AP, along with NBC and Fox News, have now officially called Missouri, the final and most narrowly determined state of the 2008 Presidential election, for Senator John McCain.
McCain's lead has narrowed to less than 4000 votes at last count. But, apparently, there are not enough provisional ballots left to make the difference. Thus, Missouri's status as the grand bellwether of them all is toast, at least for now.
The final electoral college count: Obama 365, McCain 173. That includes some absolute stunners for the Democrats: North Carolina, Indiana, and one of the three CD-apportioned electoral votes for Nebraska.
The final popular vote count, of course, will continue to change. Many states have not updated their totals since Election Night, meaning that late-arriving absentees, provisionals, and overseas ballots have yet to be added to the mix yet. Some of those states (Illinois and New York immediately come to mind) are Obama strongholds.
Furthermore, there are states continuing to add to their totals. California, for example, may still have between one-half to one million ballots left to count.
Thus, it would appear that Obama's advantage in this contest will continue to grow. At present, that margin is roughly 6.8%. On the day following the election, it was 6.1%.
All in all, a decisive victory that gives President-Elect Obama quite the mandate as he seeks to put the country back on track.
There are still a handful of outstanding races at the downballot level:
SENATE RACES
- The recount has already begun in the Minnesota Senate race, with Democrat Al Franken already picking up a handful of votes from Ramsey County in morning counting. The official lead for Republican incumbent Norm Coleman going into the recount was 215 votes.
- The runoff election for the Georgia Senate race is thirteen days from today. A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss with a narrow lead over Democrat Jim Martin, with margins pretty much unchanged from the original count two weeks ago. The poll gave Chambliss a 50-46 lead.
HOUSE RACES
- Counting continues in northern California's 4th Congressional District, with Tom McClintock clinging by his fingernails to a lead of less than 600 votes over Democrat Charlie Brown. The bad news for Brown: his stronghold (Nevada County) appears to be completely done--86% of registered voters are already accounted for there. The good news for Brown: Apparently, only provisionals remain, and those should favor Brown.
- Rep. Virgil Goode apparently is praying on a flood of overseas ballots to save him in VA-05, which has not yet been declared by AP for Tom Perriello. Perriello is sitting on a lead of over 700 votes, and has already declared victory.
- OH-15 is in the courts, as the fate of a few thousand Franklin County absentee ballots with technical errors hang in the balance. There has been no update in well over a week, and the preliminary count gave Republican Steve Stivers a lead of just over 300 votes over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy in this open seat (size of lead updated per Jeff in CA's comment). There are over 27,000 ballots still unreported, however.
- LA-04 and LA-02 go to runoffs next month. The battle in the Shreveport-based 4th district is a pure toss-up, with Democrat Paul Carmouche surprisingly competitive in a strong GOP district. A Democratic win here would be pleasantly surprising, but not shocking. Meanwhile, Democratic incumbent Bill Jefferson, embarrassment that he is, will almost certainly prevail in his runoff against an unknown Republican and a raft of third-party candidates.