Obama wins North Carolina; now claims 364 electoral votes

President-elect Barack Obama has won North Carolina, bringing his victory tally to 364 electoral votes, according to the Associated Press. The news came Thursday morning, two days after voters cast their ballots in the historic presidential election.

Missouri is still too close to call by some estimates but is considered in the GOP column by other estimates. But it was a sign of Obama's landslide victory that he did not need Missouri or North Carolina to push him over the top, thus allowing the race to be called at 11 p.m. Tuesday evening.

Obama's win in the Tar Heel state, along with his victories in Florida and Virginia, gives him three southern states in his column. He becomes the first non Southern Democrat to win the White House since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

After a bruising primary battle, many pundits worried that Obama might not be competitive in the south and in traditionally Republican states. They also pointed to Senator Hillary Clinton's victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania to suggest that Obama might have a problem carrying working class whites in rust belt states. And they feared that Clinton' victories in the disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan would hurt Obama in those two states in the general election.

Never mind.

Obama won Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania and picked up several other states that no Democrat has carried in years. The Democrats won Indiana and Virginia for the first time since 1964. Even Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, two sons of the south, were never able to accomplish that feat.

And now Obama has taken North Carolina, the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to do so.