Stories

The chronology of the election returns had it backward.

Early election results showed incumbent Democratic state Reps. Wes Whitead, Roger Wendt and Elesha Gayman losing their seats as the returns rolled in. A buzz of panic rippled through an Iowa City victory party: “Did we lose the House? Did we lose the House?”

But the three incumbents had won re-election (assuming Whitead holds his six-vote lead) before the polls even opened.

A look at the numbers behind the 2008 campaign.

Immediately after polls closed in the Hawkeye State, the Associated Press and other news outlets projected that Sen. Barack Obama had won Iowa’s seven electoral votes.
That timing makes it likely that Obama’s margin of victory over Sen. John McCain will be large.
It was also projected that U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has retained his seat, fending [...]

Mouse over a county to see its current election returns:

With all of the hullabaloo about both sides’ Get Out The Vote (GOTV) programs today, I thought it might be helpful to outline the basic components that go into every successful Election Day effort.
Right now, staffers for Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are working frantically to keep everything together.  Below, you’ll find a brief [...]