US election wrap-up
Well just like Australia, and like the US in 2002, this has turned into a huge victory for the centre right incumbents.
Bush has a margin in the popular vote greater than 3.6 million. He has 57.9 million votes to 54.3 million to Kerry. The electoral college is not confirmed, and Kerry will not concede, but Bush appears to look to get 286 votes to 252 for Kerry (I said to NZ Pundit yesterday that I thought it would be around 290 to
250)
In 2002 Bush won 271 to 266 and only got 48% of the electoral vote – 500,000 less than Gore. Bush has picked up a massive seven million votes from 2000, giving him more votes than any other President in history. Also first President since 1988 to get over 50% of the popular vote.
The margins for Bush in the three seats not declared are 11,000 (1.5%) in New Mexico (5 EV), 15,000 (1.0%) in Iowa (7 EV) and 145,000 (2.8%) in Ohio (20 EV). Ohio is the one which decides the race, and it has the largest margin.
In the Senate the GOP has picked up seats, and has knocked out the man who is the senior congessional leader of the Democrats – Tom Daschle. This is a huge morale blow.
GOP picked up Senate seats in Georgia, North Carolina, South Dakota South Carolina and Lousiana, pnly losing Illinois and Coloroda to the Democrats. Not 100% final. Florida looks to swap to GOP also (my ex flatmate is one of the campaign managers for Martinez so hopefully he has drunk more than me tonight)
So this would have GOP going from a 2 seat margin to a 10 seat margin in the Senate. Those judicial fillibusters are going to harder to maintain. Expect to see a lot fo Supreme Court retirements quite soon.
The House was never seriously in contention but that is looking to be 232 (up from 228) for GOP to 202 for Deomcrats. The Texas redistricting took a toll with four Democrats out in that state alone losing their seats.
The Governorships have had some changes, with the GOP now holding that office in 29 states to 21 for the Democrats.
So a great night celebrating with the wonderful staff of the US Embassy. A great place to watch it. I am also proud to announce I came second highest amongst everyone there in their US politics quiz, only getting two out of thirty questions wrong (and they were asking things like first woman presidential candidate, first candidate to use a car etc).