2008 Election Night Live Blog

Instant News And Analysis From CSBNews.com Senior Political Editor Vaughn Ververs

(CBS)  2:00am: Whew, what a night. What a campaign. From the never-ending primaries to the never-ending campaign, it's actually over. It's going to take months, years, decades and generations to fully absorb and then re-absorb what happened in the 2008 presidential camapaign.

As this historic night wraps up, it appears that while Democrats won a tremendous victory, they may have fallen a bit short of their highest hopes in the Senate and House races. When the dust is settled, Washington DC is going to be preparing for a new wind blowing into town.

The transition to the Obama Administration, the inauguration and the first 100 days of the new president awaits the nation. And CBSNews.com will be here to cover it all.

12:35am: Four states still yet to come in on the presidential level and four critical senate seats still outstanding. It appears at this point unlikely that Democrats will pick up all four,Samuel denying them a 60-seat majority there. Republican Saxby Chambliss looks like he might avoid a runoff by winning over 50 percent of the vote. Republican Gordon Smith remains in a tight race in Oregon and Ted Steven awaits the voters' verdict when polls close in Alaska at 1:00am. The most interesting race remains in Minnesota, where incumbent Republican Norm Coleman is in a tight race against Democrat Al Franken.

11:23pm: John McCain delivered a heartfelt and conciliatory concession speech in his home state of Arizona, giving a nod to the historic nature of Barack Obama's election and urging his supporters to give the incoming president thier full support.

Interestingly enough, McCain had high praise for his running mate Sarah Palin. One gets the feeling that, despite so much speculation that his choice of her was a mistake in the campaign, he still believes he made the right choice -- or at least is unwilling to blame anyone but himself for it. A nice ending to what was at times a rather bitter campaign.

11:10pm: Right on cue, CBS News estimates that both Florida and Virginia will be won by now President-elect Obama. He's now at 323 in the Electoral College and counting with Colorado, Missouri and Indiana still out as big states.

11:03pm "No matter whom you voted for, you'd have to agree this is an incredible milestone in the history of this country," is how Katie Couric put it after saying that CBS News estimates that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Historic is almost a tame word to describe the election of the first black man to hold the highest office in the land and it's going to take a generation or more before the full meaning is realized.

But that's for later. Right now it's time to find out just how big a victory Obama can roll up by the end of the night. Several key states remain to be decided and Obama will want to pick up at least several more big targets to claim a mandate. There's still a lot of the story left to be told.

10:40pm: The action is rapidly shifting a little over to the Senate races where several remain unsettled. Democrats are expected to pick up a seat in Colorado, a tight race in Georgia could result in a runoff after the election of no candidate gets over 50 percent (Georgia is the only state with that law on the books) and in Minnesota, comedian Al Franken is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Add in a special election in Mississippi, and GOP incumbents in Oregon and Alaska and we might not know the makeup of the senate until tomorrow morning -- or beyond.

10:17: The CBS News Elections and Survey unit gives the keys to Obama's Ohio win: Obama ran strong in Cuyahoga County and northeastern Ohio. But he also ran strong In Toledo and kept things even in the Cincinnati area. He also carried more than 90 percent of the black vote, according to the exit poll. More than half of voters said they were very worried about the economy, and Obama carried those votes by a margin of 3 to 2.

10:00pm: Another red state turns blue as Iowa is projected for Obama. That puts him ever closer to 270 as Obama has now been projected in states which add up to 206 Electoral Votes.

9:45pm: How competative is the state of Virginia? With three-quarters of the precincts in, the candidates stand at a 50-50 tie with McCain holding a razor-thin lead of 7,236 votes. A Republican state which has trended Democratic in recent years may well go down as the single closest race at the presidential level this year.

Speaking of close, keep an eye on that popular vote count. Obama has begun opening up a bigger lead but still has just 50 percent of the popular vote so far. He'll likely roll up the numbers in a state like California but watch to see where that goes.

9:30pm CBS News projects that Obama will win New Mexico, another state that went Republican in 2004. Increasingly, the attention is turning to just how large a possible Obama win could be. As CBS News' Jeff Greenfield and Bob Schieffer have noted on the broadcast, it's becoming much harder to see a path to 270 for McCain.

Still outstanding are Florida, with 27 Electoral Votes, North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Indiana (11), Missouri (11) and Iowa (7) and Colorado (9).

9:25pm: Devastating blow for John McCain's campaign as CBS News estimates that Barack Obama will win the state of Ohio and its 20 Electoral Votes. "I think Barack Obama will be the president of the United States," said Bob Schieffer upon hearing the news. The state that won George Bush re-election in 2004 has turned blue this time around.

9:20pm: Georgia will go to McCain, CBS News projects, as the Republican gets one more state in his column. That's good news for McCain as he waits for these reliably GOP states to come in. Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina are still close. If McCain can hold onto those states, things could tighten as we head out west.

9:00pm: Another round of poll closings, another moment of business-as-usual when it comes to expectations. Texas, North Dakota, Kansas and Wyoming go to McCain, CBS News projects while Obama picks up New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.

Still outstanding are the states which will almost certainly decide the outcome of this election and where the polls have already closed. They include Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado and New Mexico.

8:50pm: A McCain aide tells CBS News: "At this point, we need a miracle."

8:30pm: A big blow to McCain's path to 270 Electoral Votes as CBS News projects Pennsylvania will go to Obama when all the votes are in and counted. This was a state where McCain put in tons of effort and resources in the closing days of the campaign, banking on conservative Democrats in the "T" parts of the state. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, however, and did a fantastic job in registering far more voters this year.

With New Hampshire and Pennsylvania off the table, McCain needs to hold onto just about every state Bush won in 2004 or find an improbable blue state to turn red.

In Pennsylvania, according to the CBS News Election and Survey unit, the key to Obama's victory was the double-digit lead he appears to to be piling up in the key Philadelphia suburbs.

8:05pm: First semi-big state projected in a whole bunch of new ones by CBS News -- New Hampshire. This is a state that served as McCain's launching point for his primary comeback and also as one of Obama's biggest and most surprising defeats to Hillary Clinton. It's only worth four electoral votes but was one state McCain targeted to switch from blue to red this year.

Other projections for Obama are: Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, Delaware and D.C. For McCain: Oklahoma and Tennessee.

7:50pm: CBS News projects South Carolina for McCain, closing one of the southern states up that were left hanging open. At 8:00pm, there will be a slew of poll closings, including the key states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri.

7:40pm: Race has obviously been one of the most-discussed issues in this campaign and Bob Schieffer just made a very apt observation on CBS News -- if Obama's mother (who was white) and his father (a black man from Kenya), had lived in a state like North Carolina at the time they met, they would have faced many social and legal hurdles to getting married. Now Obama is battling it out in several southern states as a presidential candidate.

7:30pm: CBS News is projecting that McCain will win the state of West Virginia and also that Gov. Joe Manchin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller will also be re-elected. No surprises at all here.

States where polls have now closed where there is not yet a projection in the presidential race are: Georgia, Virginia, Indiana (where polls have been ordered to stay open in Marion), South Carolina, Ohio and North Carolina. All six states were carried by George W. Bush in 2004.

7:10pm: Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner will win the Virginia Senate race, CBS News projects, defeating another former governor, Republican Jim Gilmore. This will be one of the big storylines to watch tonight -- whether Democrats can pick up the nine seats they would need for a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority (although even that is questionable due to independent Joe Lieberman). Still, Warner's win is a pickup for Democrats, giving them a net gain of one so far tongight.

7:00pm: First projections of the night from CBS News -- Kentucky for John McCain and Vermont for Obama. Looks like a close race in Indiana and nothing to say yet about Georgia, South Carolina and all-important Virginia.

The Old Dominion is a place Obama's campaign put tremendous resources and Republicans have been fighting back at the end of the race. It's worth watching these southern states. All have large black populations and are traditionally reliably Republican in presidential elections, which should make for an interesting mix.

6:35pm: Early exit polls indicate the kind of mood voters were in when they went to the polls today and there's not much surprise as it echoes what Americans have told pollsters throughout the presidential campaign.

About three in four voters today said they think the U.S. is on the wrong track and 71 percent of them said they disapproved of the job President Bush is doing. A higher number, 73 percent, said they disapproved of the job Congress is doing.

Over 60 percent said the economy was the most important issue on their minds when deciding who to vote for -- an issue that heavily favored Barack Obama in pre-election polls. Over ninety percent said they feel the economy is in bad shape and eight in 10 voters are worried that the economic crisis will harm their family’s finances, including half who are very worried.

These findings are very similar to what polling and other surveys have found, especially toward the end of this campaign.

6:00pm: Welcome to the 2008 Election Night live blog on CBSNews.com. We'll be here all night, starting at 6:30pm ET and continuing non-stop as late as necessary. Stick with us to find out the very latest about what's happening in this historic election and what it all means. Stay with CBSNews.com for up-to-the-second election results and follow us all night on Twitter as well.

[color_mylife]

Today births the dawn of a new day, filled with mystery and wide ranging bandwidths of endless possibilities. Today gives us a chance to change the returns we reap from tomorrow. These twenty-four hours give us whatever we are willing to take from it. It is a new day, having traveled a long way; we still can hope for yet a better day. Yes we can.

[gobucks781]

i''d also volunteer to pack your ignorant bags & ship you off to a country that offers no freedoms, no safety, no healthcare, no relative interest in what you deserve or how hard you work (or don''t) for it, lack of science, diversity and basic human rights.
good luck with that. don''t let the constitution hit you on the way out.
i only pray you aren''t tarnishing your childrens'' minds and that they learn enough from others to tolerate, embrace & enjoy our differences as much as our commonalities.

[gobucks781]

how christian of you, michelle arms, to be so quick to pass judgement on others...we should all follow your godly example of intolerance & self-righteousness. lalabradl- there''s a place in hell, right next to michellarms for you.
it''s an even sadder day in this great country, that at the end of a well-fought election, people cannot offer support. being republican myself...i still believe sen. obama has a tough fight ahead to lead our country. the least we can do is pray for his success, persistance & his will to fight the ignorance that is still prevalent in this great nation. long live the freedoms that we ALL deserve, and a victory, that i hope, will bring together even the most deprived of socially, culturally inept.

I know God has a plan for His faithful and everyone else. We will have to suffer for our sins and the sins of others now; that%u2019s what happens. Hopefully we all will learn a lesson from this election. We need to do more, our best, to get the right man elected into office. It is our Christian responsibility to get involved! Bad will happen when good people do nothing to stop it.

[e-mail]

Barrack Obama is a man who goes against major teachings of the Bible; he is the most pro-abortion presidential canidate ever, his strong pro-choice record is hard to stomach. I hope his socialistic policies and extreme pro-abortion position doesn%u2019t destroy our already injured nation. We need to PRAY for him; that he will change and ask himself What Jesus Would Do before he makes any choices. Not that this prayer should solely be left for him, we ALL need a lot of help. I personally take a great responsibility for Obama being elected into office. I hardly did anything to encourage people to vote McCain, and I didn%u2019t educate the public on Obama%u2019s lack of good moral character. I didn%u2019t get out there and DO SOMETHNG. God is not proud of my laziness. I sinned, a great sin of omission. I might have prayed%u2026some, and done a few other trifle things to promote goodness, but I was called to great prayer and great action using my time, talent and treasure. I failed. Mostly, I watched, in amazement, as the Obama supporters become very active. It%u2019s a shame people will only get involved if they think it will better their way of life. Most won%u2019t do anything if it%u2019s just to please God or to end injustices for others; we are a very selfish people.

It is a shame the first black president isn%u2019t a true Christian. Anyone can say they%u2019re Christian, but being a Christian is more than just saying you are; it is in how you live and what you believe in. You can%u2019t be a Christian if you don%u2019t obey (or at least try) to obey God%u2019s commandments and follow His Word. God says %u201CThou shall not kill%u201D; which mean you shouldn%u2019t intentionally kill, support the killing of another, or stand idly by, doing nothing, while others are being killed. How can a godly person desire to keep the murder of millions of innocent unborn babies legal? HOW? How wonderful it would have been if he were a faithful, moral man%u2026to break the bonds of bigotry and opening our nation to love and goodness. But it isn%u2019t that way. I%u2019m saddened to see our nation that was founded as One Nation Under God and In God We Trust doesn%u2019t even choose to elect a man based on his godly character.

How easily persuaded we are! Obama, a gifted speaker, sways the gullible and convinces the majority that his ungodly ways are best. Lets not look at his character, nor his past choices but rather lets get excited with his smooth talking and rally people together with their selfish wants and hopes for more (a better economy or the hope they can get something for nothing). I want a better economy too, but I trust God will take care of us when we seek to please Him and vote for the person with the godliest values. Most people didn%u2019t even consider his lack of godly morals when voting. How did most forget it is our obligation to vote for the person with the highest moral standards, not for our selfish hopes and dreams? Satan sure tricked a lot of people.

It%u2019s a sad day in America, when an ungodly man is elected into office. When people%u2019s priorities in choosing a president aren%u2019t his morals and ethics but rather his eloquences in speaking, %u201Cgood ideas%u201D, and his false hopes in change for the better. There will be change all right, but there can%u2019t be change for the better unless a person strives to do good based on God%u2019s values: the end of legal murder (abortion), enforcing marriage between a man and a woman, running our nation on the belief in God, etc%u2026 Good can%u2019t happen by doing bad. If you don%u2019t already know, bad is doing anything against God%u2019s wishes%u2026check the Bible for instructions%u2026remember those commandments. Are we living them?

[mohall901]

I don''t care what the rest say. I am so happy that we finally have equality in the White House! God bless Mr.Obama! I am leaping for joy right now!

[lalabradle]

I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING! ! ! what the heck is going on a black president *** ,do you know how are forefathers are turning over i their graves what has America come to , to elect a black dude now we are gonna see a black hummer on big wheels with loud music coming out of it flying the american flag ,whewwee if you voted for him then you have issues and will pay for it because don''''t forget they never change they are now and always will be black. how sad!we are screwed.

We hope they are turning over in their graves. LOL!!!!

[lalabradle]

Think your vote really counts, wake up america. HOW can electorial votes be given to Obama in states like Claifornia with ONLY 15% of the voters reporting yet Obama has the 55 electorial votes. Ohio, narrow margin of 1% with still 27% to report YET Obama is awarded those 20 electorial votes. DO THE MATH OUR VOTES DIDN"T MATTER

That didn''t matter when Bush got in through the electorial vote.

[grvmstrj]

How can one can themselves an AMERICAN yet now want
to leave the country (boo woo)?
CAN WE BE OF ASSISTANCE in your relocation?
We need AMERICANS who want to work and live fruitful lives, regardless of their color-or did we all miss something?

[jjyorks]

I wholeheartedly agree with the comment about elite Washington establishment since I too had long been suspected about it, since all the so-called commanders-in-chief are more of the same when it comes to truly major policies which are actually laid out by establishment in washington,DC, and spoon-feed
to the Presidents. God Bless America!

[karobgifts55]

America and the world over need to now focus on LOVE:

Love is a feeling within us so deep
it cleanses our souls keeps us up on our feet
enhances the beauty that surrounds us so near
with four seasons changing around us each year

L is for Laughter that flows through the brain
that keeps out the worry that causes us pain
O is for Often we remember the ill
we send them a card so they know how we feel
V is for Victory that''s won over hate
replinishing LOVE for goodness sake
E is Evelasting for all who believe
so walk a straight line get up off your knees

Stand up and hug one and give them a kiss
Put your hand in their hand ahhh, do it like this
For in the beginning it came from above
OUR FATHER created it so we must call it LOVE
All rights reserved@

Karen LH-St Louis, MO
read it at poetry.com type in LOVE

[thinkforself]

President-elect Obama, was elected by the masses. The educated and infomed choice was made by blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, middle-easterns, etc. We have been subjected to the same old dried up good old boys network of politics for centuries. You mention, "Land of the Free"...well my dear, it finally is. Since you obvioulsy take issue with ALL men being "Free", then maybe it is a good idea for you to ex-patriot. But always remeber when you go...yo do not take your constitution with you.
The history of the Fore Fathers was slavery, which it seems where some of you would like us to revisit. Also, remember those that invaded this land and settled here werecriminals and rejects from their lands....and had this country not won the Revolution...the Fore Fathers would have been tried for treason and executed.
Sorry buddy, but the "South, WILL NOT RISE AGAIN!!". So just try to move past your longing for the days of yore.

[whatithink10]

WE ARE ALL REAL AMERICANS!

Time for this divisive politics to stop.

I am very happy today!

[kaana1]

If Obama was white, would he be in line with the founding fathers. Should the color of his skin be critical to his presidency? In his victory speech, he says,.."he is your president too" We lived through Bush for those of us who absolutely didnot favor him, but we vote and accept the outcomes. So-what if he has no black ancetry. When we all die, no matter what you skin color is, you rot the same way. Because Castro is Elated at the American Presidency does it make Obama Socialist. I think Americans needed this to smell whats cooking else where. Its disturbing to read how shallow people think.

[kaana1]

It amazes me, that people who are literate can fail to concede vistory. If you want to move out of the country, move. Begin by understanding what democracies. The process that worked for Barack Obama is the same that worked for all American president before. McCain gave a remarkable speech last night, maybe re-listening to it may help all those that want to run away or think God needs to intervene. We needed God through the 8yrs of Bush and as to whether he intervened or not, is you opinion.

[boigarny]

ohio election results 2008:
http://cnn-election.com/2008/index.php?q=ohio-election-results

[cessna172_]

Good morning,

I want to congradulate Barack, excuse me " President Obama " for his victory .
I honestly thought the people of this country would accept a woman into the white house before a colored gentleman as commander and chief .
I also want to congradulate Sen Biden, he made it to the Oval office and he was also respectful enough to attend FAR''s funeral which was my GF many yrs ago .

As you aspired for yours Mr President I will do the same !