News from the Votemaster

10:00 A.M. EST Update. Start of the Roundup

What a night. Something for (almost) everyone. For Barack Obama and Joe Biden their long journey ends. Obama will go to the White House as the first black President in history but more the second coming of Jack Kennedy than the second coming of Jesse Jackson. Although Obama won't outsource running the country to him, Joe Biden will surely have a major role advising the new wet-behind-the-ears President. With two wars, an economy in shambles, crumbling infrastructure, and a raging culture war barely subsiding, the two of them will have their hands full. On the positive side, Obama got a real mandate. Assuming he wins North Carolina, where he currently leads by 12,000 votes, he will get at least 364 electoral votes, almost equaling the 379 EVs Bill Clinton got in 1996. His strategy of fighting in red states is also vindicated, as he took Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, which hasn't voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, as well as the Bush states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, probably North Carolina and possibly Missouri. He also gets expanded Democratic majorities in both the Senate and House. Of course, now he has to govern and you can't do that by asking a million people on the Internet each to submit one small idea. (Actually you can, but then you get a million small ideas and you still have to govern.

For John McCain it was an unmitigated loss. He gave a gracious concession speech and now has to face a tough reelection fight in Arizona in 2010, most likely against the most popular governor in the country, Janet Napolitano. Worse yet, his reputation is forever sullied due to the nasty campaign he ran. All he did for months was attack Obama: he's too young, he's too inexperienced, he's a socialist, he's a tax-and-spend liberal, he's this, he's that. Hardly a word from the McCain campaign about John McCain. He made many mistakes but the worst of all was hiring Steve Schmidt to run the campaign (although without the title of campaign manager). Schmidt is a small-bore tactician from the Atwater-Rove school of politics who believes if you win the news cycle every day you win the election. It was Schmidt who dreamed up the attack-before breakfast, attack-before-lunch, and attack-before dinner strategy. McCain has run for public office many times before and never has he run a campaign like this before. In the past, he basically said: "What you see is what you get." He ran as himself and was comfortable in his own skin. He was visibly uncomfortable this year being managed and having to attack all the time. It's not his nature. Remember, this is a man who crafted actual legislation with two of the most liberal members of the Senate, Russ Feingold (on campaign finance reform) and Ted Kennedy (on immigration).

Probably McCain's biggest single mistake, other than choosing Schmidt, was picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, although it is very likely that Schmidt forced him to do this to placate a restive base. Left to his own devices, McCain would probably have chosen his long-time friend Joe Lieberman or former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, who would have attracted votes in the center and put Pennsylvania in play. Palin was clearly out of her league. While she has about as much experience as Obama and is great at reading somebody else's speeches from the TelePrompTer, she was so woefully prepared for the job that the campaign hid her in plain view for two months. She gave two interviews, both disasters, and held no press conferences. If she were President and Putin, Chavez, Ahmadinejad or somebody else did something crazy, saying: "Oh my gosh, what a nasty man" and pointing her finger just wouldn't cut it. She revved up the base as expected, but Rove's strategy of 50% plus one vote by turning out the base didn't work this time as the country really wanted change. In the end, she was a net liability as independents were repelled by her complete lack of gravitas, far right ideas and the gubernatorial ethics of Spiro Agnew. Being able to field dress a moose gets you only so far (and besides, don't moose normally go around naked? Maybe it is too cold for them in Alaska).

But Palin's race is not yet run. She proved to be a strong campaigner and drew big crowds. Her future is uncertain and to a large extent depends on what happens in the Alaska Senate race, which at this moment is still undecided. Despite being convicted on seven felony counts last week, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) leads Anchorage mayor Mark Begich by 3,000 votes in his Senate reection race with some votes still uncounted. The polls got this one completely wrong. If Stevens wins, there is an excellent chance the Democrats will move to expel him from the Senate. The Republicans will not want to appear to support a convicted criminal and will probably vote for expulsion. If this happens, there will be a special election in Alaska to fill the seat. Very likely, Sarah Palin will run and win, as she is still popular in Alaska. Come 2012, she will have 2 years' experience as governor and four years' experience as a United States senator. She will be well positioned to run for the Republican nomination although she may have to contend with Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and others. But she will actually have to learn something about government in the next four years. You can't run for President while hiding from the press. Her model will be Ronald Reagan, another right-winger who ran (for the Republican nomination) in 1976 and lost (to Jerry Ford), but came back to win a whopping victory in 1980. But Reagan was governor of California for 8 years, arguably the second toughest executive job in the country. But before she runs for President on a platform of inevitability, she should probably have a word with her (soon-to-be?) Senate colleague, the junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.

As of this moment (10 A.M. EST), several races are still open including the North Carolina and Missouri presidential races, Senate seats in Alaska, Oregon, Minnesota, and Georgia, and House seats in AL-02, CA-04, NJ-03, and WA-08.

Even for Republicans there was good news. The Democrats did not get 60 seats in the Senate so they can't invoke cloture on straight party votes. But the Republicans they have to use the weapon of the filibuster with great care. If Obama proposes extending health care to children (S-CHIP) and the Republicans wage a full-bore filibuster to prevent children from getting health care, they have the votes to kill the bill but there will be hell to pay in 2010 as Democrats will campaign on the theme of "Republicans hate children."

Also, it is yet possible that Obama names Sen. Arlen Specter to the cabinet. Spector is up for reelection in 2010, will be 80 years old then, and has cancer. Furthermore, he is likely to face popular governor Ed Rendell (D) in that race. If Obama makes an offer he not only shows his bipartisanship by putting Republicans in the cabinet, but he flips a Senate seat as Gov. Rendell will probably appoint himself to the Senate. Another cabinet possibility is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), whose appointment would also flip a Senate seat. Of course they could object and choose to remain in an almost powerless minority under the banner of "Party first." Who knows. Finally, while the totals are not in yet, the Democrats did not sweep the House the way the Republicans expected.

That's all for now. Time to get this posted. More later and certainly more tomorrow. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

4:00 EST Update. Historic Night

What a historic night in many ways. I'm going to bed for a while now. More later in the day. The site did extremely well. With three servers running lighttpd we were able to handle 300,000 visitors/hour and 2500 requests/sec at the peak. The total number of visitors yesterday was just over 3 million.

The Onion summarized the election as only it can with the headline: "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job"

At last count, Al Franken was leading Norm Coleman in Minnesota by 2200 votes with 98% counted. In Alaska, Ted Stevens was miraculously leading Mark Begich by 4000 votes with 81% reporting. If Stevens is elected to the Senate, he will probably be expelled in January leading to an election, most likely between Begich and Sarah Palin. Given the heavy Republican dominance of Alaska, Palin would probably win that one. With four years in the Senate, she would make a much more plausible candidate in 2012. If, on the other hand, Begich wins, then Palin goes back to Alaska to shoot moose.

3:00 EST Update. Four States Could Go Either Way

While Barack Obama won the White House, there are four states which could yet go either way. They are North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, and Montana.

2:30 EST Update. House Races Won and Lost

Wow. Lots of numbers. Below are the numbers for some of the key House races. Here are some comments on them. These are all tentative since some of the races are not concluded yet. First, this wasn't quite the blowout the Democrats were hoping for. They definitely picked up some House seats, but probably not the 30 they had envisioned yesterday. Unlike 2006, when no Democrat running for office was defeated, several incumbent Democrats were beaten yesterday. Let's look at those first. In FL-16, Tim Mahoney went down to defeat after some unknown fraction of his extramarital affairs came to light, along with his paying hush money to one of his girlfriends. Absent his zipper-management problem, he would have won. In KS-02, Nancy Boyda (D) was beaten by state treasurer Lynn Jenkins (R) after survived a tough primary fight. In LA-06, Don Cazayoux (D) won a special election earlier this year but couldn't hold the seat in the general election. In TX-22, Tom Delay's old seat, Nick Lampson (D) won in 2006 because DeLay's name was on the ballot (against his will) and Republicans had to write in Shelley Sekula-Gibbs name with a trackball. But the district is too Republican and Lampson lost it.

But the Democrats won many more seats than they lost. In AZ-01, Ann Kirkpatrick picked up Rick Renzi's open seat by a wide margin. In CO-04, a concerted effort by DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen to knock off firebrand Marilyn Musgrave succeeded, replacing her with Betsey Markey. in CT-04, businessman Jim Himes (D) knocked off the last Republican congressman in New England. Every single member of the New England congressional delegation is now a Democrat. In no other region of the country is thee a shutout.

In Florida, Suzanne Kosmas (D) defeat Jack Abramoff's golfing partner Tom Feeney (R) in FL-24, a bit of unfinished business left over from 2006. Debbie Halvorson (D) took the open seat in IL-11 although Dan Seals (D) failed to unseat Mark Kirk (R) in IL-10. In MI-09, Gary Peters (D) knocked off Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R). In MN-03, Ashwin Madia (D), one of the few Indian Americans in politics, failed to beat Erik Paulsen for Jim Ramstad's open seat. Also in Minnesota, Michele Bachman (R) nearly shot herself in the stomach with her intemperate remarks on Hardball, but she barely survived. In North Carolina's NC-08 district, the high unknown high school teacher, Larry Kissell (D), who ran for Congress in 2006 and came within 329 votes of winning finished the job this time and easily put away multimillionaire veteran congressman Robin Hayes (R).

In New York, two seats switched. As expected, the soap opera of NY-13 ended in a Democratic rout, with Mike MaMahon (D) moving from the city council to Congress. In NY-29 Eric Massa (D) beat Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) in their second face-off. In PA-03, Kathy Dahlkemper (D) defeated Rep. Phil English (R). Paul Kanjorski held his seat in PA-11 although the polls predicted his demise. Jack Murtha in PA-12 got a warning not to call his constituents racists, but in the end, his voters accepted his apology and kept him. Finally, in the open seat VA-11 in Northern Virginia, Gerald Connolly won an easy race, as expected in this increasingly Democratic region.

1:35 EST Update. House Update

Here is an update on key House races.

1:00 EST Update. Popular Vote.

With 76% of the vote counted, here is the popular vote.

12:15 EST Update. Senate Races Updated.

The Senate Races have been Updated. Minnesota is too close to call. Looks like the Democrats will have 58 or 59 seats, depending on Minnesota.

11:56 EST Update. House Results

11:21 EST Update. McCain Concedes

At 11:21 PM EST John McCain conceded the election and congratulated Sen. Obama on his victory.

11:05 EST Update. CNN Calls the Election for Obama

At 11:02 P.M., CNN called Virginia for Obama and with it the presidency. Barack Obama will the the 44th President of the United States.

10:34 EST Update. Popular Vote So Far

Here are the popular votes counted so far. No votes from the Vote-heavy Democratic West Coast have been counted yet, so Obama's percentage will increase when they come in.

10:10 EST Update. Senate Race Calls

CNN has called the Senate races in New Hampshire, New Mexico, and North Carolina for the Democrats and Maine and Kentucky for the Republicans.

10:00 EST Update. CNN has called New Mexico for Obama

On the basis of the exit polls, CNN has called New Mexico for Obama. It is another nail in McCain's coffin.

Here are some key House races.

9:35 EST Update. ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox call Ohio for Obama

Four networks have now called Ohio for Obama. No Republican in history has ever been elected President without Ohio.

9:20 EST Update. McConnell wins Kentucky

CNN has called the Kentucky Senate race for Mitch McConnell on the basis of the exit polls. With this victory, the Republicans have a good chance of keeping the Democrats to 59 seats. If Al Franken wins Minnesota, the Democrats will probably end up with 59 seats. It is likely that the Georgia race will go to a runoff in Dec.

9:15 PM EST Update. Hagan wins North Carolina

Kay Hagan (D) defeated Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) for the Senate seat long held by Jesse Helms.

8:40 PM EST Update. CNN Calls Pennsylvania

Based on the exit polls, CNN has now also called Pennsylvania. Without Pennsylvania, McCain has a very, very steep hill to climb. He has now lost New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the only Kerry states he has a chance to win. He has almost no chance in Iowa or New Mexico. That means he has to win every single swing state. He has no margin for error at all.

8:20 PM EST Update. CNN Calls Some States

CNN has called Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts for Obama and South Carolina and Tennesse for McCain.

8:15 PM EST Update. Obama Wins Pennsylvania

NBC has called Pennsylvania for Obama based on exit polls. Without Pennsylvania, it will take a near miracle for McCain to win.

7:30 PM EST Update. Test

Here is the blank map. It will get filled in as data come in. Be VERY careful to understand that with a couple of percent of the data in you may see strange results, like Obama sweeping Texas (could happen if Austin reports first) or McCain sweeping New York (if some upstate counties come in first). The RSS feed probably won't work tonight. Sorry.