Celebrating in New York City

On my usual evening walk here in Manhattan I swing by either Rockefeller Plaza or Times Square. This evening I swung through both, where there were crowds gathering to watch the election results come in. Even before 9:00 p.m. there was a fair amount of cheering and celebrating. I got to Rockefeller Plaza just as Ohio was called by MSNBC. There was certainly a lot of cheeringat that point, especially since Pennsylvania had already been called. I stayed for a little while, long enough to see New York called, probably with the widest margin of any state (except for the District of Columbia which was 92% for Obama). The crowds were moderate size, but not huge. Although there was occasional cheering, especially when a called state was displayed, otherwise the people I could see were upbeat but not totally ecstatic. OTOH, I was near the fringe, so down in the center of things I imagine the frenzy was probably more pitched.

I write this at 10:57 p.m., with a fair number of projected wins already made, but do not see any reason to change my own personal projection from this morning:

Based on all of the polls I have seen, I would forecast that Barack Obama will win the popular vote with between 51% and 58% of the votes. It sure does look like a slam dunk for Barack to get an electoral college win or even a landslide, but the actual electoral college votes for Barack could literally be all over the map, from a low of 275 up to a high of 375.

Using the midpoints of those ranges, I will forecast that Obama will get 54.5% of the popular vote and 325 electoral college votes.

It is 11:03 a.m. ET as I "seal" this forecast.

-- Jack Krupansky