The US House or Representatives officially passed H.R. 3962, The Affordable Health for America Act, at 11:15 PM ET upon the confirmation of the tally by House Leader Nancy Pelosi (D); although the qualifying number of votes were cast 8 minutes earlier:

The final vote was 220 Ayes to 215 Nays:

The lone Republican voting for the measure was Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana's Second District.

The House adjourned until Monday at 6 PM, after a fourteen and a half hour session. There will probably be several press conferences from each party at some point; you can watch live on CSPAN.org or check your local TV Listing for the channel number in your area.

Update [12:25 AM, CT 9/8/2009]: Immediately following the passage of the bill, and before the Democratic press conference, CSPAN fielded callers from around the country. Below is one of these such exchanges:

@6:08

Announcer: Lets hear what you have to say about the debate today. This is Pam in San Diego, California against the bill; go ahead.

Pam: Yeah. My name is Pam, and I am very much against any bill, on any kind of insurance, because insurance is not an airbag to protect you. Insurance does not buy healthcare; there is something, just, infinitely wrong with the idea that doctors are actually taking care of people.

[emphasis added]

Source: CSPAN.org Video Library

The bolded text above is probably the most vile and incompetent critique of healthcare reform possible. Insurance does buy healthcare, in fact it's the purpose of having insurance; you spend money, i.e. you buy insurance, and in turn, you receive healthcare. Insurance is the exchange of money for access to healthcare within a distributed stress system. The general concept of insurance places roughly equal burden upon all participants in exchange for assistance when a statistical anomaly occurs, such as cancer. Insurance buys access to, in this example, healthcare for cancer; this healthcare is probably not affordable, without insurance, for the average American [pg. 5].

Secondly, the purpose of doctors is to take care of people; which I thought was a common sense notion, but apparently I was wrong. The Hippocratic Oath, the corner stone of ethical medicine, seems to hint at a doctor's need to care for their patients:

...

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

...

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

...

Source: PBS NOVA

The statements by Pam above, are without a doubt, the most ignorant things I have ever heard relating to the healthcare debate.

There were no new polls released today, so I'm calling the polling projections final. The first graph for each state uses our traditional methodology, while the second graph incorporates every poll, regardless of partisan affiliation:

Remember, the point of our projections is not to predict the winner, but rather to access the accuracy of public polling. That being said, the hope is that our projections are accurate under the assumption that the polls were accurate.

You can follow the returns live at each states' respective Secretaty of State website; I've included links below:

Virginia
New Jersey (this link is sketchy, but I'm assuming they'll update the page.)
California CD-10 (not updated yet)
New York CD-23 (not updated yet)
Minnesota: St. Paul Mayor | Minneapolis Mayor

I'll also be recording the historical real-time result; I'll try and post a graph every hour or so depicting the vote totals as a function of time.

There were twenty-seven new polls since last week's update:

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time discussing the gubernatorial elections, because I plan to do that tomorrow, but I will leave you with a few thoughts to ponder and the latest polling projections:

I'll first address the obvious; New Jersey is very close and Virginia isn't. McDonnell (R) could win by 20% while Corzine (D) or Christie (R) could win by 20 votes. There is no automatic recount in New Jersey, but any candidate can request a recount within 15 days of the election.

Secondly, Sarah Palin has injected herself into the New Jersey fray with a statement on facebook:

Despite what candidate Chris Daggett is claiming, I have never contacted him or his campaign. I have never asked him to drop out of the NJ Governor's race. Now, if a politician is going to play loose with facts like this, the electorate needs to know it.

So, to the good people of New Jersey, please know that Daggett's claims are false. I?ve never even suggested he should drop out of the race. But, come to think of it?

- Sarah Palin

Source: Sarah Palin on Facebook.com

Nobody inclined to vote for Daggett (I) gives two shits what Palin thinks, about anything. In fact her innuendo, for Dagget to drop out, would definitely not help Christie. The most recent Quinnipiac University poll of New Jersey asked which second candidate Daggett voter's preferred; Corzine led by 10%, 39 to 29. Another recent poll by Public Policy Polling (D) made the same determination. Daggett is helping Christie at this point, but Palin is too stupid to realize this.

Obama also campaigned for Corzine over the weekend. The cover of today's New York Times prominently displayed Obama and Corzine in a traditional rally pose. This is definitely positive exposure for Corzine and could translate into votes, although New Jersey does not have same day registration.

And finally, the campaign fundraising reports from New Jersey I promised last week:

                 Corzine (D)     Christie (R)     Daggett (I)
Receipts      $ 24,057,600.20  $ 11,720,288.00  $ 1,312,632.00
Expenditures  $ 23,645,190.76  $  8,804,745.66  $ 1,161,907.13
Cash on Hand  $    412,409.44  $  2,915,542.34  $   150,724.87

Submission Date: 10/23/2009

Source: New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission

Corzine clearly won the fundrace, but will it translate to a victory tomorrow evening?

I'm waiting until tomorrow to post the final projections as there are likely polls in the field today that will be released tomorrow. I'll have updated graphs, as well as my final thoughts before the polls close tomorrow at 8 PM ET in New Jersey and 7 PM ET in Virginia.

There are also a number of other elections tomorrow with intriguing ramifications. There are two elections to fill US House vacancies, CA-10 and NY-23. NY-23 is a Republican district with three two major candidates after the moderate Republican withdrew and endorsed the Democratic candidate to spite the National Republican Party. CA-10 is a solidly Democratic district with a PVI of D+11; this distinct will be won by Democrat Lt Gov. John Garamendi.

A number of other states also have referendums and propositions on the ballot.

More tomorrow.