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It's morning in America, and everywhere else in this hemisphere, and the morning after a historic election brings some clarity to the numbers we were looking at with bleary eyes last night.

First, to state the obvious: Virginia is changing.

It's not just that the state cast its ballots for an African-American candidate. It did that twice before -- Doug Wilder for lieutenant governor in 1985 and Wilder again for governor in 1989.

It's not just that Virginia went Democratic, though that switch is even more historic than many of the pundits have been saying. The typical formulation is to say that this is the first time Virginia has gone Democratic since 1964. That's certainly true, but misses a larger point. That 1964 election was an aberration -- the Lyndon Johnson landslide over Barry Goldwater in the wake of John F. Kennedy's death. Before that, you have to go back to 1948 and Harry Truman to find another Democratic winner, and even he was a minority winner that year. Truman took 47.9 percent of the vote in a four-way race.

Let's put that another way: Virginia has been a reliable Republican state in presidential elections since the first Eisenhower election in 1952.

And to find a Democratic presidential candidate who has won a majority of the state's votes? Well, other than that Johnson landslide in an abnormal election year, you have to go back to 1944, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won his third term with 62 percent of the vote in the Old Dominion.

The real change is more forward-looking, and foreshadows other elections to come in the state.

I have to eat a little bit of crow because some of the rural bellwether counties I had identified in my "five places to watch" didn't ring true this year. I'm thinking of Henry County, Alleghany County and some of the counties down in the coalfields, such as Buchanan and Dickenson. In previous years, they've been swing areas. This year, they all went for McCain, and it didn't matter. Obama won the state anyway.

The reason for that, of course, is Northern Virginia, which not only continues to grow, but evolve. My two ultimate belwether counties did ring true -- Loudoun and Prince William counties.  Those used to be solid GOP counties. They first flipped Democratic in the 2005 governor's race, when Tim Kaine took both. Jim Webb pulled the same trick again in the 2006 Senate race. And now Obama carried them, as well. There's an old saying that when something happens three times, it's a trend. Well, are those now even swing counties? Probably so, but we can definitely see how they're trending, and it's not Republican.

Of note: Obama not only duplicated the feat there, but he improved on the previous numbers. When Kaine won Prince William County, he did it by not quite 2 percentage points. Obama had a 12 percentage point margin there. Twelve! And when you compute what that means in terms of raw votes -- 16,408 -- well, let's put it this way, that's enough to wipe out McCain's margin in a whole slate of rural counties.

Here's a question for the future: Will we see Democrats even make much of an effort in rural Virginia in the future? Obama followed the Mark Warner model: Spend a lot of time here, and at least try to cut the margins. It didn't seem to work. Yes, I know you could say that if he hadn't done it, maybe he'd have lost here by even bigger margins. But still . . . .  Obama lost counties in the coalfields that had stuck with Democrats in all but the very worst of times. (You have to go back to Richard Nixon in the 1972 landslide over George McGovern to find the last time Buchanan and Dickenson voted Republican in a presidential race.)

Now, number-wise, those localities obviously don't matter as much as Northern Virginia, but it's always been a nice thing symbolically for Democrats to point to the coalfields as evidence of their diverse base. Do they even need to bother with that anymore?

A final point: The latest numbers show Obama winning about 52 percent of the vote in the state. He's also winning 52 percent of the vote nationally. So you want a bellwether? Maybe we're it, and the reason lies up along Interstate 66.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

For other analysis of the 2008 returns, click here.

Late tonight, the tightest congressional race in Virginia appears to the the 5th District, where barely 2,100 votes out of more than 300,000 cast separates Democratic challenger Tom Perriello from longtime incumbent Republican Virgil Goode.

Late in the evening, Perriello had seemed barely ahead, by 142 votes, with all but absentee ballots in Campbell and Lunenburg counties reporting. But shortly after midnight, the State Board of Elections Web site suddenly flipped more than 1,900 votes into Perriello's columns, giving him a 2,101 lead, though neither candidate was declaring victory or conceding.

It appears the result of that race won't be announced until later Wednesday, if then.

At this point, it doesn't appear Goode is close enough for a mandatory recount -- he's just about seven-tenths of a percentage point behind Perriello. The state performs a mandatory recount for any race decided by less than five-tenths of a percentage point. But Goode could make up some votes in the absentee ballots, because he's winning in both Campbell and Lunenburg counties. Whether those will take him into recount territory is anyone's guess.

"This is a close race but I am confident that once all of the votes are counted I will be re-elected to represent the 5th Congressional District of Virginia," Goode said. "We have a comprehensive operation in place to make sure that every legitimate vote is counted."

Earlier in the evening, Perriello release his own statement:

"We are confident that when all the votes are counted, we will maintain our lead and there will be a change in leadership in the 5th district," he said.

-- Dan Casey

* We've said repeatedly that one of the big keys to winning Virginia is winning the Northern Virginia exurbs in Loudoun County and Prince William County. Obama did that tonight, big time. He took 53 percent of the vote in Loudoun and is taking 55 percent in Prince William with some votes still out. When was the last time a Democrat carried those two counties in a presidential race? You have to go all the way back to 1964, when Lyndon Johnson took Virginia, and the nation, in a landslide over Barry Goldwater. Those two counties were probably still big dairy-farming counties then.

* We previously noted that Buchanan County and Dickenson County down in the coalfields, which went for John McCain, hadn't voted for a Republican in a presidential race since Richard Nixon in his 1972 landslide over George McGovern.

Those flips raise a question: Why didn't Obama run well in the coalfields? Was it his lack of enthusiasm for the coal industry? His well-publicized troubles connecting with blue-collar voters? Was it race? Or is this just part of a larger historical trend in the state that has seen Republicans gain ground in rural areas and Democrats start winning in the suburbs?

Democrats would probably gladly trade Buchanan and Dickenson for Loudoun and Prince William any day. There were 8,593 votes cast for the two major-party candidates in Buchanan, 6,535 in Dickenson. By contrast, there were 117,988 cast in Loudoun County.

I previously noted that Obama's win in Virginia more closely resembles the way Jim Webb won the Senate race in 2006 than the way Tim Kaine won the governorship in 2005. For previous posts through the evening, click here.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

A few late tweaks to the map:

* Dickenson County has gone back to McCain, which means the Republican swept the coalfields. He's the first Republican presidential candidate to win Buchanan and Dickenson counties since Richard Nixon in 1972. His margin in Dickenson: 37 votes.

* Suffolk has come in, and is going for Obama.

* Still some big chunks of votes out in Virginia Beach (McCain country) and Fairfax County (Obama country), and smaller bits missing in other pieces of Northern Virginia.

But not enough to make the difference, I don't think.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

Nobody's called Virginia yet, but they may as well: Obama has a slight lead in the state. But most of the precincts still out are in Northern Virginia localities that have been voting for Obama. The only sizeable locality still out that McCain is winning is Virginia Beach, and it's hard to see how there are more votes still outstanding in Virginia Beach than there are in Northern Virginia.

If that pattern holds, Obama's victory in Virginia is going to look more like Jim Webb's in the 2006 Senate race than Tim Kaine's in the 2005 governor's race.

We've been focused -- well, I've been focused -- on comparing tonight's numbers with the 2004 Bush victory and the 2005 Kaine victory. But Webb's 2006 race may be the more accurate comparison.

Obama has lost lots of places that Bush won that Kaine managed to carry. But Webb, like Obama, also fared poorly in the coalfields. Webb, like Obama, lost Virginia Beach. But then he ran up big numbers in Northern Virginia. That's exactly what's happening here tonight. So maybe those rural areas don't count for as much as I've insisted they do.

Only 52 percent of Fairfax County is in, and Obama is winning there with 59 percent of the vote.

To be fair to McCain, only 44 percent of Virginia Beach is in, and McCain is taking that with 54 percent.

But then there's also still Loudoun County and Prince William, which still have votes out. Obama's winning there. Ditto Arlington.

We also have no results at all from Charles City County, a rural county just east of Richmond, that should go heavily for Obama. We also have no results from Suffolk, which was a Bush locality four years ago.

Still, this looks like an Obama win in Virginia.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

All the Roanoke precincts are now in, except for the absentees and Obama has a 8,492-vote margin in the city. The absentee vote, of course, could expand that, or cut it down some.

That's in contrast to a 2,201-vote margin that Kerry eked out of the Star City four years ago.

Some observations on the city totals:

* Turn-out in the black precincts was higher than it's been in many years -- and matched the city-wide turn-out. Four years ago, turn-out in many of the black precincts was in the low 50 percent range. In 2000, it was sometimes below 50 percent. Today, the lowest turn-out in the city's black precincts was 58 percent in Lincoln Terrace, and more than 63 percent in Westside.

* That actually was a bit higher than the city-wide figure of 60.83 percent.

* The highest turn-out in the city was  in Grandin Court, where 78 percent of registered voters cast ballots. The lowest percentage was Highland No. 1, where 43 percent voted.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

The State Board of Elections now gives Obama a slight lead in Virginia. Here are some the reasons why:

Those exurban counties in Northern Virginia we've talked about are coming in heavy for him.

We now have 85 percent of the vote in from Prince William County, and Obama is taking 55 percent there.

In Loudoun County, we have 79 percent reporting, and Obama has upped his share there to 53 percent.

Both of those were counties Bush carried four years ago.

Only 35 percent of Fairfax County is in, but Obama is pulling 58 percent there, about 5 points ahead of Kerry four years ago.

Also of note: Obama has now pulled ahead down in Dickenson County. With 64 percent of the vote in, he now clings to a 50-49 percent lead there. If that holds, Dickenson would be the only locality west of Radford he's winning.

But with those Northern Virginia numbers, it may not matter.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

CNN has just declared Obama the winner in Ohio. You'll recall that earlier this evening I laid out a generally-agreed up scenario:

If Obama held Pennsylvania, he'd hold all the Kerry states. Then he'd pick up Iowa, which seemed a given by both sides. And then he just needed to pick up one of a number of large swing states.

Ohio was one of those. So if CNN says Obama will win Ohio, that means Obama is going to win the presidency.

CNN hasn't connected those dots yet, but if you read my earlier blog post, you can.

Meanwhile, we'll wait up to see how Virginia goes.  You'll notice that now that Northern Virginia has started to report in, the state has moved back into a tie on both CNN and the State Board of Elections website. We'll wait here until the bitter end.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

We have new numbers in and Obama is winning Loudoun County and Prince William County by increasing margins. Those are the two key swing counties I had identified as the ones to watch in the state.

We have 32 percent of the vote reporting in both localities. In Prince William, Obama is taking 55 percent of the vote. In Loudoun County, he's getting 51 percent of the vote. Both of those were counties Bush took in 2004.

Obama is also picking up Henrico County, outside Richmond. Henrico went for Bush; this year, with 97 percent of the vote in, Obama is taking 55 percent of the vote there.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

Let's take a break from the presidential race for a moment to look over at the Senate race -- what there was of it.

In Roanoke County -- as good a Republican county as there is -- Republican Jim Gilmore won only one precinct, and he won that one by just two votes. That was Bonsack, by the way -- Gilmore 232, Warner 230.

Warner beat Gilmore in every other precinct.

As for the presidential race in Roanoke County, McCain beat Obama in every precinct. The closest precincts were Garst Mill, where McCain edged Obama 609-586, and Hollins, where McCain edged the Democrat 445-414.

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor