President Barack Obama

I would like to extend my congratulations to Barack Obama on a decisive victory in the 2008 election and on being our President Elect. My wife and I both voted for him, and we watched the live coverage as the votes came in. It was nice to see such a clear winner early on rather than waiting for days or even weeks for concrete results as we had to do in 2000 and 2004. While the previous two elections were basically 50/50 (the toss of a coin, basically), Obama won with roughly double the electoral votes earned by John McCain.

It seems to have been a historic election, first in that we've elected the first black president in our nation's history, and even on a somewhat lesser level in that we seem to have had a record voter turnout. Even at the time of this writing, CNN's website is showing 57,391,836 for Obama and 52,030,307 for McCain, for a total of 109,422,143 votes between them, and that's only with 85% of the districts reporting. 2000 only saw 101,455,899 between Gore and Bush, and 2004 saw 121,069,054 between Kerry and Bush. Based on the fact that only 85% of the votes are in, it looks like the total number of votes between Obama and McCain could total more than 129,000,000.

As of this time, Obama has 338 electoral votes, with only 270 required for victory, and McCain has 160. Montana, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina are still being counted and are waiting to be called, but most of the votes are in and it appears that McCain will gain 3 votes from Montana and 11 from Missouri, bringing his total to 174. Obama looks to gain 11 from Indiana and 15 from North Carolina, bringing his total to 364. So, if this plays out as I'm expecting, Obama will have 364 out of 538 electoral votes, or 67.7% (just over two thirds), and McCain will have 174 out of 538, or 32.3% (just under a third). In terms of the popular vote, Obama presently holds 52% to McCain's 47% (obviously 1% went third-party).

For comparison, in 2000 Bush had actually lost the popular vote, with only 47.9% to Gore's 48.4%, and Bush only took 50.4% of the electoral votes to Gore's 49.4% (0.2% lost due to rounding). In 2004, Bush had 50.7% of the popular vote to Kerry's 48.3%, and Bush had 53.16% of the electoral vote to Kerry's 46.84%.

Now with 97% of districts reporting, Obama presently shows 62,983,132 popular votes, accounting for 52%, and McCain has 55,786,766 popular votes, accounting for 46% of the 118,769,898 votes among the two. It appears that the numbers might not get as high as I was expecting, probably no greater than the 121 million that voted for either Bush or Kerry in 2004. Obama has 349 electoral votes and looks to still pick up 15 from North Carolina which still isn't called, which would again give him a total of 364. McCain holds 163 electoral votes, and still looks to gain 11 from Missouri which is yet to be called, which would bring him again to 174 when it's all over.

In other election news, Democrats have solid control of the House of Representatives, presently showing 252 seats to 172 Republican seats, and 11 are still undecided. Not all Senate seats were up for election, but Democrats won 17 seats and Republicans scored 14, bringing Democrat's total so far to 56 and Republicans to 40, so Democrats control the Senate as well. 4 Senate seats are still yet to be decided. 2 of the Senate seats listed for Democrats aren't technically Democrats but rather third-parties that of course caucus with the Democrats.

According to CNN.com, Obama has so far been credited with 66,882,230 votes (53%) and McCain shows 58,343,671 (46%), and Obama shows 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173. I'm not sure why Obama gained one more than your numbers projected and why McCain lost one. Their votes add up to 125,225,901, which is almost what you originally expected the turnout to be. That is a higher voter turnout than ever before.

That's weird. I know my math on those electoral votes was right, and I had simply reported on the number of votes already credited and on the votes they looked to win, and the math was real simple, so unless someone tallied them wrong somehow.... Anyway, that 125+ million is quite a figure. There's only 300 million people in the US, many of which are too young to vote, but that's 42% of all 300 million, and a still larger percentage of eligible voters.

This election was historic no matter how we slice it.