President - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com

President Obama - Election Center 2008 - CNN.com

One lesson to be learned from this election involves the computer nerds at 538. They demonstrated that while individual polls are volatile and insignificant, a compilation of all the information from all the polls, taking into acount the reliability and standard error of each, can provide a powerfully robust forecast. If you look down a few links, you will see that they predicted Denocrats would hold 346 electoral votes, 52% of the popular vote, and 57 senate seats, with the Minnesota senate race too close to call.

As of this minute, the most likely results are: 364 electoral votes, 52% popular vote, 56 senate seats, with Minnesota a virtual tie. (That electoral count assumes that Obama will take North Carolina and Indiana while McCain takes Missouri.)

Georgia's senate race is also too close to call. Chambliss is ahead by a mile, but by Georgia rules he has to get more than all the other candidates combined, or face a run-off against the top challenger. As of this minute he is just barely above the 50.00% mark. It looks like the dems will finish with 56 seats, but they still have good shot at more in either of those states. Two other senate races remain close to call. Ted Stevens appears to have held on despite being 84 years old with a recent felony conviction. That's Alaska - New Jersey of the Arctic. The Oregon race is also close. The Republican is ahead, but Oregon is way behind in the counting process, so that will remain undecided for a while.