Convincing, But Not the Landslide It Could Have Been

Barack Obama’s victory is historic and is also the best showing for a Democrat since Bill Clinton won his second term in 1996 with 379 electoral votes. As of the wee hours of Wednesday morning, long after John McCain had offered a gracious concession speech and Obama had declared victory, two states remained outstanding: North Carolina and Montana. Obama appeared headed toward victory in former and defeat in the latter, thus producing a final electoral vote count of 363-185.

But despite the historic dimensions of this result and its seeming landslide proportions, it’s probably worth noting just how close John McCain came to engineering en Election Day miracle.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, polls consistently showed him trailing by a high single-digit margin, and falling behind – hopelessly in some cases – in virtually every battleground state on the map. Given that virtually every battleground represented a state that George W. Bush won in 2000, McCain seemed on the verge of losing the race in a historic thumping.

But that didn’t quite happen.

Yes, most of the toss-up states ended up siding with Obama, but he didn’t have much breathing room in them. Virginia, for instance, ended up being a five-point, 145,000 vote margin for Obama – a verdict that wasn’t clear until very late on Election Night. In Florida, he fell short by just two points. In Ohio, where the race was called early, the final margin was only four. In Indiana, where Obama appeared to win a squeaker, McCain trailed by just 23,000 votes, or less than one percent of all votes cast. And in North Carolina, where Obama led as the night ended but hadn’t yet been declared the victor, the Democrat’s advantage was a mere 12,000 votes.

In other words, McCain came within a few points – or less – of pulling out wins in Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina (and appeared headed for a narrow win in Missouri). Had he done just slightly better in those states and won them, Obama’s electoral vote total would have dropped to just 277 – barely over the magic 270 mark. Then, just one upset McCain win in a decent-size state could have made the Arizonan the winner.

Granted, this would have been a lot to accomplish for McCain. And since the broadcast networks called Ohio surprisingly early in the night, the G.O.P. nominee never seemed in position to pull off an upset win on Tuesday. But it should be said that, in the end, he came closer than just about anyone thought he would – and that Democrats fell short of the historic landslide that they’d been hoping for.

In the run-up to Tuesday, all signs pointed to a dominating showing by Obama. We heard endless talk about his voter-turnout operation and the millions of new voters who, inspired by his candidacy, would trek to the polls. Since he was already leading in most swing states, the wishful thinking of Democrats was that an undetected wave of Obama support would move create a tsunami, with every battleground state and even a few seemingly-safe Republican states breaking for him in the end.

But that’s not quite what happened. Instead, Obama held on to the states that John Kerry won in 2004, for a total of 252 electoral votes. He crossed the 270-vote threshold with relative ease by winning convincingly in the red states of Colorado, Iowa, and New Mexico, bringing his electoral vote total to 271. But beyond that, his best margin in a red state came in Ohio, where he prevailed by four points. In the end, he crossed 50 percent in enough of those red states to produce a convincing Electoral College verdict; but McCain was no more than a few points in a few states away from holding Obama to the bare minimum of electoral votes.

This isn’t meant to throw cold water on the Obama celebration. But his narrow margins in most of the swing states coupled with the relatively close popular vote tally should temper the euphoria of the Democrat and his backers. Yes, they won, and they did far better than the last two Democratic nominees. But they’d be wise not to forget that, even though they had just about every built-in factor working in their favor, much of the country still refused to stand with them.

As the president-elect, Obama is walking into an opportunity to create unity in the country – and there is still a lot of unifying left to do.

UPDATE: OK, so McCain wasn't really that close to pulling out an upset last night. Since the very early morning hours when I wrote this, late-reporting precincts from across the country have reported and many early votes have been tabulated. Obama now seems on course to win the national popular vote by a margin of about 6 percent -- not the 3-point spread that it looked like earlier. Plus, his standing has improved in several states (partiuclarly) in the South where he didn't win but where he has now clearly improved on John Kerry's 2004 performance. Obama's win is definitely more decisive than portrayed in this column.

That said, it is still not as overwhelming as Democrats were hoping for. The party had believed that a gain of 35 to 40 (or even more) House seats was within reach; but the final number will be around 20. And they believed that 59 or 60 Senate seats were very possible, but they will probably end up with 56 -- 55 if you don't count Joe Lieberman. (A recount in Minnesota and a potential run-off in Georgia, where Saxby Chambliss now sits at 49.9 percent, are still pending.) It probably sounds ridiculous to say that Democrats will feel some disappointment in "only" having majorities of 56 Senate and 256 or so House seats, since this is the best position they've enjoyed in  both chambers since 1994.

But it could have been much bigger -- and the party was counting on a giant turnout wave for Obama to carry its marginal House and Senate candidates over the top. For instance, consider Linda Stender, a Democrat who ran for an open House seat in suburban New Jersey. The district has a slight Republican lean historically, but an influx of new Obama-friendly voters was supposed to change the math and produce a Stender victory. But it didn't happen. Stender lost the race by nine points. This isn't the only race where something like this happened.