We’ll be here ’til it’s over with latest election news and results. Simply click on the title above to be taken to the interior website page which we will update every five minutes or so. All times are US EST.

11:00 Barack Obama is President Elect of the United States
California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. 

10:59 Here we go!
 Virginia called by CNN for Obama which adds 13 Electoral Votes. A red state since 1964

10:57There are 81 Electoral Votes coming up and he is 63 away
California, Oregon, Nevada, Hawaii and Washington
Could Hawaii be the state that puts Obama Over the top? 

10:52 Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney Markets All Open and Showing Strong Gains
The Asian Financial markets seem pleased with the election outcome about to be posted…

10:48 Will.i.am is now a hologram
Come on CNN, you’re like kids with a new toy. You’ve been beaten on every call by MSNBC and schooled and you are using virtual Capitol Buildings and beaming folks in from Chicago? It’s 4 am here in the UK and it is not amusing or useful…

10:43 We may not be able to throw Joe Lieberman under the bus
The best we can get to in the Senate is 58 seats and the two independents (of which Lieberman is one) may be needed to get to a filibuster roof margin.  

10:37 Sharon Kyle’s daughter is partying!
My adult daughter lives in Virginia.  I live in California.  She had asked if I would consider spending this election day with her because her husband is away on business. She was a little nervous about the potential for civil unrest.  She does not drive and had to walk to the polls.  I just phoned her.  She came up with a solution to spending the evening alone.  She is having an election party!!  Lot’s of festivities, food, and wine.  I’m relieved because Virginia is a southern state where race relations can sometimes be tense.  She is black and lives in a white neighborhood.  This election has brought out the worst in some.  So I am relieved that my daughter is safe and at home with a few of her closest friends watching the events unfold on the television. 

10:30 Obama to get a stunning 35% of the Cuban vote in Florida
In a stunning repudiation of Republican dirty trick robo-calls, Miami Cuban Americans rejected the last gasp robo-call in Spanish saying Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro endorsed Barack Obama. It did not work and hopefully marks the end of these despicable behaviours. I am filled with pride at the American electorate for ignoring these ridiculous, hateful and hurtfull calls.

10:25 Suburbs and Latinos reject McCain
Rebuilding the Republican Party will take some doing.  Areas where Bush won convincingly have either narrowed or gone to Obama.

10:20 What is striking ihere is that  we will not hear for some time about Virginia, Florida, North Carolina or Indiana and Obama will get to 270 without them!!!

10:10 Senator Obama is on his way to the Hyatt
There are 70,000+ people already in Grant Park

10:09 The South Dakota Abortion Ban Test Case has Failed 

10:01 Montana too close to call and Nevada too early to call (Obama leading) 
Still too close to call, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, Colorado and Indiana
Too early, Mississipppim Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana 

10:00 (3:00 GMT) Four states polls close Arizona, Utah, Montana and Idaho
Projections Iowa for Barack Obama bringing his total to 207
Utah to McCain 

9:57 Texas goes for McCain
I don’t care anymore! For once that big, arrogant state means nothing to the outcome.

9:54 pm  In a joint announcement from Dick Price and Sharon Kyle of LA Progressive.com and Denis Campbell: 
As first in our nations, the LA Progressive and Vadimus Post/UK Progressive call the election for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. California with 55 electoral votes, Oregon with 7, Washington with 11, and Hawaii with 4 put the current Electoral College total at 277, 7 more than needed for election.

President-elect Obama begins negotiations with Mexico to give Texas back.

9:52 pm (03:52 GMT) Vadimus Post and LA Progressive are first in the US and UK to declare the Presidential election for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

9:48 we’re very close to AZ and their election machine problems
There are two main counties with 77% of the voters Pima (Tucson) and Maricopa (Phoenix) noted in my earlier articles.

9:45 John King of CNN just tried to gives McCain all open states and he still falls short of 270
Even my projection of 325 for Obama now looks under performing. The fat lady ain’t singing but she is humming in the wings….

9:40 West Virginia for McCain
Red stays red, he lost it in the primary as well. Appalachia rural white people remaina problem. 

9:37 pm It is quite amazing to see.
We have 8 states that could still go to Obama: WA, OR, CA, CO, MO, FL, NC, IA, IN and VA.
200 on his side. CA is 55, WA and HI = 270 We’re talking landslide territory baby!!

9:32 another red state to Obama as he picks up New Mexico!!!
Obama is now on a roll. The new west is looking very strong.  Obama at 200 EV.
FL is still missing South Florida and its huge Democratic Counties

9:30 CNN coverage is shickingly bad
No digging deeply into the numbers, no in-depth on FL counties, it is very superficial. CNN has lost its lustre.

9:30 What this means?
Obama is 75 EV away fromthe nomination (CA has 55 and wil be his) 

9:26 Louisiana for McCain
Todd is now saying Ohio is huge. Blue paint all over the north, will it drift to VA, NC?
McCain needs to sweep all the leans and make up ground.

9:25 Looks grim for McCain
Even Chuck Scarborough cannot see any path to 270 for McCain. 

9:24 pm McCain hangs on to West Virginia
Red stays red.

9:23 pm Obama flips Ohio from Red to Blue!
This is the biggie. He could lose Virginia and still be ahead… and no Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio.

9:19 pm CNN calls it for Mitch McConnell of KY just barely
A real scare for the minority (shadow) leader.

9:15 pm Other MSNBC Analysts say NC and FL look very good
Fairfax and Arlington VA could do well do well in VA. 
I’m getting weary folowing the bouncing ball. 

9:10 pm Good News and Bad News
No early vote in VA so things not so good. Indiana looking better than expected. Chuck Todd at MNBC is worried about IN, OH, VA and NC. When he worries, I worry.

9:07 Arkansas for McCain
No surprise, red state that only went blue when native son and governor Clinton was there.

9:04 pm Going to be a Long Night
Udall wins in New Mexico Senate (now at 55 dem Senators)
Too close to call states AZ, FL, NC, VA, MO, IN
Too early to call states, OH, TX, CO, LA, NM, NE, SD 

9:00 pm 2:00 GM Here we go with big projections - 159 Electoral Votes up for grabs
Obama - RI, MI, NY, WI, MN, 
McCain -  KS, WY, ND
Obama at 174 EV and McCain at 74 

8:57 pm Delay Interview is filled with bitterness.
Chris MAtthews just called out Delay for the hate he is spewing against Nancy Pelosi and Co. 

8:54 pm Jesse Helms seat is in Democratic hands 
The rabid segregatiniost who was a symbol of NC politics… Wow, still gabsmocked over the Libby Dole loss.  

8:41 pm Could Hawaii be Soft for Obama, Dick Price reports…
I just spoke with my youngest brother Don, a biology professor at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. His daughter Kendra just turned 18 and is going out to vote now. Like me, Don voted last Friday. He couldn’t contain his enthusiasm either. Like most teenagers, Kendra has put it off to the last minute. But in Hawaii, Election Day is a state holiday, voting is much easier for working folks and students. Seems like we ought to make Election Day a national holiday, or move it to Saturday.But, really, we ought to solve the technology and security challenges around electronic voting, which would make this whole process so much simpler — provided we could trust the results. But, jeez, if we can send astronauts into space, we can figure out how to computerize voting.

I asked Don if Hawaiians were embracing Obama, who lived there as a child and whose grandmother just passed away there. Hawaii will surely go to Obama, and he did say that they were proud of the association. But African Americans are rare in Hawaii, especially on the Big Island where my brother lives. Race cuts different ways in Hawaii, so their embrace of Obama isn’t as warm as it might have been — or that you would like.

8:38 pm Interesting numbers in West Virginia and Ohio
As I look at the large cities and counties there it looks very big in both for Obama. Add in North Carolina and these are three red states that are critical. Indiana is also looking very interesting.

8:36 pm Georgia goes for McCain
Non-likely, non-solid red state went to McCain. 

8:33 pm Alabama for McCain
No surprise. Solid red state. 

8:30 pm North Carolina - Elizabeth Dole Loses!
Huge loss of another key Senate seat. No Dole or Bush in the Congress for the first time since 1952
However, VA just moved to too close to call, meaning all the toss-ups are too close to call.  

8:24 pm West Palm (F&@#ing) Beach, Florida Again?!?!
They have the most ridiculous ballot design and once again the lawyers are standing and looking over shoulders disqualifying ballots…  unbelievable, someone needs to be arrested there for this stupid design that disqualifies 10% of the ballots.

8:20 pm David Axelrod on CNN
We like the turnout and that we are competitive in IN. PA was a big win for us. Looking forward to Western states. NC looks interesting. Inspiring thing is people all over the country came out. We think at the end of the day.

Where is Senator Obama… he’s home with is family. PLayed his traditional basketball game with friends and staff this afternoon. Spoending quiet time. COming down later this evening and will speak when we know something. We’ve waited two years, we can wait a couple of more hours. Not about luck about whether or not he American people respond to the message.

How is he dealing with his familial loss? It was not a huge surprise. Told things were grave and why he went to Hawaii. Happy to be able to see her.

8:18 Dems pick up NH Senate seat, Republicans hold Maine
Shaheen wins NH, Collins win ME, 
Holds: Kerry wins MA, Lautenberg of NJ wins, Biden in DE, Alexander in TN
MS WIcker seat too close to call 

8:05 pm Waiting on RI and NY for a clean sweep of the NE corridor for Obama
Pennsylvania is huge. Republican has not won since 1988 

8:01 pm The McCain Electoral Vote Strategy has Crashed
They wanted to go through PA and NH. They have lost both. ONly way he couldwin was to win PA.
FL too close still to call… AL also too early to call, MS too early to call
Have yet to see a Bush Red State turn Blue… 

8:00 pm (01:00 GMT) Projections 171 electoral votes at stake
8 for Obama: MA, PA, IL, CT, NJ, Maine (3/4), DE, MD, DC, NH to Obama
2 for TN, OK  (OK my vote in TN was wasted
Good feelings back! 

7:55 pm 15 States and DC at the top of the hour  
Pennsylvania is the beellweather in this group. Indiana and FL are showing stronger trends for Obama compared to 2004.

7:48 pm MSNBC Calls SC for McCain
Some of us thought Obama’s performance in the primary would help. 

7:41 pm Early voting numbers
Michael McDonald’s great early voting website has the totals. 31,268,357 voters have cast votes early in America, which represents 25.3% of the total of all ballots cast in 2004. Nobody doubts we are headed for an absolute record turnout in this election.22.5% of Americans cast their vote early in 2004, and if that number held true for this election, then 138,970,474 Americans will end up casting ballots.

7:35 pm Rachel Maddow discussion
Setting your own agenda and build a new party in the middle. 

7:30 pm Results
North Carolina too close to call
Ohio too early to call
West Virginia too early to call

7:29 pm Everyone keep breathing, early results are all rural.
Indiana is loking much better than Kerry did. Some big blue areas and no big cities. Running well in other areas.

7:25 pm Grant Park Chicago crowd
People are already 10-people deep around the stage in the area outside the 70,000 ticket area. People are running to stake their claim to prime standing areas!

7:25 pm to break not much to say
But these folks are sure saying it breathlessly… 

7:15 pm CNN Hologram?
The correspondent in Chicago is standing in the studio in Atlanta New York as a freaking hologram?  OK the toys are over the top…

7:13 pm The Final Newspaper Endorsement Tally -  Obama In Landslide, at 281-149 
We’re into election eve! And the Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race for daily newspaper endorsements. The Democratic team now leads by 273 to 142, a nearly 2-1 margin and an even wider spread in the circulation of those papers — see full tally below as of today. The circulation of the Obama-backing papers stands at over 21 million, compared with McCain’s 7 million. McCain has slightly closed the gap with editorials from smaller papers arriving this past weekend. But he lost Newsday in New York and the Tucson Daily Star in his home state. 7:10 pm MSNBC team scooping CNN

The team there is all anchors at CNN all pundits with 2 anchors.  

7:09 pm Two landslides in two elections in the House
Joe Scarborough, former Republican Florida Congressman, calls this is a total repudiation of the Republican brand.

7:05 pm McConnell of kentucky
Too close to call! Wow… that’s a key racial ticket split.

7:04 pm House Projection
NBC projects 261 Democratic seats in the House 

7:03 pm Senate
Mark Warner in VA a DSemocratic pick up one/Lindsey Gramm holds his seat in SC. 

7:00 pm (midnight GMT) 1st States called:
CNN Projects: Vermont to Obama, Kentucky to McCain
MSNBC the same, Indiana too close to call; too early to call in VA and GA and too early to call SC

6:58 pm Dick Price’s ex-wife votes for the first time in her life!
I just got off the phone with my ex-wife Irene who voted for the first time today. She’s a native on Jonkoping, Sweden, who has lived as a resident alien here in the States for a quarter century. But this past year, in large measure because of the Obama campaign and the wrongheaded invasion of Iraq, she applied for and got American citizenship.

She voted a Harbor College, a community college not far from where she and our daughter Linnea live. She was in and out in just a few minutes — no real waiting at all. She was exhilerated. She had teased her coworkers at a nearly all-black foster family agency that she was going to vote for McCain so Palin could be president. Their jaws would have dropped further, but they know Irene is a joker.

She sounded pretty pleased to cast her first vote at 55 for Obama and Biden.
 

6:57 pm North Carolina Republican leader saying Libby Dole to lose
If that is true it will be the first time since 1957 that neither a Dole nor a Bush will be in the Congress. He called it an Obama tsunami.

6:55 pm Six states closing at the top of the hour
Here we go.  Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia close in 5 minutes. 1st 58 Electoral Votes up for grabs.

6:48 pm Wait times reach 4 to 6 hours in St. Louis area
Long lines at polling stations across the city are no surprise, said officials at the St. Louis County Board of Elections. Callers into the CNN Voting Hotline reported waits of 4 to 6 hours in the northern suburbs of Jennings and Velda City. The county’s board of elections assistant director Dick Bauer said a lengthy ballot and what he expects to be a record turnout have slowed the process. Voters can make as many as 37 selections on the ballot today, and 10 of them are issue choices, said Bauer.

Voters in line at two polling locations in the suburb of Jennings have been experiencing waits of 4 hours or more, according to U.S. Representative William Lacy Clay. The congressman said both Jennings City Hall and Fairview Elementary were understaffed to handle the crowds. ”As we expected, the St. Louis County Board of Elections authority was ill-equipped and ill-prepared for the mass of humanity that showed up to exercise their constitutional right to vote today,” said Clay. He said two judges were in place at Fairview Elementary where upwards of 400 people were waiting in line to vote. 

6:44 pm Newsweek’s Howard Fineman says Rev. Wright Advert Blowing Up in Penn. Rep Party’s Face
Advert backfired and the lines are even longer in the west. Governor Rendell says Philadelphia number will be 625K plurality. Turnout is big in the West. Watch for a landslide there. McCain and Palin were threatened with Income Tax they spent so much time trying to win Pennsylvania. 

6:40 pm Long waits in the Detroit area
Estimates on the longest voting lines in Detroit, Michigan were as high as 5 hours. Election Protection, a non-partisan voting watch dog group, reported a 5 hour, 1,000 person long line at Detroit’s Beth Eden Baptist Church earlier on Election Day. They said it was largely due to understaffed polling stations. While state officials echo that lines were long, especially in the morning rush, they couldn’t confirm voters waited 5 hours at this location. “We heard a report that 1000 people waited 5 hours but when we got there at 3:00 pm, there were 100 people inside, 100 people outside and they had waited two and a half hours,” said Kelly Chesney, Spokeswoman for Michigan’s Secretary of State. They expect lines to swell again as people get out of work and while most polls close statewide at 8pm ET, 4 of Michigan’s western counties, Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron, and Menominee, are in the Central time zone and polls close there at 9pm ET (8pm CT). Voters still standing in line at 8pm will be allowed to cast their vote. 

6:34 pm GOP strategist Rove sees Obama landslide
Republican strategist Karl Rove said Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama would win Tuesday’s election in an Electoral College landslide. 

6:28 pm Zona Absurdum Alert: Will White People Riot If McCain Loses?
The question on its face is absurd. However, there have been many whites that have expressed that if Obama loses, Black people will riot in protest. How some of them (they are a minority) have come to this conclusion is mind boggling. African Americans are accustomed to voting whites into positions of power or seeing whites voted into positions of power. African-Americans did not riot when Al Gore or John Kerry loss and the voting pattern clearly showed that George W. Bush was not the candidate of choice among the majority. Many people forget that Obama has support from all segments of America and he could not win without a significant White vote. 

6:25 pm It’s official: Obama will win, thanks to the Redskins
On Friday, I wrote about the uncanny correlaton between the Washington Redskins and U.S. presidential elections. To summarize: Since 1936, in every election except 2004’s, when the Redskins won their final home game before the presidential election, the incumbent party has won. When they’ve lost, so too has the incumbent party.

Monday night, the Redskins were embarrassed, losing 23-6 against the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers. Based on the result, the election is all but assured to end in a victory for Barack Obama. And if the Redskins’ performance was any indication, Obama won’t just win, he’ll blow John McCain out of the water.

6:20 pm Republicans say if they only lose 24 or 25 seats in the House that’s not a bad night! 

6:17 pm “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?” said Jack Nicholson as The Joker
Microsoft! CNN’s virtual Senate software just froze and crashed LOL 

6:15 pm ‘Quote of the Day’ from Charley James
“Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. Obama’s running so that we all can fly. I can’t wait until November 5 and I’m going to say ‘Hello, Brother President’.” — rapper JZee  

6:10 pm Jenny The Businesswomen
I am a 47-year-old female small business owner and have registered to vote for the very first time this year; so has my 26-year-old daughter and my 47-year-old husband (Joe the Painter).  We are all voting for the very first time.  Because we don’t want another four more years of what we have had.My daughter and I sat and watched the Wednesday night 30-minuite special that Mr. Obama had on television and it brought my daughter to tears.  She is a full time student and works part time and has never voted because of the way the first Bush election was handled and with the way everything has been going to pot since he’s been in office, she said she had lost all hope and trust in her government.  But last night she said she felt like she was included and that maybe there would be some hope for her and the children that she might have in the future.

6:07 pm A Record Number of Women Headed to Congress? You Go! 
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, explains that’s not because there is a record number of women running. There are just seven women running for Senate this year, including two — Kay Hagan and Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina — who are running against each other. The record for women running for Senate was set in 2006 when 12 women received the nominations of the major parties. This year, there are 133 female candidates from major parties running for seats in the House. The record there was set in 2004, when 141 women won their primaries.However, Walsh predicts that when all the votes are counted Tuesday, we will have a record number of women in Congress in 2009. That’s because 96 of the female candidates for the House are Democrats, and it’s expected to be a good year for Democratic candidates.

“We have 71 women in the House now,” explains Walsh. “There are 16 women in the Senate. It looks like we might pick up one in the Senate. In the House, I’m not going to predict a number, but I would certainly predict you would have a record.”

“The Associated Press calls races at scheduled poll closings when our political experts and analysts are satisfied a candidate has a significant winning margin,” the news organization declared in a release Monday. “They weigh a number of factors, including voter turnout, previous voting patterns, Election Day exit polling, telephone polls of absentee or early voters, and the experience of AP journalists who have covered the campaigns. When our analysis indicates a candidate has that significant winning margin, we will call the race at the scheduled poll close hour even if voting has been extended briefly in selected precincts. As always, we do not call races until we are confident of that winning margin, whether at poll close or many hours or days later.”

6:00 pm polls are closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky
Mitch McConnell in trouble as Minority leader of the Senate from Kentucky. Rest of the polls close in 30 minutes to 1 hour and results will be in then. 

5:59 pm Cafferty File is great tonight
Asking why we can do so much online and yet must stand 8-hours in a queue to vote in a federal election!?! 

5:55 pm Five minutes from first results!
Go Indiana!  We know you love the colour red but blue is also nice. 

5:52 pm Nasty new robo-call going out just now
To Cuban emclaves in Miami with 2 hours left slamming Obama on Cuba.  love the smell of desperation in the air! 

5:50 pm Pins and Needles from Dick Price
I took off work yesterday and today for the election. That’s not my usual modus operandi. Usually, I just report to the polling place in our neighborhood first thing on my way to work. But I would have been useless at work. I’d have been checking all my news sites and the polling sites, plus our own LA Progressive, for all the latest developments. I wouldn’t have gotten anything done.

I’ve been calling around the country to family members — my brother Dave in Vegas, my Dad in Florida. Later, I’ll ring up Don in Hilo, Hawaii, and Doug and Mom in Vegas. They’re all rabid Democrats and anxious for Obama to change the way things have been going.

My Dad is a World War II veteran, having led a company of combat engineers from France, through Belgium, the Netherlands, and finally to Aachen, Germany, where he was wounded in his right leg in exactly the same place that I was wounded outside My Tho, in Vietnam.

He remarked at how the world has changed in his lifetime. He was born in 1917 to a mother who could not at that time vote. As a young woman, she had immigrated from England — her family name was Diddams and she lived in Southhampton as a child. And now it appears that we will have a black man as a president and a black woman as First Lady — or, god help us, a woman vice president.

In any case, it’s a momentous day. I’m nervous as can be and want to hear the first results come in and desperately want them to herald a real change for our country and for the world. That’s a lot to put on one man — two, with Biden — but that’s where we are.

5:44 pm I am not going to make it Sharon. 
Every 10-minutes or so, I sit here and waves of emotion just wash over me. My innards are twisted into nervousness and I am so proud for you and your grandma. Amazing! I wish I could put the video up, even though it is short. The smile on her face is amazing and I will edit the clips and get it on the website sometime in the next week.

5:34 pm Kleenex Alert - Sharon Kyle’s 99 year old grandmother votes for Barack Obama
Today, my 99yr old grandmother voted.  She was born Louise Katherine Bailey, on Oct 1, 1909 in Durham, N.C.. She is kin to the great abolishionist Frederick Douglass and she is the grandaughter of slaves (I, too, am the decendent of slaves).

I am overwhelmed with emotion.  We had a big birthday celebration for Granny just a month ago and I asked her if she ever imagined that one day she would vote for a black man to be president of the United States.  She answered, “never in a million years”.

My grandmother marched on Washington with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.  Up until today, she thought that that was the most memorable act of civil engagement she would ever be a part of.  I think today, voting for Barack Obama, will rank up there with marching with Dr. King. 

We truly believe if all of us continue to work as hard as possible tonight and tomorrow in get-out-the-vote efforts, and if we control the Eeyores in our midst and prevent the Obamedia from depressing turnout in our ranks, that McCain/Palin will win tomorrow decidedly — 286 to 252 in the electoral college – and we PUMAs will stand proud with all Republicans and Independents who joined us in this fight, because that’s what it really boils down to for us. We’ve been trying to stop Obama and his socialist takeover of this country for almost two years now. Living in Chicago, we KNOW who this man REALLY IS, and know how bad he and his policies would be for this country. So, the way we see it, Republicans are OUR REINFORCEMENTS, not the other way around, because Hillary’s Army has been giving this effort our all this whole time — with the rest of you coming on board since the start of the general election. 

5:24 pm UK fun news today - did she take lessons from Sarah Palin?
Heather Mills the former Mrs. Sir Paul McCartney has told planning officials the swimming pool she had built without permission could be used for firefighting.

5:18 CNN says in the USA voted 63% for Obama on Iraq
Step away from the exit polls. Dont; get sucked in. It’s a new toy and you don;t have to play!

5:05 pm CNN justifying exit polls - DON’T BUY INTO IT!!! WAIT FOR REAL NUMBERS!
Paul Maslin - John Dean’s pollster says exit poll results in both 2000 and 2004 — or at least the ones made available throughout Election Day to the inside political community — seemed more pro-Democratic than the eventual results. One big reason may be greater reluctance or unwillingness on the part of conservative voters to participate in exit polling. Will we be duped or misled by early exit poll readings that suggest a big Obama/Democratic tide?

I think exit polling will be more accurate this year. There have been previous snafus where exit polling failed to properly gauge the impact of early voting, particularly in California, where it has been common for nearly a generation. Until recently the early vote in most states tended to be older and more conservative, meaning the early vote skewed Republican, thus producing one of the factors that led to more bullish same-day exit polls for the Democrats in 2000-04. But the company providing the exit polls this year has expanded the number of states — based on early voting trends and expansion — where they supplement the same-day interviewing with a telephone sample of early voters. The “partisan evening” as the practice becomes more widespread, plus the intense Obama effort to promote and produce early voting, should have eliminated much if not all of the bias. In short, we can no longer assume that based on this factor the exit polls will lean more Democratic than the actual vote. This does not, however, address any bias in the response rate that might be introduced by the possible reluctance of conservatives to talk to pollsters.

5:03 pm Why Rachel Maddow is the Best
Today on Martha Stewart:  “I came to work yesterday with a bag packed, in case a contested election issue takes her out of town. And added that she also brought a hanky, since whatever happens, at the end of this day - or this election, should it be contested - we are going to have a woman vice president for the first time or an African-American president for the first time and that after all the focus on the electoral horse race fades, “I think the historical importance of what’s happened is going to hit us like a ton of bricks.”

5:01 pm The NBC Dream Team is assembled on stage
Keith Olbermann, David Gregory, Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson and Chris Matthews

CNN/The Situation Room had Wolf Blitzerby the big board, getting closer!

5:00 pm One hour until the 1st polls close in Indiana

4:57 pm fivethirtyeight.com last report from Charley James
Throughout the campaign, the most-reliable polling information came consistently from Nate Silver’s website, fivethirtyeight.com. Throughout the campaign, Silver’s numbers have been dead-eye accurate.The final projection from fivethirtyeight.com: Obama 349 electoral votes, McCain 189.

Here’s the last election report Silver filed before returns begin showing up in five hours.

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically — for instance, assigns North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time — comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.

We also project Obama to win the popular vote by 6.1 points; his lead is slightly larger than that in the polls now, but our model accounts for the fact that candidates with large leads in the polls typically underperform their numbers by a small margin on Election Day.

Our model forecasts a small third-party vote of between 1 and 2 points total; it is not likely to be a decisive factor in this election except perhaps in Montana, where Ron Paul is on the ballot and may garner 4-5 percent of the vote.

4:50 pm CNN about to announce 1st Exit Polls WARNING: DO NOT BELIEVE THEM!!!
Step away from the exit poll projections

1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known as cluster sampling techniques. Exit polls are not conducted at all precincts, but only at some fraction thereof. 

2. Exit polls have consistently overstated the Democratic share of the vote. Many of you will recall this happening in 2004, when leaked exit polls suggested that John Kerry would have a much better day than he actually had. But this phenomenon was hardly unique to 2004.

3. Exit polls were particularly bad in this year’s primaries. They overstated Barack Obama’s performance by an average of about 7 points.

4. Exit polls challenge the definition of a random sample. 

5. Democrats may be more likely to participate in exit polls.

6. Exit polls may have problems calibrating results from early voting. 

7. Exit polls may also miss late voters. By “late” voters I mean persons who come to their polling place in the last couple of hours of the day, after the exit polls are out of the field. 

8. “Leaked” exit poll results may not be the genuine article. Sometimes, sources like Matt Drudge and Jim Geraghty have gotten their hands on the actual exit polls collected by the network pools.

9. A high-turnout election may make demographic weighting difficult. 

10. You’ll know the actual results soon enough anyway. Have patience, my friends, and consider yourselves lucky: in France, it is illegal to conduct a poll of any kind within 48 hours of the election. But exit polls are really more trouble than they’re worth, at least as a predictive tool.

An independent panel created by CNN in the wake of the Florida disaster in 2000 recommended that the network completely ignore exit polls when calling particular states. I suggest that you do the same.

4:47 pm Investors want change: Dow closes up 305
What does it mean that the U.S. stock market had its best day ever on an Election Day, at least since the New York Stock Exchange started allowing trading on presidential election days in 1984? The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 305 points, or 3.26 percent. The S&P 500 did even better, closing up 4 percent. Does it mean, as one Fox News commentator observed regretfully, that “people want change?”

4:45 pm DemConWatch website is one of the best out there.
They helped me break the Super Delegate issue back in January. Matt (last name unknown) has been a shining star out there. His great campaign moment: Yesterday, and my cell phone rang. It was an 82-year old woman. She was doing a GREAT job of the Obama GOTV (Get Out the Vote) script.

As she was talking, I walked to the room where she was sitting, and I said “Mrs F, that’s ME you’re calling.” We laughed, and she said: “You’ve been here longer than me, but I voted absentee in NY. You ARE going to find time to vote tomorrow, right?” My campaign kid’s grandmother in action, who through some fluke, got the list for my precinct.

4:40 pm Key Senate Races we’re watching tonight:
Oregon
R-Gordon Smith(i) v D-Jeff Merkley

Alaska
R-Ted Stevens(i) v D-Mark Begich
Stevens was convicted of corruption in Federal Court

Colorado
D-Mark Udall v R-Mark Schaffer

Georgia
R-Saxby Chambliss v D-Jim Martin

Kentucky
R-Mitch McConnell v D-Bruce Lundsford

New Hampshire
R-John Sununu (i) v D-Jeanne Shaheen

Louisiana
D-Mary Landrieu v R-John Kennedy

Maine
R-Susan Collins v D-Tom Allan

Minnesota
D-Al Franken v R-Norm Coleman (i)

Mississippi
R-Roger Wicker(i) v D-Ronnie Musgrove

New Mexico
D-Tom Udall v R-Steve Pearce

North Carolina
R-Elizabeth Dole v D- Kay Hagan

Virginia
D-Mark Warner v R-Jim Gilmore

4:38 p.m. Obama WINS! The early vote count from NH 32-16
Tiny Dixville Notch, New Hampshire cast the first votes just after midnight local time. Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday’s first minutes. The town of Hart’s Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns’ ballots but got no votes.

4:35 pm Florida tops election trouble spots
Registration and absentee ballot issues topped last-minute concerns among voters in the days before Tuesday’s presidential election, with one analyst predicting previous flashpoints may cause headaches again this year.  Of the more than 10,000 problems reported to CNN’s Voter Hotline so far, the most complaints — about 1,400 — come from Florida.

4:25 pm  NBC’s Bucket Boy
MSNBC has a manual system of delegate numbers that ride a scaffold up the wall of the 30 Rockefeller Center skyscraper. Two poor men have to change numbers and ride up to the 270 delegate count number posted at the top. They were there until 4 am four years ago, the young man they just interviewed is hoping it is a shoter night this night.

4:23 pm 8-Hour Early Voting Lines
Early voting has reached record numbers this year. Including absentee ballots, 27 million people have already voted. That’s in spite of lines that stretch on for hours.

4:21 pm ABC News’ George Stephanopolous Canaries in the coal mine
Here are the six states to watch between 7pm and 8pm on Election Night:

Virginia and Indiana after  the last polls close at 7pm, Ohio and North Carolina after 7:30pm, and then Pennsylvania and Florida after 8pm.

These are the canaries in the coal mine. 

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis conceded on “This Week” that John McCain has to win five out of six of these states to have a viable path to the presidency. He could get there by holding all of the Bush states — Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina — and losing Pennsylvania.

But he will then need to secure Nevada, Iowa, and Colorado and all the rest of the GOP safe seats later in the evening. That puts him at 270.

4:18 pm Obama’s Sentimental final journey with the press
“Whatever happens tomorrow, it’s extraordinary you guys have shared this process with us and I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you,” Obama told journalists, according to a pool report sent to reporters by the campaign.

According to the report, Obama told the press he would not take any questions during the lap, and singled out the embedded producers from the networks.

“They have been there for the start – thank you guys, thank you guys,” he said.

And Obama thanked the press corps for their condolences over his grandmother’s recent death. “I know you guys have sent a lot of emails individually, collectively it is very gracious,” he said according to the report.

“OK guys, lets go home. It will be fun to see how the story ends,” he said before retreating back to the front of the plane.

4:15 pm  We begin by offering deepest condolences to the Obama family in the loss of Barack’s grandmother last night. As a poet friend once said, God gives us memories so we can have roses in December.

Below this box is the MSNBC live election result widget. Joining me live from Toronto is our friend Charley James (CJ) and from Los Angeles Dick Price (DP) and Sharon Kyle (SK) will also periodicallly add comments from LA Progressive.  The photo shows Wales election Central note it was not clear enough today to see the ocean but the dots in the field are sheep and the green is mold - we’ve had too much rain.