It was the 55 electoral votes in California that ensured Obama passed the magical line of 270 senators, necessary to win the election. Shortly after, John McCain acknowledged his defeat.

Nobody doubted that California would vote Democratic. So long before the prognosis was broadcast at 11 pm on Tuesday evening (5am Norwegian time), USA’s Afro-Americans had started to celebrate the victory in bars and churches, on the streets and in private homes throughout the country.

Hope shattered

John McCain’s hope of victory was shattered earlier in the evening, when Obama was assured the victory in the two pivotal states, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

When it later became clear that Obama also had won the former arch-conservative state of Virginia, and the ever-disputable Florida, it was already apparent that he would win.

The chairman of the Democrats Abroad in Norway, Olee Olsen, thinks that Barack Obama’s victory will improve USA’s position internationally.

”He has shown good judgment and has a unique ability to inspire. When he won in Pennsylvania, I was sure that he would win the election,” says Olsen to NTB.

Olsen’s colleague in the Republicans Abroad, Ken Burton, took the defeat in good spirit.

“We were not able to get the Latin-American voters. Obama was also far better at using the internet, but there is a new election in four years,” says Burton.

Pivotal states

Pennsylvania and Ohio were the two big pivotal states with white, working-class votes that McCain had hoped to procure from Obama. At the last election, the Democrats won the first of the two, but Bush secured the election by winning Ohio.

Large Pennsylvania, with 21 senators was the only Democratic state McCain focused on winning to weigh up for the loss of a number of Republican states, where Obama has lead in the opinion polls throughout the autumn.

He held meetings all over the state during the last weeks, but instead of McCain taking Pennsylvania from the Democrats, it was Obama who took Ohio from the Republicans.

Financial crisis

Both states were won by Hillary Clinton in the primary election, and polls and interviews suggested that Obama never quite had the voters in his hand there, until the financial crisis fully took root, and caused many to lay aside their skepticism to voting for a black candidate.

When the results from California became known, Obama had won in 23 states, while McCain had 18, according to the prognoses from the news bureau, Reuters and the TV channels. BBC gave Obama 33 electoral votes, and McCain, 145.

Obama didn’t lose one of the states that John Kerry won four years ago, and won in addition New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia and Ohio, which George W. Bush won.

Didn’t need them

Obama didn’t need them any longer, but was also doing well in the important pivotal states of North Carolina, Indiana and Florida, even though the TV channels still did not dare to predict the result in these states, where the Republicans had won in all elections during the last ten years.

But CNN has shown how Obama has either won or done a lot better than Kerry in a number of conservative boroughs in the traditionally Republican Indiana. McCain was still in the lead, but this was before the results came in from the boroughs where Kerry had won.

Expansion in the Senate

It also looked as though the Democrats would expand their majority in the Senate, yet would not reach their goal of increasing the number of senators from 51 to 60, which could have ensured that a minority would not be able to stop law-proposals.

The Democrats secured five new senators in Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire, and is looking to win more. However, they did not succeed in removing the minority-leader, Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and the senator, Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, as they had hoped.

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270 Senetors?

Innsendt av Christopher David Osborn, 07.11.2008 14:57:29

You've made a horrible mistake which shows the lack of knowlege of the U.S. electoral system here.

The number 2170 is not senators, but Electoral College Votes.

Eash state has a certain number of electoral college votes based on it's population. Each electoral collage vote is decided on by the popular vote(the collective votes of individual U.S. citizens such as myself) within the individual state.

A senetor, on the other hand, is a type of legislator serving in the senate building of Congress.

Well, that's the basics of it anyway.

For more on the U.S. electoral system as well as the U.S. Senate, I suggest searching the English version of Wikipedia.

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