With the early results showing Indiana closer than expected in strong Republican districts like Knox and Marshall, with Mark Warner already being called the winner of the Virginia Senate race and Virginia turnout hitting around the 75% mark according to AP — the chances of a McCain victory are effectively zero.

Rural and regional US precincts aren’t performing as strongly for the Republicans as they recently have, the cities seem to be performing stronger for Obama than the Democrats have enjoyed for a number of elections. Virginia will be won by the Democrats, Florida will be won by the Democrats, Indiana appears to be a close Democrat victory, Pennsylvania will be one by the Democrats by a margin of 5% or more based on the same demographic patterns we’ve seen so far.

But while Obama has won, the big landslide — the 400+ Electoral College vote plus landslide – doesn’t seem to have eventuated. West Virginia appears to have remained Republican, Georgia doesn’t look like it will flip to being a Democrat State from the results so far, unless urban turnout has been absolutely enormous. If the rest of the US continues along similar lines to the batch of East coast results that have rolled in so far, we’re looking at a Democrat victory of around 375 Electoral College Votes.

The networks are spinning this out, trying to make a show of something which is pretty much a done deal, and they’ll continue to play this game throughout the night if for no other reason than to avoid a repeat of the 2000 fiasco.

But this isn’t 2000, it’s 2008 and Obama has won by a substantial margin.