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 |
What Aussies expect from Obama: http://umrresearch.com.au/doc/postelectionobamanov.pdf
[she has a capacity to learn]
That remains to be seen
GP:
You can actually be pretty reasonable for a conservative – and we are agreed on VSU – though thanks to Mr Joyce it will be back to the old days of unions and PLO/Hamas supporting campaigns
It’s still striking that, 145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the party of Lincoln is handing over to the first black POTUS
No 1291
Yes Oz, but I also recognise that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.
No 1300
You asked whether a progressive tax was socialist. I responded.
Obama has now moved past Bush’s 2004 national vote with over 62 million votes, 5% of precincts still to report
GP
Polls indicate that most Iraqis don’t agree with you.
[It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.]
Adam Smith, Father of Socialism.
enjaybee, I was using CNN and haven’t checked their website for several hours, moment ……. I’ve said 364 as it was my understanding based upon numbers I saw when last there that is what they had, I’ll look again …..
CNN have not officially called MO, IN or NC however, the numbers they have show virtually all precincts counted. …… Obama is clearly going to get NC and IN and not MO unless something very strange happens.
MO – McCain up by 5853 100% counted
IN – Obama up by 22986 99% counted
NC – Obama up by 12160 100% counted
If that turns out different later on, I think we will all be surprised 😀
@ Diogenes
Have you seen many Iraqi polls?
[Yes Oz, but I also recognise that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.]
I wonder how Ba’ath would go in any elections.
[Palin is not intellectually challenged.]
Evidence!? She thinks Earth is less than 7000 years old. Enough said.
[No 1288
The principle of wealth equalisation is socialist ShowsOn.]
This is utter rubbish G.P., and I say this to you with as much humility as I can muster (which tonight isn’t much). There are numerous strands of liberalism that suggest a small amount of redistribution is justifiable to produce a society that doesn’t degenerate into anarchy. For example, if you don’t have some form of social security, you are likely to simply promote crime as starving people revert to burglary. Isn’t it a small price to pay to give minimal conditional hand outs, in order to stop crime?
Even arch-libertarian Robert Nozick thinks there should be taxation to fund law enforcement and a judiciary. Of course other strands of liberalism like John Rawls’ suggest that this isn’t enough, but to suggest that any form of taxation a) simply equals wealth equalisation, and not the formation of stable society, and b) is socialist is just a first year political philosophy howler.
And I repeat my earlier point. Marxism is one of the few political philosophies that opposes ALL taxation on philosophical grounds. So it is ironic that you are essentially dishing up a Marxist argument.
[Republicans revert to smears all the time. I mean they spent the last fortnight calling Obama a SOCIALIST!]
Yeah, America is the sort of country where some consider it an insult to call others liberals.
In Australia it’s the same, only the word is spelt with a capital ‘L‘.
Dario @ 1302, you beat me to it 😉
No 1307
Well that’s to be expected; given a choice to be embroiled in a deadly war or under a stable, but despotic, regime; the latter is going to be favourable.
GP
still waiting…….
[Evidence!? She thinks Earth is less than 7000 years old. Enough said.]
Where does she think her precious Alaskan oil came from?
[Marxism is one of the few political philosophies that opposes ALL taxation on philosophical grounds.]
???
Got a counter to my quote?
[Yeah, America is the sort of country where some consider it an insult to call others liberals.]
But as Chris Matthews on MSNBC said a few time today “liberalism wins in the long run”.
I think this thread has now reached the end of its useful life.
*gone*
I still think Pawlenty has a better shot in 2012 and people like Jindal will wait till 2016.
Reactions from around the world photos …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/reactions-around-the-worl_n_141187.html
[Yeah, America is the sort of country where some consider it an insult to call others liberals.]
Yep, amazing; as I have said before, the next stop is to criticize someone for believing in democracy.
No 1312
ShowsOn, I did say that I believe in a flat-tax with a reasonably high tax-free threshold. So by default that results in some redistribution.
And yes, Marx does support progressive taxation. I don’t know which manifesto you read.
[Dario @ 1302, you beat me to it ]
Realistically, she has gotten where she is now by her looks, and not much else. Right now I just can’t see her being able to be electable in 4 years time, but as we saw today, anything is possible in the USA. Her biggest problem will be whether she is able to move away from the right, because that is what she will need to do. The Republican base just isn’t enough, and as we are beginning to see in Australia with the Liberals, that loyal older voting bloc is starting to die out.
Juliem
My apologies. On checking I’ve found that I gave NC to McCain so 364 is correct at this point in time. I thought that I had NC for Obama on my spreadsheet and that was part of my 349. I did have NC for Obama at various stages but changed my mind at the last moment.
[I still think Pawlenty has a better shot in 2012]
I agree Glen
Most Americans will have forgotten who she was by 2010 anyway
[Got a counter to my quote?]
Orthodox Marxism is opposed to the entire principle of justice. I am not referring to what it morphed into say in the USSR. I mean as a fundamental political philosophy Marxism proposes that justice is simply a principle designed by the minority to oppress the working class. That is one of the reasons it proposes abolishing private property, and with it income earned per unit of work. Instead you get a fixed pension and a crappy house.
No 1313
I find the entire Labor party insulting, particularly the union rabble that run around in the darkness of night to cut down Liberal party corflutes.
[Most Americans will have forgotten who she was by 2010 anyway]
If she doesn’t get to Washington that is
Palin may end up being a Huckabee style spoiler in the 2012 primaries when the Republicans if they want any hope of wresting back a few formally red states they need a moderate someone like Pawlenty.
[ShowsOn, I did say that I believe in a flat-tax with a reasonably high tax-free threshold. So by default that results in some redistribution.]
So why do you keep associating redistribution with socialism!?
If Palin is considered a presidential candidate, they may as well give Elisabeth Hasslebeck a go.
Geez, Palin’s image is set in concrete now. Quayle could never recover from the initial assessment and he was VP. Palin should get herself a half hour show on Fox and count her money.
No 1328
Quite clearly, Marx was living in fairy land. He nonetheless supported progressive income taxation in the Communist Manifesto.
[I mean as a fundamental political philosophy Marxism proposes that justice is simply a principle designed by the minority to oppress the working class.]
It denounces bourgeois justice as thus, not the definition of “justice” in general. When the working class take power, they will be the “oppressors” and not the minority. So that’s why progressive taxation is prescribed, back when he was actually prescribing stuff, as an action to take when power was taken.
Reactions from around the US photos ….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/election-reactions-around_n_141188.html#
Glen, somehow I don’t think placing a moderate in will solve the Republicans’ problems. On the contrary it could stop the ‘base’ conservative elements from bothering to vote.
[He nonetheless supported progressive income taxation in the Communist Manifesto.]
Smart fellow.
But just because he supported it doesn’t mean it is socialism… unless for you logic is:
All dogs have 4 legs,
My cat has 4 legs,
Therefore my cat is a dog…
In the end you cannot rely just on your base voting to win an election.
I realise that, they (GOP) need to change, move to the centre.
[@ Diogenes
Have you seen many Iraqi polls?]
Gallup etc often send a few masochistic pollsters out to Iraq to find out how many want the US to leave immediately (about 95%), wish they never came (about 90%), think they are better off now (10%) etc etc. I’ll link an example. And if someone points out that this poll was in 2007 before the surge I might get violent. 👿
Iraqis Say They Were Better Off Under Hussein
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/14282
No 1337
True. As I said, if Palin had a command for the issues, her religion and guns wouldn’t be a talking point.
[Glen, somehow I don’t think placing a moderate in will solve the Republicans’ problems. On the contrary it could stop the ‘base’ conservative elements from bothering to vote.]
They’re in a bit of a pickle aren’t they. 😆
“Nation finally shitty enough to make social progress”
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_finally_shitty_enough_to
[
Biggest Voter Turnout In 90 Years, Since Women Won The Right
Americans turned out at the polls in record numbers today.
According to MSNBC:
Americans were voting in numbers unprecedented since women were given the franchise in 1920. Secretaries of state predicted turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Missouri and Maryland.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/biggest-voter-turnout-in_n_141189.html
]
[I find the entire Labor party insulting, particularly the union rabble that run around in the darkness of night to cut down Liberal party corflutes.]
Well it’s likely that many people find the whole Liberal Party insulting, particularly the extremist rabble that run around in the darkness of night to distribute fraudulent election leaflets. (An incident that made news bulletins around the world).
Oh, and incidents like this …
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Heffernan-accused-of-stealing-vote-cards/2007/03/24/1174597950298.html
[Heffernan accused of stealing vote cards
Greens members are alleging they were harassed by Liberal Party members, including Senator Bill Heffernan, at two Sydney polling sites.
NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said party members went to police to report being harassed by young Liberals in the electorate of Balmain, in Sydney’s inner-west, and by Senator Heffernan in the seat of Sydney.]
AAP, 24 March 2007
No 1344
Juliem, why do you only have once source for your news?
1343 – Love The Onion:
[Bush: ‘Can I Stop Being President Now?’
When informed by Washington Post reporter David Broder that his presidency would continue through early January, Bush stared at him quizzically, sighed, and shuffled silently back into the White House.]
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_can_i_stop_being_president
[harassed by young Liberals in the electorate of Balmain, in Sydney’s inner-west, ]
GP’s idea of a day out.
No 1348
Was anyone charged and convicted? I think not. They’re meaningless allegations.
No 1345
The leaflet scandal was a disgrace.