Thank you, Mark. This is a good group, with a lot of collective knowledge. I would have registered before, but this is the first time I had anything useful to add to the discussion.

The actual time when a presidential candidate wins is probably impossible to determine. It should be whenever the winning candidate earned 270 electoral ballots. News services that "call" an election outcome generally do this on the basis of projections. I remember that in 2000, CNN calle...