Posts Tagged ‘Election Night’

726 Days

Posted: November 4, 2008 in 2006 Elections, 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain
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hourglass

According to First Read, that’s how long it’s been since Iowa governor Tom Vilsack kicked off the 2008 campaign season when he filed paperwork to start his presidential bid on November 9, 2006, just days after the Democrats won control of Congress.

For those of you who are math junkies, that is the equivalent of five days shy of a full two years; 17,424 hours; 1,045,440 minutes; and 62,726,400 seconds.

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Election Day Timetable

Posted: November 4, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Election Day, John McCain
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According to the Associated Press, here are the times (EST) polls close tonight, and the number of electoral votes each state is worth.

7:00
Georgia (15)
Indiana (11)
Kentucky (8)
South Carolina (8)
Vermont (3)
Virginia (13)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 58

7:30
Ohio (20)
North Carolina (15)
West Virginia (5)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 40

8:00
Alabama (9)
Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
Florida (27)
Illinois (21)
Maine (4)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (12)
Mississippi (6)
Missouri (11)
New Hampshire (4)
New Jersey (15)
Oklahoma (7)
Pennsylvania (21)
Tennessee (11)
Washington DC (3)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 171

8:30
Arkansas (6)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 6

9:00
Arizona (10)
Colorado (9)
Kansas (6)
Louisiana (9)
Michigan (17)
Minnesota (10)
Nebraska (5)
New Mexico (5)
New York (31)
North Dakota (3)
Rhode Island (4)
South Dakota (3)
Texas (34)
Wisconsin (10)
Wyoming (3)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 159

10:00
Iowa (7)
Montana (3)
Nevada (5)
Utah (5)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 20

11:00
California (55)
Hawaii (4)
Idaho (4)
Oregon (7)
Washington (11)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 81

1:00
Alaska (3)
TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES: 3

First Results Are In

Posted: November 4, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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From the towns of Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location, New Hampshire (with a combined population of 115), traditionally the first towns to vote on Election Day when the polls open at midnight.

Dixville Notch
McCain – 6
Obama – 15
Nader – 0

Hart’s Location
McCain – 10
Obama – 17
Nader – 0
Paul – 2

Thus begins today’s great exercise in democracy.

Update: According to Josh Marshall, this is the second time a Democratic candidate has won Dixville Notch since the midnight voting tradition began in 1948. The first was Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

Rove’s Final Map

Posted: November 4, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain, Media, Talking Heads
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Not a good outlook for McCain. Never in a million years did I think my projections would be more conservative than Karl Rove’s.

Twenty, Twenty, Twenty-Four Hours to Go…

Posted: November 3, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Media, Sarah Palin
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I don’t wanna be sedated.

These should keep you busy watching the returns come in tomorrow.

Five Thirty Eight
CNN Political Ticker
Daily Kos
Huffington Post
Marc Ambinder
Politico
Talking Points Memo
The Caucus
The Page

I and many of my friends and colleagues in the press been watching this campaign for two years and it all comes down to tomorrow. Amazing how it all went by so fast. Take some time to relax, get some rest, and savor the moment. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

Schedules for the Final Days

Posted: November 2, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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TPM’s Greg Sargent has the schedules. This speaks volumes about the morale in the two campaigns and who’s got momentum.

McCain/Palin:
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia

Obama/Biden:
Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia

The final days of the campaign are going to be fought out by the candidates on the ground in Bush states, with the exception of Pennsylvania – which McCain needs to reach 270 votes, and the four states (Alaska, Arizona, Delaware and Illinois) where the candidates go to cast their ballot and watch the results come in. This has been the dynamic of the campaign for much of the final weeks. If somebody had told me four years ago that this year would come down to a handful of what were reliably Republican states for years, in some cases decades, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Hologram Interviews on Election Night

Posted: October 31, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Media, Talking Heads, Technology
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According to their press release, my former employer CNN has a sweet new gadget to do interviews with guests from remote locations, via holographic projection:

Adding to what promises to be one of the most technologically advanced events in CNN’s 28-year history, CNN will enhance interviews with remote correspondents and guests using hologram projection. The network has built sets powered by hologram technology at both campaign headquarters making it possible to project three-dimensional images into the Election Center. From the New York set, anchors will exhibit more natural conversations with newsmakers and CNN correspondents in the field by interacting in real time with their 3-D virtual images.

Did they rip the idea off from Star Wars or what?

A Short Election Night in 2008

Posted: October 17, 2008 in 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, John McCain
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Politico has this article on how the election might be over fairly early this year. The central argument is that the election could be decided by the time the first polls close on the East coast and while polls may still be open in the rest of the country.

I’ll agree to that but have to expand it to two states that could decide the whole thing: Virginia and North Carolina. Both have been solidly in the GOP column for decades. If Barack Obama takes one or both of them (worth a combined 28 electoral votes, one more than Florida), that would make John McCain’s life very difficult as the night goes on unless he is able to pick off a Kerry state like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania to make up the difference. He might be able to afford losing one if he can get another big state or set of small states to keep it competitive. If he loses both, the night becomes more bleak and he may as well start practicing his concession speech.

Needless to say, if more Eastern states break for Obama early in the evening than originally expected (West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky), then it’s going to be a 300-plus vote blowout in the Electoral Colllege.