Thursday Morning Update

Even though we know that the Democrats will control the executive and legislative branch, the 2008 election is not yet over, and the Obama people don't know exactly what kind of Congress they will be working with, as several races still hang in the balance:

Politico.com and FiveThirtyEight.com have just projected that Barack Obama will win reliably red North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes. Right now, Obama has 49.9% to McCain's 49.5% with 100% of the precincts reporting, yet Politico is the only major site or network to project a winner.

MSNBC has called Missouri for McCain, who leads Obama by 0.2% with 100% of the precincts reporting. If these two projections are valid, Obama will have won the electoral college 364-173 (Nebraska's 2nd Congressional district is still too close to call).

In the Senate, Democrat Jeff Merkley has been projected to narrowly beat out Republican Gordon Smith by The Oregonian. But three more races have yet to called.

In Minnesota, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman leads Al Franken by 477 votes out of 2.9 million cast, so the race is transitioning into a statewide automatic recount. The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out several statements congratulating Coleman for his win, but both the Franken and Coleman campaigns have hired legal teams to represent them in the recount, a sign that this one is far from over. The recounts will begin in mid-November are might continue into December.

Alaska Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens still leads Democrat Mark Begich by about 3,300 votes out of more than 208,000 cast, and with just 1% of precincts left to report. There are still at least 40,000 absentee ballots, 9,000 early voting ballots, and an undetermined number of questionable ballots that need to be counted, according to Roll Call. But things don't look good for Begich.

In Georgia, Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss has not reached the 50% needed to win, so he will face Democrat Jim Martin in a run-off election on December 2. Organizers and volunteers on both sides have begun to buy plane tickets to come down to Georgia. This battle won't be for a 60th seat, but it will be a seat nonetheless.

In other news, about 133.3 million people cast ballots, or about 62.5% of eligible voters, according to George Mason University expert Michael McDonald. That's the highest turnout for any election since 1960, when 63.8% voted in the contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.