The donkeys have control of the zoo!!!!

The winner, and new President Elect of the United States... Barack Obama

it's almost time

The crowd outside 30 Rock is ready to erupt.

numbers before the 11pm states are called

CBS: 206-141 for Obama
NBC: 207-138 for Obama (update - 10:43pm - NBC gives 4 votes to McCain)
ABC: 207-141 for Obama
FOX: 207-138 for Obama (WWOR and WNYW)
CNN: 207-135 for Obama
Pollster.com: 207-142 for Obama

election telethon

the ABC studio behind Diane Sawyer looks like a telethon pledge drive setting

numbers

Comedy Central: 207-89 for Obama
ABC: 207-135 for Obama
NBC: 207-135 for Obama
WWOR: 207-129 for Obama
CNN: 207-95 for Obama
FOX: 207-135 for Obama
CBS: 206-135 for Obama

A lot of focus on the breakdown in Indiana tonight.

live studio audience

Comedy Central seems to have a lot of 'blue' supporters in their live audience for Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert.

9:30pm numbers

NBC: 200-85 for Obama
ABC: 200-90 for Obama
CBS: 199-124 for Obama
FOX: 200-90 for Obama
CNN: 194-69 for Obama

CBS gives Obama the White House

Bob Schieffer on CBS said with Ohio, Obama can't lose now.

Update: 9:43pm - without saying so, CNN just gave the election to Obama based on a fantasy game. Then urged people who can and haven't yet to vote.

Update: 9:51pm - FOX's Geraldine Ferraro just called the election for Obama, also based on Ohio.

Update: 9:54pm - ABC's Charles Gibson just said that they will NOT project a winner without a projection of 270 electoral votes (unlike CBS, FOX, and CNN).

numbers - 9pm

After watching Brit Hume read the bad data he's given on FOX NEWS...

FOX: 163-81 for Obama
CNN: 174-49 for Obama
ABC: 174-76 for Obama
NBC: 175-70 for Obama
CBS: 174-100 for Obama

This feels like the day when the NCAA Basketball tournament brackets are announced. CNN's map looks a lot like 2004 for the blue half.

a nice night in New York City

yes, it is a nice evening in NYC. rare for November. But why are there people standing outside 30 Rock watching the NBC coverage. I think I saw the same thing for ABC in Times Square WHY??? why do people want to be out there? Celebration in the streets when the winner is announced? purging frustration with the incumbent party by their losing the election?

Joe Biden

Well, Joe Biden has a job for next year in the Senate. He won his Senate seat in Deleware just in case he doesn't get the VP (also President of the Senate).

numbers

at 8:20pm ET. some of these are so small on the screen that it's hard to see the numbers.

ABC: 102-34 for Obama
NBC: 103-34 for Obama
CBS: 81-39 for Obama
FOX: 82-39 for Obama
CNN: 77-34 for Obama
Pollster.com: somewhere between 8-3 for McCain to 101-39 for Obama
MSG: Rangers-Islanders tied at 0-0 in the 2nd

Update: WWOR in NYC has 82-39 Obama at 8:30pm ET

big scorecard

One of the blogs I follow for non-election stuff pointed me to Pollster.com to see how each network is calling each state. I think there's an idea for a video game here somewhere.

how do they project the results?

CNN just projected two results from South Carolina. Both had one candidate leading and the other projected to win. Did anyone learn from the 2000 election about calling it too early?

Great. It looks like Wolf Blitzer on CNN is just picking states out of a hat and calling them.

8:35pm - NBC just gave 2 states to McCain. 0% reporting in each. Maybe he came up 'heads'.

numbers

We're not off to a good start.

CBS: 21-3 for McCain
NBC: no numbers on their screen
ABC: 8-3 for McCain
CNN: 8-3 for McCain
FOX: 21-3 for McCain

the maps

I love looking at those detailed state/county maps to show how they all voted. Even more so from 2004 (although the result was bad). You can look at these rural "red" states, and without any labels, pick out where the cities are because they're in blue. It's amazing what that concentration of people can do in the electoral college numbers.

Virtual People

CNN just had an analyst on appearing in the studio in NYC via hologram from Chicago. That goes a few steps beyond the virtual map thing.

Election ratings

I am kind of curious about the TV ratings breakdown starting with the 6:30pm ET network newscasts. How each network channel does. How it breaks down by timezone (the west coast won't rate nearly as high when the curtain goes up around 7pm ET, but they should fair better after 11pm ET/8pm PT if the race hasn't been called because like most sporting events, east coast viewers would be asleep when the game ends). How local channels fair covering this in a 1 hour newscast at 10pm ET.

Virtual Maps

I wonder if Tim Russert would have liked working with the new virtual maps. He was a whiteboard guy who just completely got it. Some of them look too fake.

Oh good. NBC showed Ann Curry on the green set without the graphics.

NBC is also going old-style with real-life "buckets" pulling blue & red bars up the front of the NBC building at 30 Rock. Picture one of those thermometers that measures a fund raiser trying to reach its goal. NBC has 2 real-life versions to go along with their paint-by-number map on the ice.

Political Paint-by-Numbers

well, here we go! it's time to play "Political Paint-by-Numbers" as the media starts their educated guesswork on the results of polling.

This is kinda cool. The ice rink outside 30 Rock (for NBC NEWS) actually is set up for paint-by-numbers. It looks like there is someone with a big paint hose to mark the states red or blue.

OK. it's not actually paint. That would be more fun, especially if they couldn't stay within the lines. There are blue and red covers to place over each state to "paint" it for a candidate.