The View From Six Fifteen AM

The Democrats didn't perform nearly as well as expected, folks. The 140 million voter turnout was much closer to 2004's 120 million, meaning the 2004 turnout models were correct. All those Obama ground game voters? They didn't materialize. With 95% of precincts in, about 117 million people voted for President, meaning the final numbers will be about 123 million, barely over 2004's 121 million.

Obama flipped seven states so far: VA, OH, FL, IA, CO, NM, and NV. IN, NC, and MO are still too close to call. The thing that bothers me the most is that Obama came terribly close to winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote. His combined margin of victory in the states he flipped was only about 1.2 million votes, and right now he's winning the popular vote 62 million to 55 million. If McCain got, say, 1.5 million more votes in the states Obama flipped, we'd be in the nightmare scenario right now: A 2004 map with a number of states too close to call and almost certainly headed to multiple recounts. We'd be up to our necks in lawyers and lawsuits at this point.

The GOP plan to sue was ready to go. Obama really only won this election by 1% when you break down the math in the battleground states.

It was that close...scarily so.

Don't think the GOP hasn't noticed. Their voter suppression efforts almost completely canceled out the monstrous Democratic registration drive, and the Republicans got out the vote. We were very nearly in a situation where it would have been 60 million votes for Obama and 56 million for McCain, and 3 states separated by only about 35,000 votes total would have then decided the nation.

In other words we almost ended up in a situation where a 50-47% Obama popular vote win could have produced an electoral map identical to 2004, 286-252 for McCain.

We stopped them this time. We almost did not.

No matter how you voted and who you voted for, there are deep concerns with the electoral college still.

Now having said that, how the hell is Ted Stevens winning?