US election live

10.48pm. Oregon Senate race still close: Republican incumbent Gordon Smith leads Democrat Jeff Merkley 47.7 per cent to 46.7 per cent with 74 per cent of precincts reporting. Coleman now leads Franken by 676 votes (0.02 per cent) with 99.9 per cent reporting.

9.25pm. An extra 0.3 per cent of precincts in Minnesota have widened Coleman’s lead to 2591.

8.45pm. Norm Coleman back ahead of Franken in Minnesota – by 490 votes, with 98.7 per cent reporting.

7.54pm. Al Franken seizes a late lead for the Minnesota Senate (188,073 to 185,786) with 98 per cent reporting.

7.45pm. All precincts reporting from Missouri, and McCain leads 1,442,577 to 1,436,724. Possum writes in comments that there are not enough contested votes to cover the gap.

6.29pm. MSNBC calls Indiana for Obama. Only Missouri and North Carolina still outstanding.

6.26pm. Missouri has gone right back down to the wire with 0.7 per cent still to report: McCain 1,426,779, Obama 1,426,381.

6.06pm. With all precincts reporting, Obama leads in North Carolina by 12,160 votes out of over 4.2 million (0.2 per cent cent).

5.57pm. Earlier chat suggested Republican Senator Ted Stevens was dead meat in Alaska, but he leads 49.4-45.4 with 37 per cent reporting. Partial counts can be misleading though.

5.50pm. Back to lineball in Minnesota Senate. Analyst on Fox News says outstanding precincts are likely to favour Republican incumbent Norm Coleman over Al Franken.

5.16pm. McCain hanging on to his slender lead in Missouri, which is looming as my only wrong call.

5.11pm. McCain now ahead in Montana.

5.00pm. Al Franken continuing to fade in Minnesota Senate – probably gone now.

4.46pm. Obama’s lead in Montana rapidly evaporating as the count proceeds to 51 per cent.

4.36pm. Ohio still quite tight: Obama leads 50.0-48.4 with 72 per cent reporting.

4.31pm. Oregon Senate race has tightened up considerably: within 1 per cent now.

4.11pm. My reading of the Senate: Democrats to gain seven Senate seats – Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina and Alaska (no actual votes yet from the latter) – or eight if Al Franken wins Minnesota, where he trails by 0.8 per cent with 53 per cent counted.

4.09pm. Norm Coleman now leads Al Franken by 0.8 per cent for Minnesota Senate.

4.07pm. Obama now with a relatively handy 0.6 per cent lead in North Carolina.

3.55pm. Obama back in front in North Carolina, but not going to win Missouri. I’ve only just noticed he’s looking a surprise winner in Montana, although with only 24 per cent counted.

3.32pm. Correct me if I’m wrong here somebody, but the Democrats stand to gain seven Senate seats – Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina and Alaska – eight if Al Franken wins Minnesota.

3.17pm. McCain concedes defeat.

3.14pm. Close as close can be between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for Minnesota Senate.

3.10pm. Fox reports Roger Wicker holds Mississippi Senate seat for the Republicans, ending the chances of a Democrat supermajority.

2.59pm. CNN calls the election for Obama.

2.58pm. Obama takes the lead in Indiana.

2.54pm. McCain strengthening in North Carolina and Missouri.

2.51pm. Fox reports Virginia went 60-39 to McCain among white voters, but 92-8 among black voters.

2.42pm. McCain’s lead has vanished in Missouri: now 49.4-49.3.

2.41pm. Franken in fact leads Republican incumbent Norm Coleman 43-40.

2.40pm. Fox calls Virginia for Obama. Al Franken reportedly looking good for Minnesota Senate.

2.37pm. Obama leads in New Mexico 50.1-48.7 with less than half of dominant Bernalillo County reporting, where Obama is leading 57.3-41.5.

2.33pm. Crikey blog commenter Stuart: “Wilson and Franklin in North Carolina unreported. Wilson =44000 people total, 47% black. Franklin 2000 in total people 95% white. Looking good for O.”

2.32pm. McCain now narrowly ahead in North Carolina.

2.20pm. McCain leads by 12,839 in Indiana, but extrapolating unreported precincts from Lake County suggests Obama stands to gain over 22,000 votes.

2.18pm. Still tight in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, but Obama has a handy lead in each case with most precincts reporting. North Carolina his weakest of the three.

2.16pm. Missouri bouncing around the place, but McCain’s lead currently at 2.6 per cent.

2.12pm. McCain’s lead in Missouri reflating.

2.04pm. McCain’s lead in Missouri is narrowing.

2.01pm. Obama narrowly ahead in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia (in ascending order of narrowness).

1.59pm. Fox calls Iowa for Obama.

1.58pm. Obama takes the lead in Virginia.

1.50pm. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight calls the election for Obama.

1.47pm. CNN calls New Mexico for Obama.

1.33pm. Gap continues to close in Virginia, Obama now only 0.5 per cent behind.

1.25pm. McCain fairly well ahead in Missouri, but nobody’s calling it yet.

1.21pm. Discussion of Indiana on Fox: “central city plus rich suburbs” emerging as the “Obama alliance”, but rural areas holding relatively well for McCain.

1.17pm. Fox calls Ohio for Obama.

1.09pm. Nate Silver: “MSNBC and Fox call Georgia for McCain.”

1.00pm. Fox calls North Dakota for McCain.

12.46pm. Nate Silver on Virginia: “Obama is outperforming Kerry by a 12-15 point net in the Eastern half of the Virginia. In the Western half, he’s not performing much better than Kerry and is actually underperfoming him in some counties. I think that equation works out favorably for Obama on balance, though Virginia will be fairly close.”

12.28pm. Heavily populated Florida counties Orange and Polk are swinging double digits to Obama, blowing away those weaker rural results I was mentioning earlier.

12.12pm. Possum says: “PA has gone Dem, VA has gone Dem – election over”. Adam Carr says: “It’s true that the FL panhandle hasn’t reported yet, but Obama is leading in Orlando and St Petersburg, which are GOP towns. You’d think he’ll win FL from here. Note also Obama’s 75% in Broward – the Jews stuck with Obama despite Lieberman’s defection.”

12.08pm. Discussing Virginia on CNN, confirming the impression that early reporting precincts are rural and we haven’t seen any black areas in the big cities come in. I’m only seeing slight swings to the Democrats in the rural areas.

11.53am. Swings I’m seeing in Florida are also below par: 4.0 per cent in Lake, 2.4 per cent in Manatee, 4.1 per cent in Pinellas. He needs 5.0 per cent.

11.45am. Another substantially reporting Virginia county, Augusta, swinging inadequately to Obama by 5.7 per cent. However, the cities and DC outskirts might tell a different story.

11.37am. Culpeper and Amherst counties in Viriginia swinging 5.1 and 1.8 per cent, against required swing of 8.3 per cent.

11.33am. Manatee County in Florida swinging 2.4 per cent to Democrat – statewide margin is 5.0 per cent.

11.26am. Double digit swings in more counties in Indiana (Clinton, Fayette), but Obama needs 20 per cent across the state.

11.21am. Chesterfield County in Virginia swings 8.9 per cent to Democrat with 94 per cent reporting – the statewide margin in 2004 was 8.2 per cent.

11.09am. Reasonably consistent swings in rural counties in Indiana of around 10 per cent – good, but well short of what Obama would need to win the state if consistent.

10.58am. Swing in Steuben County, Indiana with 68 per cent of precincts reporting is 8.9 per cent: well short of the 20 per cent needed to win the state.

10.52am. 69 per cent of precincts reporting in Vigo County, Indiana – Obama leads by 16 per cent. Bush carried it by 6.4 per cent in 2004 (I’ll be double-posting here on special occasions).

10am. Further efforts will be concentrated above.

4am AEDT. Rain and gusty winds in North Carolina, with rain extending into Virginia. Storms through the north-west, bringing snow to Nevada and Colorado. Weather otherwise very good: fine and warm in Florida and throughout the south, fine and mild through the north-east to the mid-west. You’ll next hear from me at around 9.30am AEDT.

Obama McCain Sample D-EV R-EV
Washington 56.4 39.6 3322 11
Maine 56.5 40.5 2185 4
Minnesota 56.0 41.9 3270 10
Michigan 56.3 42.3 3232 17
New Mexico 57.0 43.2 3305 5
New Hampshire 54.9 41.9 3900 4
Iowa 54.1 41.6 3052 7
Wisconsin 53.3 42.3 3003 10
Colorado 54.8 44.7 3248 9
Pennsylvania 53.0 43.3 5479 21
Nevada 51.6 45.4 3168 5
Virginia 51.9 45.8 3382 13
Ohio 50.5 46.3 6490 20
Florida 49.9 46.8 5381 27
North Dakota 47.6 45.9 1706 3
Montana 48.6 47.6 3934 3
Missouri 49.8 48.8 3217 11
North Carolina 50.0 49.3 5582 15
Indiana 48.5 48.9 3834 11
Georgia 47.8 50.1 3248 15
West Virginia 43.9 54.3 3328 5
Others – – – 175 137
RCP/Total 51.9 44.4 – 370 168

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,508 comments on “US election live”

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  1. Glen

    th response to last Hurracane thought was quite good after Katrina disaster so if bush is at all responsible for Katrina fiasco & criticism then some acknowledgement should go likewise for th later

  3. [Stevens is up by 4,000 with 96% reporting. That has to be the most ridiculous win I can ever remember in any election.]
    He will probably have to front a Democratic controlled ethics committee. So this may not prolong Stevens’ career much longer.
    [Going dirty is what you do when you can’t win policy arguments.]
    YOU DID IT G.P.! You have revealed the universal key to the Conservative side of politics!

    PRECIOUS!!!

  6. No 1250

    The Liberal campaign was sparkling compared to the appalling ad hominem of the American campaigns. Obama called a terrorist, Palin criticised for not aborting her down syndrome child…and much much worse.

  10. Juliem – I am on the beautiful mid north coast of NSW but my daughter, after marriage, went to Perth and lived in Claremont with Army husband for 6 years. He was based at whatever the next suburb is – he was a cartographer but retired after 20 odd years. We visited a couple of times and we loved it. Daughter and husband moved back east after he retired – wanted to be closer to family.

  12. [And btw the tax bracket they’re talking about is $250k+. Hardly struggling…

    That’s not the point.]

    Hey that War in Iraq ain’t paying for itself – how about those patriotic blue collar folk earning over $250k chipping in some?

  15. [Some would argue about the dubiousness of the direct relationship of working hard and earning more but again, to each their own.]
    Of course, some people just happen to win the lottery. Others are born with brilliant mathematical or musical abilities.

    Capitalism rewards chance as much as it rewards hard work.

  18. No 1262

    The Iraq war is a failed government policy and no citizen should be compelled to “chip in” just because they can. It’s immoral.

  19. [Stevens is up by 4,000 with 96% reporting. That has to be the most ridiculous win I can ever remember in any election.]

    He’s gonna get pardoned by Bush, so he’ll serve out his term. But yeah, idiot Alaskans voting for a felon.

    Do you think it could have something to do with them being the last the vote so by the time some went to the polls, they were worried the Dems would roll the Senate and voted Republican? Or are they not that clever.

  20. GP

    Clinton actually did quite a bit about al Qaeda. He hid in the closet when the Rwandan genocide happened, and almost every other genocide of the 90’s, but he did take the job of preventing terrorism pretty seriously. Every President has been hamstrung by the grossly incompetent CIA it has to work with. I don’t blame Bush for 9/11. That was a “system failure”.

    I’m surprised that Bush, or any leader, is held responsible for every bad thing that happens on their watch. Most events are out of their control.

  22. CNN exit poll showing Obama did better than all Democrats since Carter with White voters, despite only getting 44% of them… shows how much the Dems have struggled there in recent times

  23. [Gus, it’s campaigning 101. Get with the program. The Labor Party is just as guilty.]
    Face it G.P., Republicans revert to smears all the time. I mean they spent the last fortnight calling Obama a SOCIALIST! Doing so misrepresents both Obama and the word “socialist”.

  25. [The Iraq war is a failed government policy and no citizen should be compelled to “chip in” just because they can. It’s immoral.]

    Aren’t all citizens being forced to chip-in anyway? Lowering taxes on most and increasing them for the wealthy would simply help those who need and put some of the burden on those who can deal with it.

  27. No 1270

    Diogenes, Bush can rationally only be held responsible for actions that he orchestrated. He didn’t cause 9/11 but he bungled the subsequent action; he didn’t cause Katrina, but he failed to provide adequate aid to affected citizens.

    I can’t blame Rudd for the financial crisis but I can blame him for the chaotic policy response.

  28. [The Iraq war is a failed government policy and no citizen should be compelled to “chip in” just because they can. It’s immoral.]
    Are you saying the entire escapade was wrong? Or just the way Bush went about doing it?

  29. [I’m sure you’ll take that line when Malcolm Turnbull’s illegitimate black baby is revealed during the next election campaign.]

    Nice over the top reaction Adam – very much in keeping with a reference to Turnbull.

  33. So Juliem what is the final ECV for Obama. According to Fox it is 349. They have presumably given Missouri to McCain and North Carolina to Obama. 349 just happens to be my guess (not that I got the states right, I picked Missouri for Obama and Indiana for McCain – both worth 11 votes)

  34. GP – yeah, straight out of the fibs handbook – no woman should stoop so low. The line ‘hanging around with terrorists’ and ‘not seeing American as we see it’ was ill thoughtout. Hang on, the woman doesn’t think before she speaks and that is the problem.

    Adam – I watched the whole rally on Fox when the crowd was yelling. There was more than one person yelling out and the mood was ugly. The news here replayed only a small portion of that rally. It made me realise how easy it is to push people over the top and I was glad to see McCain try to rein it in at the next rally. He knew Palin had gone too far. To my mind he didn’t deserve to win as his judgment in choosing her was astray.

    I would love to see a woman push through that glass ceiling but Palin can never be it – there is not much intellect there to my way of thinking. She has gut instincts in going after what she wants but that is not enough for high office. There has to be something upstairs.

  35. No 1278

    In hindsight, I can’t see a tangible benefit. It has destabilised the region. Having said that, even accepting that an invasion was necessary, it has been mismanaged from the start and Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are to blame.

  37. [ShowsOn, his taxation policy is an ardent example of socialist redistribution. There is no other description.]

    Progressive taxation is socialist?

    We have progressive taxation you know?

  38. [ShowsOn, his taxation policy is an ardent example of socialist redistribution. There is no other description.]
    This is hilarious G.P because orthodox Marxism proposes that all forms of taxation is a form of exploitation!

    When you criticise taxation, you are actually criticising various forms of liberalism.

  39. GP

    The Government, State and Federal, failed to provide adequate aid. I don’t think Bush did. True, he appointed an unqualified buddy to run FEMA, but he can hardly be held responsible for all of it’s actions. Perhaps I think differently to others because in my job you can often do the best job you or anyone can do under the circumstances and things still go horribly pear-shaped and the patient dies. Fortunately, it’s much more common to stuff up and have things still turn out OK. 😉

  40. No 1284

    Palin is not intellectually challenged. Unlike Bush, she can communicate and she has a capacity to learn. She is a successful mayor and governor. There is a lot going for her.

  42. [Progressive taxation is socialist?

    We have progressive taxation you know?]
    Or what about the fact his idol John Howard introduced a GST which was devised by the French Socialist party.

  48. [she can communicate and she has a capacity to learn.]

    So she’s human?

    [This is hilarious G.P because orthodox Marxism proposes that all forms of taxation is a form of exploitation!]

    I suggest you the Manifesto again. Page 32, Penguin Books 2004:

    Measures the proletariat will take when they achieve political supremacy; “#3 A heavy progressive or guaranteed income tax.”

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