2012 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls *live commentary*(Dave plz read)

[Mr. Morden]

First off, a friendly request for Dave: I realize that you've made the brand new 2012 Presidential Election Results board, but I ask if we can leave this thread here, on the main 2012 board until election day is over.  I fear a lot of people are going to be confused by the fact that the election night commentary thread is on another board, and we'll end up with endless duplication that we have to clean up.  Just leave it here for now, and move the thread later, once the election is over and traffic has died down.

If you absolutely must move the thread now, then please give the rest of us 2012 mods moderation powers on the other board, so that Ernest doesn't have to police the election night thread all by himself.

[Mr. Morden]

Now, the main event: Please post election night commentary here.  This thread will be locked during the day, and you should post daytime commentary in the "turnout reports, voting problems, and last minute dirty tricks" thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=163983.0

But the thread should be opened by one of the mods  (likely BK or AndrewCT, as I'll probably be asleep!) before 5pm Eastern.  If they don't open it by 5pm Eastern because either the site goes down when they're available, or something in the real world comes up, then go ahead and start your own thread, and I'll merge the threads when I wake up.  Please don't spam any of us with PMs asking us to unlock the thread.

Poll closing times for every state are listed here:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/closing.phtml?format=gc

and election return websites are listed here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164052.0

First polls close in parts of IN and KY at 6pm Eastern, and we may start getting some results from those states shortly thereafter, but the networks won't call either state or post the topline exit poll #s until 7pm Eastern, when the rest of the polls close in those two states.

In addition to discussing election night results, this thread will also be used for discussing the exit polls, including exit poll leaks.  Because of the post-2004 exit polling reforms, the media themselves don't have access to any exit poll #s until 5pm Eastern.  Any supposed exit poll leaks you read before 5pm are certainly fake.  After 5pm, stuff will leak.  And we'll start getting AP stories about what the exit polls say about who voted.

Finally, a warning that the traffic tonight will be very high.  If you want to keep your sanity, set your profile settings so that you don't have to deal with the "x new replies have been posted, you might want to review your post" message when posting in a thread where other people have posted ahead of you.  To do so, just do the following:

profile -> look and layout preferences -> Don't warn on new replies made while posting.

You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but I bet it would save you some frustration!

[Mr. Morden]

Ha ha, this was supposed to be the running commentary thread for the presidential election, but it looks like the forum was down all day, so it wasn't used.  In any case, feel free to post any remaining running commentary on the presidential election here.

[Mr. Morden]

So only Florida is left to call?

Looks that way, yes.

[Mr. Morden]

Looks like Dave has already uploaded much of the data to Atlas:

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

Obama's current popular vote lead is 49.5%-48.9%, but that'll presumably grow, as much of California isn't it yet.

Gary Johnson is 3rd, at 0.9%.

[Mr. Morden]

So in the end, Ohio was not the "tipping point state", as many people expected.  It looks like it was Colorado:

ia > nh > pa > co > va > oh > fl

in descending order of Obama's victory margin.  Had Obama only won CO and everything to its left, he'd win.  If Romney had won CO and everything to its right, he'd win.

EDIT: Forgot about PA in my initial version of this post.  Virtually no one was expecting PA to be closer than both IA and NH.  If CO drifts further to the Dems, then PA could very well become the crucial tipping point state in 2016, the state that everyone figures is going to tip the election, and that the candidates will spend as much time there as they did in OH this time.