Missouri is the ultimate swing state, with it's 11 electoral votes, has voted for the ultimate winner of the election for the past 100 years, getting it wrong just once in 1956. It will be interesting to see if the "Show Me" state lives up to it's reputation of voting for the winner.

Indiana hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1964. And with it's 11 electoral votes, could help put Obama over the top. The chances of Indiana going blue this year are very good. Bush won Indiana by landslide margins in 2000 and 2004. Obama being ahead in the polls there by as many as 7 points is not a good sign for McCain.

A loss in Arizona would kill McCain. McCain needs every electoral vote he can get and without his home state's 10 electoral votes he is finished. Due to the changing demographics in the state, Arizona would have been a swing state in the beginning, but in this late stage of the game Obama has now been able to turn it "purple."

Obama has a knack at turning Republican strongholds purple, and North Dakota and Montana are no exception. Obama and McCain are currently tied there, and should Obama pull off a win in both of these states while not winning any other swing state, with their combined 6 electoral votes, they could tip the election in Obama's favor.


The polls close around 7-7:30 PM on the east coast. If they announce that Obama wins any of the following states: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio. You can rest assured that Obama will be the next President of the United States and it will be a relatively short election night. I'm hoping this is the case, if not, we're going to be in for a long, nail biter.

Regardless of what the polls say right now, this election is not over. Don't become complacent. Make sure you get out and vote. Make sure to get your friends and family to the polls as well.

Myth about the 2004 election

There is a myth about the 2004 election: John Kerry was ahead in the polls throughout the 2004 campaign and still lost the election. I'm glad someone finally debunked the myth that Kerry was ahead in Oct 2004 going into election day. Some of us know that is not true. Kerry was never consistently ahead the way Obama has been this election year.

Take a look at this graph provided by RCP. It shows that Bush was ahead in the popularity polls consistently from September until election day in 2004.




Now compare that to this year (graph provided by pollster):

As you can see from the graph above, Obama has been consistently ahead since September (and since the beginning of the primaries in January) just as Bush was ahead from September till election day in 2004.

Now, if that's not enough to convince you, let's look at the electoral polls:

2004:



2008:

Both graphs provided by Electoral Vote.

As you can see in the 2004 graph, Bush lead Kerry consistently from September till election day and ultimately won the election. The 2008 graph shows that Obama has lead McCain consistently as far back as April. Kerry never had the leads that Obama has had in this election. If you want to look at this election from a 2004 perspective, Obama = Bush, McCain = Kerry, although Obama has had the upper hand in this race from the beginning.

Now if anyone claims that the polls showed Kerry leading Bush in all polls in 2004, direct them here.