Last week, I was back on the Island for Thanksgiving. That Saturday, I attended a street naming ceremony for John Lavelle. I wasn't able to find anything in the paper about this event but it really was something special. My feelings towards I cannot put into words but I just had to post about something about it. Thank you to all those who showed up and thank you to Michael McMahon for getting this done.

When running a campaign with an online presence, having a clean email list is vital. Contacting voters by email allows for direct conversation, breaking news alerts, and fundraising drives.

The Washington Post states that President-elect Obama has 10 million email addresses in his list. Out of those 10 million, 3 million donated. That's unbelievable!

1) The Obama campaign followed the cardinal rule of email lists: make sure it's clean. Do not buy lists, do not keep email addresses on file if people have already unsubscribed, DO NOT SPAM!

Looking at vote totals, it's interested to see how many people voted ONLY for President on Staten Island.

Voted for President: 153,724
Voted for Congress: 133,148

Total: 86.6% voted only for President

The North Shore was the part of the Island that voted for President and Congress the most, followed by the Mid Island, ending with the South Shore only choosing a President the most.

It's interesting how Obama won by a significant margin on the North Shore, edged out by McCain in Mid Island, with McCain winning resoundingly in the South Shore. It's important to note that Straniere also won the South Shore.

Everyone knows that since a Congressmember is elected every two years - they are consistently campaigning. So now that we finally have a Democratic Congressman - we need to secure the seat. The strongest challenger is Vito Fossella. How does he stack up against Congressman-elect Michael McMahon?

Fossella 50.1%
McMahon 49.9%

It's way too close to say who would come out on top and this can easily change depending on President-elect Obama's popularity on the Island. But one thing for sure is this: if Fossella decides to run, it will be extremely competitive.

After the it was announced that our next president will be Barack Obama, I went to the White House where there were thousands of other people. It was one giant party. Cars were honking their horns, people running down Pennsylvania Ave, people inside the White House watching from the windows, and all the media cameras on us. It was a tremendous feeling.

For Congress, Michael McMahon got 61% and Straniere got 33%. Morano's candidacy definitely took votes away from McMahon - roughly 2/3rds of his votes would have gone to McMahon. But McMahon was at the top of his game with a top notch GOTV effort.

Hyer-Spencer pulled through with a win but something needs to be done about connecting with Democratic voters in that area. 55% is too low.

Just came back from the White House.

Yes - Staten Island voters can be gauged without asking them a single question.

In conclusion, vPercent was spot on. Some tinkering needs to be done to take into account candidates running under other parties but this proves something that, to be honest with you, scares me a little.

vPercent had McMahon able to pull 65% and Straniere able to pull 35%.

A look at the most recent results (92% precincts) has the following:

McMahon 61%
Straniere 34%
Cochrane 3%
Morano 3%

By these numbers, it seems as if Straniere did a little better than expected, with Cochrane and Morano (mostly Morano) taking away votes from McMahon.

Winners
Obama
McMahon
Titone
Hyer-Spencer
Tobacco
Cusick
Savino
Lanza

Polls close in less than 3 hours in nearby Virginia (I'm in D.C. right now). I was in Virginia earlier in the day and I saw several cars with OBAMA/BIDEN stickers, signs, etc on their cars. I even saw a handmade sign taped to the back doors that said, "FREE RIDE TO VOTE". Ahh, this is why I love Election Day.

For campaign staff today, I'm sure it's very hectic. In my experience, either you're doing absolutely nothing and waiting for returns or you're doing everything imaginable - phone banking, driving folks, dragging people out of homes to vote. But in the end, you just gotta have faith that you ran the best campaign possible and that you discussed the issues. We're so lucky to live in a country where there can actually be open discussion.

Make sure you go out and vote tomorrow - it's that simple. Make an educated decision and just do it. Every single vote counts.

There will be no more changes to the vPercent. After looking at the margin of error, I've decided to leave it as is. I'm comfortable with the range being from 62% to 68%/32% to 38%.

KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS ONLY TAKES INTO ACCOUNT TWO CANDIDATES.

This doesn't address Cochrane or Morano. So you can tell who these candidates directed votes from.

It's the first time I'll be displaying these numbers in public. It makes me a little uneasy (it sucks to be wrong) but I'm fairly confident that this is how it will turn out in NY-13 tomorrow. If not, then some changes will need to be made - no worries.