It's one of the great traditions of American presidential politics. Every single one of the registered voters in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, (21 of them, this year) casts a vote shortly after midnight, so they can be tallied and announced to the world.
This year's tally: Obama 15, McCain 6.
But Obama and his supporters can, as they say, curb their enthusiasm, according to Nate Silver at the 538 blog. He presents a graph showing no correlation between Dixville Notch's vote and that of New Hampshire as a whole.
And it will inevitably be disappointing for Obama to watch his percentage of the popular vote decrease as the day and night go on. If the polls are accurate, of course, it's not really bad news, because he can expect to end up over 50% and, more importantly, over 50% in the electoral college.
According to past election results listed in Dixville Notch's Wikipedia entry, it has generally voted Republican during the past half-century. In what seems to me a quirky exception, Hubert Humphrey, in 1968, was the only previous Democratic nominee to win a plurality of the votes. Richard Nixon outpolled Humphrey in the entire state by 52% to 44%.
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