Archive for November 5th, 2008

US Election 3:10pm Update: Obama Victory

Well it’s over, Obama has more than enough to win, the only question now is by how much.
Electoral College Votes:
Fox News: Obama 220 – 138 McCain (Looks like the website has stopped working again)
ABC News: Obama 284 – 185 McCain
CBS News: Obama 283 – 145 McCain
CNN News: Obama 287 – 139 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 51% – 48% McCain (Obama leads by approximately 2.5 million votes)

House of Congress seats:
Democrats: 227
Republicans: 149
Change: Democrats +7

Senate seats:
Democrats: 55
Republicans 40
Change: Democrats +4

I’m not going to bite my tongue…I think that the US has made a very big mistake today, although I will congratulate them on continuing my run of getting every election that I’ve bothered to predict since 2004 wrong, both domestically and internationally, with the exception of the recent WA election.

Who wants to find a nice quiet out of the way planet for me which doesn’t have all of these awful election results from the last four years on it?

In all seriousness though, congratulations to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democrats team, and best of luck for the next four years.

Samuel

7 comments November 5th, 2008 at 03:17pm

US Election: 1:55pm Update

Electoral College Votes:
Fox News: Obama 200 – 90 McCain (Website still broken – using webstream for figures)
ABC News: Obama 200 – 130 McCain
CBS News: Obama 199 – 124 McCain
CNN News: Obama 199 – 78 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 50% – 49% McCain (Obama leads by approximately 300,000 votes)

Bellwethers:
Missouri: McCain 53% – 45% Obama (13% counted).
Ohio (Historically, Republicans need this to win): Obama 54% – 45% McCain (24% counted).

I’ve been up since 10pm and I need some sleep. I’m going to take a nap until 3pm. By then, we might just have a definite result.

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 01:56pm

US Election: 1pm Hour

Electoral College Votes:
Fox News: Broken again. Obama 0 – 0 McCain.
ABC News: Obama 102 – 49 McCain
CBS News: Obama 102 – 54 McCain
CNN News: Obama 102 – 43 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 50% – 50% McCain (Obama leads by approximately 12,000 votes)

Bellwethers:
Missouri: McCain 54% – 44% Obama (2% counted).
Ohio (Historically, Republicans need this to win): Obama 60% – 39% McCain (3% counted).

I’m taking 45 minutes off for lunch now.

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 01:01pm

US Election: The Midday Hour

The Bellwether state of Missouri has just closed the doors on the polls, and the results will start coming in shortly.

At this time John McCain is leading the electoral college vote by 21-3, however Obama is leading the popular vote 53%-47%.

Florida, with 27 electoral college votes to give away is being led by Obama 56%-44% with 27% counted. John McCain is leading Virginia 56%-43% with 16% counted. It has 13 votes to give away.

12:03: Early votes now flooding in from states which have just had the polls close. It puts Obama a long way ahead on 81-39.

12:06pm: ABC News have Obama leading 104-34, although ABC are relying on their own exit polls for some of these states. Fox News have Obama leading 77-39. CNN 77-34 in Obama’s favour.

12:09pm: Confusion as I watch ABC America’s coverage…their reporter is wearing a headset microphone, and holding a handheld microphone which he is talking in to.

12:14pm: Ohio, which has been a bellwether state in every election except two since 1896, is currently 68% in favour of Obama with less than 1% of the vote counted. Results are not yet flowing in from Missouri.

12:27pm: Just doing a bit of blogwatching and I stumbled across the most ill-informed thing that I’ve read today. Simon Rumble thinks that the US electoral system is as simple as ticking one box. Err, no Simon, it’s not just a presidential election…just check what people are voting for in Nevada. 45 things to vote for. Simon, do some research.

12:30pm:
Fox News: Obama 81 – 39 McCain
ABC News: Obama 102 – 34 McCain
CBS News: Obama 81 – 39 McCain
CNN News: Obama 81 – 34 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 51% – 49% McCain

12:32pm:
Bellwethers:
Ohio (Republicans pick this up every time that they win the race): Obama 65% – 34% McCain
Missouri (True bellwether): No results yet.

12:40pm:
Fox News: Site not working properly.
ABC News: Obama 102 – 49 McCain
CBS News: Obama 102 – 54 McCain
CNN News: Obama 102 – 34 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 49% – 50% McCain (McCain leads by approximately 50,000 votes)

12:45pm:
Bellwethers:
Ohio (Republicans pick this up every time that they win the race): Obama 64% – 35% McCain (less than 1% counted).
Missouri (True bellwether): McCain 60% – 39% Obama (less than 1% counted).

12:50pm:
Fox News: Looks like they’re rebuilding their vote count or something. Obama 81 – 39 McCain. Very outdated.
ABC News: Obama 102 – 49 McCain
CBS News: Obama 102 – 54 McCain
CNN News: Obama 102 – 34 McCain
Popular vote: Obama 49% – 50% McCain (McCain leads by approximately 30,000 votes)

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 12:03pm

US Election: 11am Update

The polls are now closed in six states, and the early vote is in favour of John McCain.

CBS News is reporting that John McCain has 51% of the popular vote, Barack Obama has 48%. The more important news is the electoral college results, which currently have John McCain leading 8-3. 270 is the required number for victory.

You may have noticed that I’ve added the CBS News results ticker to the sidebar. It’s wider than the sidebar so it might break the site in some browsers. I’m still testing it, but if you spot any problems, please let me know.

Update 11:12am: Exit polls:
Fox News: Barack Obama 57% – John McCain 40%
CBS News: 75% say Bush is out of touch. End Update

Update 11:32am:
West Virginia has now been awarded to John McCain by CBS News. That puts McCain in the lead by 13-3. End Update

Update 11:35am:
Fox have joined the party and agree that it’s McCain 13-3, however Obama is leading the popular vote 51%-48%.
Currently in the senate race it’s the Democrats in front 41-27 with 51 required for a majority. End Update

Update 11:39am:
Fox News have awarded Delaware to Obama. Delaware is worth three electoral college votes, so that would make the count 13-6 in favour of McCain. End Update

Update 11:46am: Fox News have just retracted Delaware, which brings them back in line with CBS News, with a 13-3 lead to Obama. ABC (US) News and CNN are calling it an 8-3 lead for McCain. End Update

Update 11:50am: CBS’ have just given South Carolina to McCain, and that gives McCain a 21-3 lead. The popular vote is currently 54% in favour of Obama. End Update

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 11:05am

US Election: Early Results

Counting has begun in Maine, New Hampshire, Indiana, and Kentucky. .
Maine, which accounts for four electoral college votes, is 67%-33% in favour of Obama with 0.163% of the vote counted.
New Hampshire, which also has four electoral college votes, is also 67%-33% in favour of Barack Obama with 0.664% of the vote counted.
Indiana, with 11 electoral college votes, is 50%-48% in favour of Barack Obama, with 1.415% of the vote counted.
Kentucky with 8 electoral college votes, 62%-35% in favour of John McCain with 0.452% of the vote counted.
To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral college votes, so it’s fair to say that states like California, Texas and Florida with 55, 34 and 27 electoral college votes respectively are going to be much more important than these states…but to the same extent, every vote counts, and even a small state could make the difference.

Update 10:46am: CBS News is reporting that John McCain is leading the popular vote 53% to 46%. End Update

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 10:38am

US Election: The Home Stretch

The polls are opening across the US, and CBS News is reporting that Barack Obama has already cast his vote in the presence of his family. John McCain is expected to cast his vote in about an hour from now.

We’re not going to see any results coming in until at least late this morning Canberra time, and we probably won’t see anything substantial until mid-afternoon, especially as polls in the western states won’t close until then. Regardless of the outcome, there is going to be a lot of history made today. We’re either going to have the first black president, or the oldest person to start their first term as president, plus the first female vice-president.

As for who will win, well I’m sticking by my prediction of a narrow McCain/Palin victory, and I think the thing which will push them over the line is the tape which got a very strong run in the US media yesterday where Barack Obama was talking about his carbon trading plans, and said that anybody can build a new coal power station, but the carbon trading scheme will send them bankrupt…he also talked about how the price of electricity will “necessarily skyrocket” under his scheme. I’ve linked to an op-ed piece rather than a news article here simply because the op-ed piece has the audio of the quotes whereas the news articles seem to mostly be focussing on one quote, or the other, or the reaction of Sarah Plain who has been visiting some of the “coal states” to hammer the tape home.

Barack Obama is still leading almost every poll out there by about seven points, and he is obviously a very good chance of winning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a bit of a sympathy vote in his favour due to his grandmother passing away in the last couple of days. I think that the vast majority of people voting will be doing so on issues of substance rather than a sympathy vote, but a 1% sympathy vote wouldn’t surprise me.

That said, as I’ve said before, I think this is going to be a lot closer than the polls indicate, and I note that the US mainstream media are speculating about the possibility of Obama/Biden winning the popular vote (eg, receiving more votes than McCain/Palin) but still losing the election based on the electoral college distribution system. If it were to happen, it would be a repeat of the 2000 election where Democratic candidate Al Gore received 537,179 more votes than Republican candidate George W. Bush but lost the election due to the electoral college distribution by 271 votes to 266 votes. Prior to 2000, the winner of the popular vote lost the election in 1876 and 1888.

A few things of interest which I’ve noticed or had my attention drawn to in the last few days:
A Fox News pre-election poll shows Obama leading by seven points, but only by one point amongst the poll respondents who claim to have already voted:

With just one day to go before Election Day, Barack Obama has a 7 percentage point lead over John McCain — 50-43 percent, according to the final FOX News pre-election poll of likely voters.

At the end of October, Obama led by 47-44 percent among likely voters, and by 49-40 percent about ten days ago (Oct 20-21). The last time McCain led was immediately following the Republican Convention when he had a 45-42 percent edge (September 8-9 among registered voters).

Looking at the preferences among key groups, the most important has to be independents and Obama has a slim 43 percent-38 percent advantage. Obama has had a single-digit edge among independents for the last month.

Party loyalty is fairly balanced. Obama receives the backing of 89 percent of Democrats and McCain has 88 percent of Republicans.
[..]
Obama’s lead among those who say they have already voted has almost disappeared. He has a 1-point edge — just 48-47 percent — in this latest poll, down from a 52-43 percent lead previously (Oct 28-29).

Election analyst Paul N. Marston, who has apparently been correct about the outcome of every election that he has had a prediction on in the last 45 years, is predicting a massive 52 electoral college votes victory by McCain/Palin.

A possible omen bet for the day. Outgoing first lady Laura Bush is having a birthday today. She turns 62. Will her birthday wish be for a McCain/Palin victory, and will she remember to not tell anyone about her wish?

Centrebet, a few days ago when I placed $20 on John McCain, were offering odds of $1.05 for Barack Obama, and $9.00 for John McCain. 24 hours ago, not long before they closed the market and removed the odds from their website, were offering $1.08 for Barack Obama and about $7.50 for John McCain. It’s still a large lead for Barack Obama, but it shows that a significant number of people have been willing to part with their hard-earned money in support of John McCain in the last few days.

KXNT Las Vegas‘ webpoll currently has McCain/Palin on 90% (no change from two days ago) and Obama/Biden on 5% (one point up from two days ago).

2GB’s poll has McCain/Palin on 62% and Obama/Biden on 38% (a four point gain to McCain/Palin in the last two days).

As per tradition, the tiny town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire was the first to open its doors to voters. The results, Obama/Biden won 15 votes to 6.

I intend on updating this blog during the day as results come in. I had plenty of sleep yesterday in expectation of not getting much (if any) sleep today. It’s an exciting day…and just think, there an election in New Zealand on the weekend to keep my excitement levels up there. I’ve barely checked in on that one, but at the moment, Centrebet believe that incumbent Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark ($3.50) will lose to the National Party’s John Key ($1.30).

Samuel

November 5th, 2008 at 02:10am


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