Interesting numbers from North Carolina.

President bush carried Wake County by 7,000 votes four years ago-Obama carried Wake County by 64,000 votes Tuesday.
In the seven largest counties, Kerry won by 30,000 in 2004, Obama won by 303,000 in 2008.
I hope people find that interesting and know if we can solidify those numbers for the future, North Carolina can become a reliably blue state in the future.

we will likely solidify those numbers, or at least keep moving in that direction. VA and NC are becoming blue states.

I keep checking the Board of Elections web site, but apparently we won't know anything until at least next week. Right now Obama has a 13,000 vote lead in NC, and I hope hope hope that it holds! My county, Watauga, went blue for the first time in my life! If you look at a map of NC counties, Watauga is the little slip of blue up in the northwest corner, surrounded by a sea of red. I can't tell you how great it feels to finally be able to say that I live in a blue county in a (hopefully) BLUE STATE! :loveya:

thanks for posting. Huge difference between 04 and now. I'd like to see the numbers for other states that "turned blue" compared to NC. Of course the primary credit goes to Howard Dean, the Obama campaign, and local GOTV workers --but there are also some unsung heroes in North Carolina working specifically on election reform.

Since 2004, work has been done at state level to reduce the amount of election corruption--evident during the last 2 elections where NC's record was no better than Ohio or Florida. This effort put the spotlight on NC's tradition of election corruption--carried out chiefly by Republicons in recent years I AM implying. The work of closing the loopholes for election theft is not finished by a long shot, but I think it did help in this recent election. Prosecution against offenders in future needs to be a real threat instead of a joke.

NC should have been blue in 00 and 04 but Dem voting was suppressed in various ways. I think the current numbers you cite may also reflect the effects of progress in this thankless area of election reform.

think it's a general unawareness by large numbers of the electorate.

and at least one party likes that situation very well, the party that managed to get Diebold audit-less touchscreens into 40 NC counties.

Even after this narrow Dem "win" in NC, there is much more work to be done. Rather than becoming complacent I hope that people understand that the threat is still very real that future elections could be compromised, especially if close.

This is NCVV statement on the subject so far:

http://www.ncvoter.net/

Press Release: NC Verified Voting's Statement on Nov. 4, 2008 election: The machines worked well, some voters were not on the voting rolls, & the jury is out on whether intense voter education overcame the confusion of the straight ticket voting law.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
North Carolina Nailbiter: Presidential Candidates 11,246 votes apart Did NC's Straight ticket voting law cost presidential candidates votes? Maybe not this time. The verdict isn't in yet. The Presidential contest had more votes cast than did the other contests. Maybe the media attention and voter education about the confusing straight ticket voting law (straight ticket doesn't include president) worked. The political parties had greeters to give voters palm cards in many areas, and most of the 100 County BoE's also had fliers for the voters. No one was handing out palm cards warning voters about straight ticket in 2004.The margin of victory was less than the number of undervotes. ...See the breakdown of President, US Senate, and Governor at the link