Missouri's Winning Streak Ends

Although I called it for John McCain 10 days ago, Missouri was only officially put in the Republican column for president yesterday, thus ending the state's winning streak in presidential contests (it had gone with the winner in every election from 1960 to 2004).

So, one last time (just because it looks so damn nice)...the final Electoral College map for the 2008 presidential election:

Obama/Biden
Democratic
365 electoral votes

McCain/Palin
Republican
173 electoral votes

Electors (yes...they are actual people) will cast their ballots on December 15th.

The national popular vote won't be finalized for another week or two, when the last of the states certify their results, but here is where things stand as of this morning:

Obama/Biden
67,066,915
53%

McCain/Palin
58,421,377
46%

Nader, Barr, Others
1,653,986
1%

That's a margin of victory for Obama of 8,645,538 votes. (Ok, ok...you were right, Ben!) For comparison, George W. Bush LOST the popular vote in his first election by 543,895 votes and won his second by 3,012,497. Obama's margin also beats both of Bill Clinton's (1992 and 1996), as well as the first George Bush's (1988). You have to go all the way back to 1984 to find a bigger margin of victory in the national vote.

More fun facts with the numbers:

-McCain's current total is about 700,000 votes below John Kerry's final total four years ago, while Obama's is about 5 million higher than Bush's.

-Ralph Nader has received 706,209 votes as of this morning. After an equally abysmal showing in 2004, is it possible for him to just go away? Yeah right, who am I kidding?