A few late-breaking items:

The Oregonian has called the ever-close U.S. Senate race in Oregon with challenger Jeff Merkley defeating incumbent GOP Gordon Smith (incidentally, a Mormon). That gives the Democrats 57 seats in the U.S. Senate. Minnesota and Alaska are still awaiting the counting of absentee and provisional ballots. Georgia, as noted before, is going into a Dec. 2 runoff.

It also appears now that the Democrats have picked up a net 22 seats in the House of Representatives. The Obama coattails have lengthened a bit today.

Earlier, The Selective Echo cited George Mason University’s Michael McDonald on turnout figures for yesterday’s presidential election. Keep in mind that ballots are still being counted despite what the unofficial popular vote totals show. earlier, McDonald suggested that the turnout rate would be the highest since 1964 and perhaps since 1960. He adds the following:

“Almost 137 million (136,631,825) went to the polls — 64.1% of the voting-eligible population. 1960 saw 63.7% of the populace go out to vote; In 1908, 65.7% voted. It was, of course, the most people ever to go to the polls topping 2004’s 122 million. That’s a 12% increase from 2004.”

As for the youth vote, check the following out:

CIRCLE projects the youth voter turnout will be between 49.3% and 54.5%, an increase of 1 to 6 percentage points over CIRCLE’s estimate based on the 2004 exit polls. The 2004 election was a strong one for youth turnout, reversing a long history of decline. If we compare 2008 with 2000, the increase in youth turnout is between 8 and 13 percentage points. CIRCLE will replace projections with actual vote counts once most precincts have reported, including absentee ballots. Depending on the final vote tally, this year’s youth turnout could be the second highest since 1972 (55.4%).”