Looking Good, Will Kerry Concede?
Well, after sleeping for about seven hours, I am back. Right now, Bush is leading by 136,211 votes in Ohio, he's all but taken Iowa and New Mexico as well. He leads with a 3.5 million vote popular vote lead, making Dubya (No. 43) the first president to win a popular vote majority since 1988 and George Herbert Walker Bush (No. 41).
The Kerry campaign looks like it plans to hang in for quite awhile, which seems potentially unreasonable. In 2000, Bush hung in because he was leading in the Electoral College, despite being behind in the electoral college. In 2004, Kerry seems to be behind in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. In essence, if this becomes a “multi-week election,” it will be the second time the Dems have made us suffer that in four years.
Election Night Part VIII
I'm going to go to bed. Right now, Bush is barely leading in Iowa, although Iowa's election workers are apparently tired (!) and the machine for counting broke, so we won't hear what happened there until tomorrow. In Ohio, the lead for Bush has grown to 126,345 votes — that looks really good… let's hope it holds.
It looks like Thune will oust Daschle in North Dakota amazingly. Blunt looks good in Missouri for the governorship. Overall, that is one gain in governors for the GOP and two gains in the Senate.
Election Night Part VII: No Victory Tonight?
It is starting to look like we might be waiting until November 13 for a final result (for some strange reason, “provisional” ballots will not be counted for 11 days). CNN is also reporting that there are rumors in the Kerry campaign about suing for a recount in Iowa if Bush keeps his very narrow lead there. On the other hand, CNN suggests that the tide might turn against the Kerry campaign if they try to stretch this out, since it appears fairly certain that Kerry will not lead in the popular vote.
Election Night Part VI
Drudge has declared Bush the winner, Fox has all but done so as well. Fox News and NBC News have both projected a Bush Ohio win — let's hope they are right. Presently, with 91% of precincts reporting, Bush has a 51-49 lead. Overall, it is Bush 249 vs. Kerry 211, by CNN's numbers.
Paul Begala noted that this election will break one long held rule: (1) America doesn't abandon a war time president [if Kerry wins] or (2) America does not reelect presidents with less than a 50% approval rating [if Bush wins]. If (2) is true, it seems to me that perhaps the answer is that the polls have been poor, just as the exit polls have been.
As a side note, Electoral Vote, one of the two major pre-election electoral vote projection sites, is being operated by Andrew Tanenbaum. AST, as he is often known, is best remembered for a major debate in 1992 with Linus Torvalds over microkernels (Minix) vs. monolithic kernels (Linux). AST wrote Minix and has, recently, defended the originality of the GNU/Linux codebase from SCO's attacks.
Election Night Part V
Well, Fox News appears to have already given Ohio to Bush, but I think that might be jumping ahead of things a bit still. Voting still has not ended in the Buckeye State and personally I think CNN's more conservative method of awarding states is a good thing (especially, given continuing voting in these states). CNN stayed away from broadcasting exit polling and projects until after the polling places in each state closed — a very nice move compared with previous elections. Kudos to the CNN team which has been doing very good tonight — Wolf Blitzer, Aaron Brown, Larry King, Jeff Greenfield, Carlos Tucker, John King, Candy Crowly, Tucker Carlson, Robert Novak, Paul Begala and James Carville all have done a professional, commendable job. Obviously Novak, Begala, Carlson, and Carville — the Crossfire hosts — are quite partisan, but the others stayed very neutral all night.
Presently, Bush has taken Alaska, leaving just Ohio to get Bush to 269 — making it virtually impossible for Kerry to win. Begala and Carville (a former Clinton Administration advisor) seem to be conceding the election to Bush, as did Greenfield before he was scolded by Wolf Blitzer for going out on a limb outside of Crossfire.
In other news, Blunt appears to be set to become the next Governor of Missouri, although it looks like Catherine Hanaway will not be the next Secretary of State.
Election Night Part IV: Who/What I Voted For
Republicans: 8, Democrats: 1, Non-Partisan: 5, Other: 0
President: George W. Bush ®
Governor: Matt Blunt ®
Lt. Governor: Peter Kinder ®
Secretary of State: Catherine Hanaway ®
State Treasurer: Sarah Steelman ®
Attorney General: Chris Byrd ®
State Senator: Chuck Gross ®
State Representative: Carl L. Bearden ®
Circuit judge Circuit 11 Division 1: Ted House (D) (House often runs as a “Conservative” and is — like many lower level Missouri democrats — a social conservative.)
Non-partisan Judges: I voted to retain the present judges (5 of them).
Constitutional Amendment 3: Yes (Require fuel tax dollars go to MODOT/transportation issues.)
Proposition No. 1 (St. Charles County): No. (Children's fund sales tax.)
Revenue Recovery Proposition (City of St. Peters): No. (“Use tax” on interstate purchases.)
Proposition S (Central County Fire and Rescue District): No. ($0.17 property tax increase — too much at once, in my opinion, despite my general support of taxes for the Fire dept.)
Election Night Part III
Right now Bush is leading 197-188 Kerry, according to CNN projections. Ohio is still in Bush's corner, although it could be a precarious since some city precincts are staying open late.
Matt Blunt is currently behind by 1 point. In Illinois, Keyes (not surprisingly) has all but lost to Obama.
Election Night Part II
The President is presently leading Kerry 170 to 112. The critical battleground states of Ohio and Florida are presently leaning Bush by a margin of six percent or less (Ohio with 20% of precincts reporting, Florida with 67%).
Blunt is also ahead again — by one point — after being behind for the last hour or so.
Dubya! Dubya! Dubya!
[Numbers via CNN.com or CNN TV.]
Election Night Part I
Right now, Bush is leading 103 to 77, according to CNN. Florida, with 23% of precincts reporting, is going 53-47 Bush. Ohio is also leaning Bush, but only a minute fraction of the precincts are reporting.
Go Bush!!!
Matt Blunt is leading McCaskill 55-44 for the Missouri gubernatorial race.
This Is It
This is it. The day America decides whether we should stay the course or veer off it. I'm nervous. Presently, exit polling — according to Drudge — is showing Kerry leading in Ohio and Florida by one point. Of course, we all know how accurate exit polling is. Let's hope it is very wrong.
In other news, I didn't do much with the “TNGALLOP” poll. Only two others participated beyond myself, so it seemed like it probably wasn't enough to warrant creating graphs and stuff. In a two way race, Bush has 100% of the vote according to the poll, with all the candidates available, Bush leads 66% to Peroutka's 33%. Kerry won't find much consolation in these numbers.
