It's Over: Hurrah! and Hallelujah!

As often happens, the Electoral College magnified a narrow Popular Vote majority, so it looks like a landslide. Here are my predictions (posted as a comment for Huffington Post's competition) with the current state of affairs:

Obama 318 McCain 220
It looks as though Obama will end up winning 364-174. I missed on Ohio, for sure (was amazed it was called so early), Indiana (in the biggest surprise of the Presidential contest, a very narrow win) and, it looks like, North Carolina. The polls were surprisingly accurate, on the whole, and my discounting of them was punished a bit.

Popular Vote: Obama 51.3 McCain 46.7 (rounds to 51-47)
The number I'm seeing is rounded to 53-46. Approximately a five-percent shift--one in 20 voters--from 2004's 51-48 Republican edge, and it moved all these nine states: NM (15% win!), NV (12% win), IA (9%), CO (7%), VA (5%), OH (4%), FL (2%), IN (1%), and, if it holds, NC (0.4%).


Senate: 56-43-1 (Lieberman not counted as a Dem, Bernie Sanders yes)
The six-seat pickup for the Dems I predicted looks about as good as any estimate at this point. Definite wins were CO, NM, VA, NC (bigger win than expected!), and NH. Democrat Merkley has a microscopic lead in OR, but Franken trails by even a smaller margin in MN, GA will be a runoff but with Republican Chambliss the favorite, and AK somehow seems to be going for Stevens, very narrowly. It makes you wonder what a Republican has to do to lose in Alaska. Unfortunately, Mitch McConnell held on by a 52-48 margin in Kentucky, the sly dog.

House: 257-178
Right now, CNN has it 254-173, with 8 undecided, so that estimate also looks as good as any other. Our state of New Mexico went from 1 of 3 Democrats to all 3. The shocker was in the Southern district, heavily Republican, which had Democrat Harry Teague pull out a 10-point margin.

Minnesota Senate: Coleman 46 Franken 43 Barkley 11
It's likely, but not certain, that I at least picked the right winner. Current results round to 42-42-15.

Overall, a good night, in terms of results and of predictive accuracy. We are celebrating New Mexico's moving from a total swing state to a thoroughly blue state: Besides the 15-point win for Obama, we now have two Democratic Senators (Udall winning by 20+ percent), a Democratic Governor, and 3 of 3 Democratic Congressmen.

Locally, Taos County went 82-17 for Obama, 13,327 to 2,824, exceeding our expectations, and the highest percentage win for any county in the state. Yeah!