Hope

Kos has a post that makes me kind of breathe a sigh of relief.

Ohio is not out of contention, not as long as the urban areas (like Cuyahoga county) fail to report in. My brother, who has been crunching numbers all night (he likes math), makes a persuassive case that Bush will have a 20K lead in Ohio without absentees after all urban precincts report. The absentees would decide the race.

Florida won't be called tonight, not without so many absentee ballots outstanding (1 million). I don't feel good about Florida, but those absentees are mostly from Dem areas according to MSNBC. It's not over.

NH looks ready to go to Kerry. And early Nevada results look good. Same with the rest of the Gore states except for New Mexico.

If we hold the Gore states, which is quite a reasonable assumption, and flip Nevada and New Hampshire, then we have the dreaded 269-269 results.

But Ohio would be the big prize.

Update: Nevermind Florida. It's been called for Bush. Let's hope it's been called prematurely.

On his last point about Florida, Bush is only up by 300,000 votes. If Kos is correct, and there is indeed 1 million outstanding absentee ballots, then there's absolutely no reason why Florida should have been called for Bush. I repeat: Absolutely. No. Reason.

MSNBC seemed to be the last hold out, but they just moved Florida from undecided to Bush. But CNN shows Bush holding a 340,781 vote lead over Kerry. Again, with a million outstanding ballots left to be counted in Florida, then there's absolutely no reason Florida should be called for Bush.

As for Ohio, it's close.. There's still hope, but we're not going to know which candidate won that state by 8am, I'll tell you that much.