Yes we can

[davidn]

I forgot about the running totals as the votes are counted up. I thought that this would be like the Eurovision Song Contest somehow and they could just go around the states that had closed and asked them for their totals. "McCain, nul points" - and finished. Instead, all the news sites and channels insist on reporting that "Oh, McCain is up 40% in Indiana...

...but we've only counted five votes so far." It's not good for my stress levels. The fact that the ones likely to report first are the leaning to strong Republicans and one useless little 3-vote blue state (sorry, Vermont) does not help.

For some reason Vermont is being reported as definitely blue even though 0% of it is reporting. Kentucky is similarly red even though it's only 13% complete, and with numbers this low I resisted actually updating this in the same way because it seems to give the reds a large percentage lead, but seeing as virtually everyone seems to agree...

States so far: 2/50
Electoral votes decided so far: 11/538
Democrats: 3
Republicans: 8

Comments

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

Vermont was being reported as blue because it's about as left-leaning as it can get - one of senators, Bernie Saunders, is a socialist. I never understood why NH is such a battleground state, being surrounded by Vermont and Mass.

[davidn]

It does seem a bit out of place - much like New Mexico, an island of blue that I didn't know existed before this year, and that happily seems to be slowly infecting the states around it.