The NY Daily News is reporting that the Obama campaign has ended it’s run with so much extra cash that staffers will receive a bonus of an extra months pay and will have the option of keeping their campaign laptops and blackberries with one caveat, they will have to pay income tax on the hardware.

In an election where it was predicted the youth vote would rise to prominancewe are left with two differing visions of the outcome.

From MSNBC
“Young voters not essential to Obama triumph

From US News & World Report

“Young Voters Powered Obama’s Victory While Shrugging Off Slacker Image”

Confused? So am I.

Marketwatch headlines 18-29 Voter Landslide Is A New Generation Flexing Their Activism in an election where the youth vote overwhelmingly went to Senator Barack Obama. This massive support from one sliver of the electorate would seem likely to sway the election right? Not so.

The aforementioned MSNBC article provides a state-by-state analysis showing that if the youth vote were removed from this years electorate only two states would have turned red. Those two states were not essential to bringing Obama to the 270 needed electoral votes. In the end the analysis shows the opposite for black voters who won Florida & Ohio for Obama. All the final numbers are still being looked at by all media outlets and researchers but the evidence seems clear that it was black voters and not youth who brought Obama to victory.

Before the election pundits and commentators claimed the election was shaping up to one where youth turnout would hit its highest note in history. Instead youth turnout stood at 54.5% just one point shy of 1972 the first election 18-20 year olds were allowed to vote thanks to the 26th amendment. The youth vote was far less than the 60.7% to 61.7% of the overall population estimated to have voted in the election. It should be noted that overall this number is within a point or so of 2004 turnout. The difference? About 1.3% of Republicans stayed home while Dems increased their voters by 2.6%.

So why the disconnect between the numbers and the articles? We can only guess but there sure are an awful lot of articles telling a much different tale.

Other headlines: Young voters shake things up, Young voters turnout in record numbers on Election Day, Young voters lifted Obama to Election victory, and so on…

AP projects Obama the winner of North Carolina

Report from Wall Street Journal that many ballot measures around the country seeking environmental reforms and initiatives failed this election.

Democrat Jeff Merkley has defeated Republican Sen. Gordon Smith in Oregon giving Democrats a sixth new seat in the Senate and bringing them up to a 57 seat majority.

Hello fans of Election Geek. So what will I be up to now that the election is over? While I will continue to update this site I have decided to expand into a new site devoted to the new administration aptly titled… Geek President! All the latest news, politics, policies, history & more. If it has to do with Barack Obama, the new administration or the presidency it will be there.

So check it out!

From CNN results in 4 Senate races will likely go to recounts including the much watched Coleman/Franken Minnesota race that was called earlier for Coleman by the AP. With a very slim margin of victory that race along with races in Alaska, Georgia and Oregon will likely face recounts.

The DOW dropped 486 points today in what Bloomberg says is the largest post-Election point drop in US history.

One of the heavily watched Senate races of 2008 has come to an end as the Associated Press calls the race in Minnesota for incumbent Norm Coleman. Comedian Al Franken had challenged Coleman for the seat giving up a talk radio job and returning to Minnesota generating a great deal of buzz but ultimately helping to ensure Democrats would not pick up a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The race will come down to a few hundred votes.

Senator Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States of America.