Rendezvous with Destiny

Election Night Liveblogging!!! - Part II

00:20: A fine speech, a wonderful evening. A final note:

This victory alone is not the change we seek — it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

23:45: Nevada has been called for Obama. I'm just killing time now - Obama is due to speak at midnight.

23:40: Six states are still outstanding. Of these, Obama is currently leading in North Carolina, Indiana, Montana and Nevada. McCain is leading in Missouri. Alaska's polls are still open until midnight.

23:31: Obama won Florida, incidentally. That and Colorado gives him 333 electoral votes. With 96% reporting, Indiana is still too close to call.

23:28: That was a very gracious speech.

23:18: McCain speaks now. "Though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours".

23:15: McCain should speak soon, then Obama.

23:14: McCain has called Obama to concede.

23:10: History Happens. And I like this, from the National Review:

I have many, many disagreements with Barack Obama. But tonight I congratulate him on his victory. I have seen a few critics say, "he won't be my president," but that is nonsense. He will be my president, and I will wish him well, particularly as he takes on the duty of protecting the American people in a dangerous world.

23:06: Obama won Virginia, incidentally.

23:03: Awesome.

23:00: Make it stop! Polls closing. Obama wins California. Obama wins Washington and we have a winner 273 electoral votes he's done it he's done it yeah yeah yeah. Barack Hussein Obama is the next President of the United States. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

22:58: Wonkette's tremendous vision for the future of the Republican Party:

Probably a new Tory-Elitist-Educated party, based in the Northeast and led by … Bloomberg? He has plans. And probably a Western branch led by Arnold. But the dumb-redneck era of politics is over, forever, we hope.

22:57: Obama is ahead in Montana, albeit with 6% reporting. I would love it - love it - if he won there.

22:54: Fair point from Nate Silver. The networks have been fairly restrained in calling races tonight, which I appreciate.

22:53: Note to self - Be in a better time zone in 2012.

22:51: Obama has just pulled ahead in Indiana with 92% reporting. Squeaky.

22:47: I think we may be heading for a call just after 23:00. Obama is up by 170,000 votes in Florida with 80% reporting, and 60,000 in Virginia with 91% reporting. Could be that they get called when California polls close at 23:00.

22:30: Obama leading 51/49 with 69% reporting in Florida. Same in Virginia with 89%. 50/50 in North Carolina with 82% reporting.50/49 for McCain with 89% reporting in Indiana.

22:25: California closes at 23.00. With 55 electoral votes, that should put Obama over the top.

22:17: Obama has now taken the lead in Virginia with 86% of states reporting.

22:13: Sorry to go on about this, but John Bolton is killing me. He's just a fringe character - don't give him a platform.

22:08: Minnesota called for Obama.

22:04: McCain ahead by 9,000 votes in Indiana with 85% reporting.

22:00: Iowa is called for Obama. That's the third Bush state that Obama has won. Excellent. Utah for McCain.

21:56: McCain has a lead of about 30,000 votes in Indiana, with 76% reporting. This one is impossible to predict.

21:50: There's a lull in the action. Still waiting for calls in some of the battleground state. Would be great if we could knock this off by 23:00 so I could get an hour of sleep.

21:38: New Mexico called for Obama. That's the second Obama pick-up, after Ohio. Texas called for McCain.

21:33: 51/48 for Obama in North Carolina with 46% reporting. These battleground states are still too close to call.

21:32: West Virginia and Louisiana called for McCain. Obama is on 195 electoral votes, McCain has 90.

21:29: Battleground state update. 51/48 for Obama in Florida with 54% reporting. 51/48 for McCain in Indiana with 68% reporting. 50/49 for McCain in Virginia with 71% reporting.

21:24: BBC calls Ohio for Obama. The path to victory for McCain is now very, very, very narrow.

21:22: "Obama's a radical... you don't understand the Republican party... McCain had to pick Palin to rally the base..." It's all garbage, and to think he was Ambassador to the UN. You want a reason to vote for Obama, there's one right there.

21:21: John Bolton is on BBC, being a dick.

21:12: The Senate races are going as expected at this stage. One particularly gratifying result was the defeat of Liddy Dole by Democrat Kay Hagen in North Carolina. Dole came out with a filthy ad, implying that Sunday school teacher Hagen was an athiest. This backfired, and Dole, the wife of 1996 Republican candidate Bob Dole, has been deservedly defeated.

21:08: Fox is making the earliest calls of any networks - they've called New Mexico and Ohio for Obama. Again, let's chill out on these early calls.

21:03: Lots of polls closed. Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, Rhode Island called for Obama. Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota for McCain. BBC also calling Georgia for McCain. These last two are a little disappointing; they were both thought of as possible - not probable - Obama pickups. Obama now on 175, McCain on 76 according to the BBC count.

20:58: Obama has won Pinellas County (Tampa, St Petersburg) in Florida, which Bush took in 2004. Fairly big swing to Obama.

20:54: Obama leading 52-48 in Florida with 42% of counties reporting.

20:48: CNN now calls Pennsylvania for Obama. We're still waiting for a real battleground state to be called. Virginia has 46% of precincts reporting, with McCain leading 54-45.

20:42: Some networks called Georgia for McCain. Let's hold fire with that one too.

20:40: Don't want to wee on any campfires, but the very early call of Pennsylvania for Obama is not unanimous - CNN hasn't given it yet.

20:37: Quick break while I make a cup of tea. Time is flying.

20:32: Indiana still too close to call. McCain leading 52% to 47% with 42% of precincts reporting. Only about 16,000 votes in from Lake County, which is Obama's banker.

20:30: Arkansas and Alabama called for McCain.

Election Night Liveblogging!!!

20:22 Time for a new post...

20:18: A quirky little point. I think the BBC is using ABC's projection when calling states, but the BBC has 103 EVs for Obama, whilst ABC has him on 102. Discrepancy may be that ABC isn't giving Obama all of Maine's votes - remember that Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that award electoral votes proportionally.

20:16: It was a very early call for Pennsylvania. I'm jus' saying.

20:09: I've been looking at Chesterfield Co., Virginia. McCain won this county, but this interesting item is the vote count. Obama received about 2,000 votes more than Kerry for a total of 51,000. McCain received 23,000 votes less than Bush for a total of 61,000. Lack of enthusiasm for McCain (or it could be a county that's experienced demographic change, or altered boundaries).

20:05: Oklahoma for McCain. That may actually have been safer than Utah.

20:02: Obama wins Illinois and DC. Holy crap. No, I'm joking. They were as safe for Obama as Utah is for John McCain. Delaware for Obama. Nice one, Joe Biden. Massachusetts, Maryland for Obama. Tennessee for McCain. Connecticut for Obama. Obama is now 77, McCain on 27.

20:00: Pennsylvania is immediately called for Obama. And New Hampshire. Both Kerry states, but also the only two places where McCain was on offence.

19:56: That does mean that McCain is leading by 16 electoral votes to 3. He should get maverick-y and declare victory now.

19:54: South Carolina is called for John McCain. That's not particularly indicative of the final outcome of the whole race.

19:43: Results from Vigo County, Indiana are encouraging for Obama - he's leading by 21,000 to 16,000 with 91% reporting. In 2004, Bush won the county with 21,000 votes in 2004, with Kerry at about 18,500.

19:34: It was very poignant news about the death of Obama's grandmother on Sunday night, but it's comforting that she was able to cast a vote before she died, and that the vote will count.

19:31: I'm using CNN's Election Center website to track vote counts.

19:28: Excuse the filling  - no states are being called. Polls close in W Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina in less than a minute.

19:25: The BBC do have Tad Devine. I like him. He's probably been lured by the opportunity to offer complete sentences without a TV anchor SHOUTING and interrupting. I'm looking at you, Chris Matthews.

19:18: And now it's Christopher Hitchens. Who I always imagine to be lured by a Father Jack-style whiskey bottle on a fishing pole. From Gawker, following Hitchen's Obama endorsement earlier in the year  -

BREAKING: HITCH SMOKES TWO PACKS, DRINKS 5TH OF SCOTCH, ENDORSES TERRORIST

19:15: Ricky Gervais is interviewed at the BBC's awkward-looking election night party in New York. He's interested in the race, very sincere, and backing Obama.

19:11: There are interesting attitudinal results from the exit polls.

19:10: Some encouraging signs from Indiana.

19:08: Watching David Dimbleby on BBC World, incidentally. Oh, to have MSNBC.

19.05 (all times Eastern): And we're off. First states to be called - Kentucky (8 electoral votes) for McCain, Vermont (3) for Obama. No surprises, though keep in mind that Vermont is so safe for Obama that it was called with precisely 0% of the vote counted.

Election Day

I'm following the McCain tradition of going to the cinema on election day. I'll be back with live blogging from midnight GMT.

In Line

A second and more minor caveat. Voters who are waiting in line to vote at the time that the polls close will be allowed to cast a ballot. If turnout is very high, this could mean that people are still casting ballots long after the official closing time. This may not stop the networks from calling a race, and it's unlikely to be such a huge number that it changes any results, but it's still another element to keep in mind.

Exit Polls

Now for the caveats to these timings. First of all, this is when the polls close, not when the votes are counted. The TV networks will call states based on exit polling (shudder).

You may remember my frustration with exit polling from Super Tuesday, when Missouri was called for Clinton, then became a tossup, and then Obama won. In 2004, exit polling seemed to indicate that John Kerry was doing well in some key states, which only made it all the more heartbreaking for his supporters when he eventually lost.

A Forbes article gives some background as to how exit polling is carried out and why the Kerry error occurred:

This problem was due, according to a post-election analysis by Mitofsky, "to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters." This was the largest problem of its kind in the past five presidential elections. Although it was a serious problem for the pollsters, he said, this error did not "lead to a single incorrect NEP [National Election Pool] winner projection on election night."

Polling uberanalyst Mark Blumenthal has written a lot about the topic of exit polling, arguing that:

...the final exit polls are no better and no worse than all other surveys on this score. All encounter non-response bias in some form that all try to "fix" with weighting. We should always be careful to understand the limitations of political surveys, but when it comes to explaining who voted and why, we still have no better resource than the exit poll.

I agree that exit polls give very useful data. I generally believe that polling is a scientifically valid method to ascertain the intentions of a wide variety of people. I just wish there wasn't this need to call elections before the votes have been counted. This has been a two year election - why this rush to have everything clear moments after the polls close?

Election Night

This is the info you need for your election night viewing.

Swing State Project has an excellent map of poll closing times. These are all Eastern Time, which is five hours behind GMT, and seven hours behind Eastern European Time. The first polls close in parts of Kentucky and Indiana at 18:00 Eastern / 23:00 GMT. However, exit poll results won't be given until all polls in those two states have closed at 19:00 / 24:00.

(All polls in Kentucky and Indiana and Kentucky close at 6pm local time, but odd little parts of both states are in the central time zone, and therefore close at 7pm Eastern).

19.00 / 24.00 GMT - polls will have closed in Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Indiana.

19:30/00:30 - Ohio and North Carolina. As Mark Halperin argues, we should already have a decent idea of the outcome of the race if Obama wins Virginia, Indiana and Ohio.

20:00 / 01:00 - Polls close in Missouri and Pennsylvania. The significance here is how quickly Pennsylvania can be called - if it takes a while, it may just be that McCain's crazy plan succeeded.

21:00 / 02:00 - Colorado and New Mexico close. These are really Obama's firewalls - even if Obama fails to win Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio, he will still win if he keeps the Kerry states plus Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico.

22.00 / 03:00 - And if the above scenario happens, this is when Iowa's polls close.

The day before

By crikey it's exciting. It's now 16.30 GMT, which means it's only about 32.5 hours until the first polls close.

Let's take a final look at the Pollster averages. States with a total of 311 electoral votes are strong or lean Obama; whilst McCain has 142. Seven states, worth a total 85 electoral votes are tossups. Allocating these to each candidate, based on the current poll averages, gives McCain 171 electoral votes, and Obama 367.

There is a risk of inflated expectations when you see these numbers - this gives Obama North Dakota, for goodness' sake. The first thing that everyone should be keeping in mind tomorrow night is that a win is a win. Is a win.

That said, the numbers are looking excellent for Obama. He's polling at over 50% in each of those lean/strong states (with the odd exception of the underpolled Rhode Island, a state with 4 electoral votes).

I might as well put my neck on the line and make a prediction - I believe that Obama will win with 329 electoral votes, picking up the 311 plus Montana or South Dakota and North Carolina. I've come to this conclusion on the highly scientific basis that Florida just doesn't feel like an Obama state, and that Indiana and Missouri are just a touch too Republican to pick up.

But, at the end of the day, 270 and up would be fantastic.

State by State

The heroic Chuck Todd of MSNBC, a man fully deserving of a lie down in a darkened room once the election is over, offers things to watch for in every single state.

Electoral College

If you're interested, How Stuff Works has a good primer on the electoral college.

There are a total of 538 electoral college votes available, so you need 270 or more to win the presidency. The number of electoral votes per state is equal to their congressional representation. Every state has two senators, and then a number of congressman that is proportional to their population.

That means that several states have only two senators and one congressman, giving them three electoral college votes (the District of Columbia also has three electoral college votes, but no congressional representation). The largest electoral college state is California, with a total of 55 electoral votes.

This is a good map showing the number of electoral college votes per state. For a summary of the arguments for an against the electoral college, versus a national popular vote, go here.

It's a big map

The New York Times on the state of the race:

Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states — Colorado, Missouri and Nevada — that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004. In what seemed as much a symbolic tweak as a real challenge, Mr. Obama bought advertising time in Arizona, Mr. McCain’s home state.

The Arizona ad buy is just cheeky.