I’m going to go ahead and say this before the major news networks do. Bush wins. Unless if I’m being outright lied to or there is some crazy fact I am not aware of, I don’t see how Ohio is considered a “too close to call.” Same for New Mexico (although I’m a bit less sure about that as I don’t know how many provisional/absentee ballots are out there for NM, but I doubt enough to swing 11k in favor of Bush).
Let’s look at the numbers. Right now, with 99% precints reporting in Ohio, Bush has 2,777,645 votes and Kerry 2,632,547. So that’s about a 145k lead. Let’s say there’s a generous 250k absentee and provisional ballots still out there and ALL of them are valid. So, in order for Kerry to tie (x is percentage of votes Kerry needs):
250x = 250(1-x) + 145
250x = 250 - 250x + 145
x = 395/500 = .79 = 79%
So essentially, Kerry needs to get 80% or more of the absentee/provisional ballots to win. Does that seem likely? I think not. It seriously seems like the media is trying to make this another Florida ‘00.