North Carolina is blue, AP says

Color your map blue. Barack Obama has won North Carolina's 15 electoral votes, at least according to the Associated Press.

The AP called the race today, leaving only Missouri gray on its red-and-blue map.

Of course, it's not really official until the State Board of Elections says so. The election will be certified in a few weeks after about 40,000 provisional ballots have been sorted through. For now, officially, Obama is ahead by some 13,000 votes.

But Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the State Board of Elections, said provisional ballots hardly ever change the outcome. Elections officials expect 65 percent of those ballots to eventually count.

"We were getting calls from the news media asking when we were going to call it, which I thought was funny," she said. "We've never done that."

News organizations call elections, she points out, but when a race is close by a razor thin margin, they hesitate to go out on a limb. State elections officials certify totals, which always takes time.

So you'll have to wait until Nov. 25 to get your final, final total.

But take comfort in this: North Carolina has apparently picked the winner. Meanwhile, the Show-Me state has John McCain leading by 5,800 votes with provisional ballots still to be counted.