Obama Landslides McCain; Nader Trounces McKinney

Dems make substantial gains in House;
independents hold balance in swing Senate races

Humboldt Sentinel
11/4/08
By Sentinel Staff

WASHINGTON -- Change has come to the White House, as of next January, with the biggest landslide for Democrats in 44 years.

With preliminary results in from the West Coast, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware have been declared by the Associated Press as the projected landslide winners of the Electoral College, with 375 electoral votes to 163 for their Republican challengers, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. The popular vote appears to be much closer, with approximately 51% for Obama against 47% for McCain, similar to the margin of victory of President George W. Bush over Sen. John Kerry in a 2004 election marred by fraud in Ohio.

Nearly doubling his showing from four years ago, but still falling short of his 2.3% showing in 2000, consumer activist Ralph Nader of Connecticut wound up with about 1% of the vote in his independent bid. Libertarian Party candidate and former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia was running in fourth place at about 0.6% support, followed by Constitution Party candidate and minister Chuck Baldwin at approximately 0.4% support in fifth place. Baldwin was hurt by ballot access challenges keeping him off state ballots such as California, where the state's Constitution Party affiliate, the American Independent Party of California, put former Ambassador Alan Keyes on the ballot -- he's running fifth in California with 0.3%.

Green Party candidate and former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a recent transplant from Georgia to California, wound up dead last of the candidates with a theoretical chance of an Electoral College majority, with only 0.2% support both nationally and in California. She lived down to the expectations established by the controversy-drenched candidacy of David Cobb in 2004, who presided over a 95% decline in Green Party support, the most shocking plummet in support for any third party in the modern history of national politics.

In Congress, Democrats look set to increase their majority in the U.S. Senate by at least five seats and their majority in the House of Representatives by over a dozen seats in the 435-member chamber. Easier Senate wins include the defeat of Republican incumbents in New Hampshire and North Carolina, and the capture of Republican-held open seats in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico.

Democrats' quest for a filibuster-proof sixty-seat majority in the Senate would appear to hinge on the support for third party challenges against four vulnerable Republican incumbents. In Georgia, incumbent Saxby Chambliss will probably be forced into a December run-off against his Democrat opponent Jim Martin due to the 3.5% showing by Libertarian challenger Allen Buckley, who prevented Chambliss from topping the 50% threshold. In Alaska, convicted felon Ted Stevens holds a slim lead over the Democrat mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich, with Alaskan Independence Party candidate Bob Bird holding 4% of the vote and Libertarian candidate Fredrick Hasse with 0.7%. In Oregon, Jeff Merkley is running ahead of incumbent Gordon Smith, who actually ran attack ads against his ultra-conservative challenger, Constitution Party candidate Dave Brownlow who is topping 5%. A state-mandated re-count will likely occur in Minnesota due to the hair's breadth of difference between Norm Coleman and comedian Al Franken, with former Senator Dean Barkley scoring 15%.

Independent candidates may have also tipped the presidential contests in four states, with Obama ahead of McCain by less than a single percentage point in North Carolina and Indiana, which had higher-than-average levels of support for Barr. In Missouri and Montana, McCain holds microscopic leads, small than the percentages won by Nader -- Montana voters also registered 2.1% support for Republican presidential primary contender Ron Paul, a Congressman from Texas who asked to be removed from the fall ballot.

In regional elections, Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) cruised to a sixth term in office with 65% support in early results, leaving Republican Party member Zane Starkewolf with 27% and Green Party member Carol Wolman with less than 8%. The old resident of Thompson's 90s-era California State Senate seat, former Arcata mayor Wes Chesbro, won a spot in the State Assembly held by the termed-out Patty Berg of Eureka. Chesbro beat Eureka retiree, Jim Pell of the Republican Party, by a 65-35% margin.

Across California, Democrats had no trouble maintaining their large majorities in both chambers of the legislature, gaining two seats in the Assembly and perhaps one in the Senate, but falling short in each case of the two-thirds majorities needed to pass state budgets.