IT’S NOW 286-252, as Bush has won Iowa. Perspective, from the Boston Globe:

The Democrats’ defeat in Iowa reflects a larger problem for them in the Midwest and across the political map.

Along with Wisconsin and Minnesota, Iowa and its seven electoral votes are part of the once-Democratic Upper Midwest that is growing more conservative with each presidential election. Kerry won Minnesota by just 3 percentage points, Wisconsin by a single point.

In addition, Michigan and Pennsylvania went Democratic by 3 percentage points or less and Bush won Ohio despite its economic miseries.

Democrats hope to cultivate the Southwest as a fertile substitute for Midwest losses, but Bush narrowed Democratic advantages among Hispanics in the region.

I just don’t think Hollywood, Dan Rather, Mark Halperin, and George Soros provide enough of a base. Rather than rethinking, though, I suspect that the Democrats will deploy the media troops again, in an effort to “Nixon” Bush, and perhaps some of his more prominent supporters — Arnold Schwarzenegger, perhaps, or some other prominent Republican.

UPDATE: A reader notes that the popular-vote gap has widened, too: 52-47, or 56,783,329 to 52,120,230, for a difference over 4.5 million votes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yahoo seems to be updating their site, and the numbers keep changing, so far in Bush’s favor. Meanwhile reader Dave Cole sends this email:

On Tuesday, a majority of the American electorate took a look at their party and asked, “Who are these people?” Who are George Soros, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Susan Sontag, Teresa Heinz Kerry and all these other self-anointed spokespersons for everything good and true? And what does a party that is dominated by a loose coalition of the coastal intelligentsia, billionaires with too much spare time, the trial lawyers’ association, the Hollywood Actors’ Guild, rock stars and unionized labor have in common with what’s quaintly known as Middle America? The majority’s answers were (a) not us; and (b) not a whole lot.

Growing up in Topeka, Kansas (where my dad still lives), and now living in Denver, this is pretty much what my friends and associates are thinking, too. What I’m hearing from the Democrats is that middle America voted on moral values, which I take to be code for “they are a bunch of ignorant, bible thumping sheep”. There seems to be a lot of hand wringing over how they could have better conveyed their message to the Midwest, and an arrogance that if they had, Kerry would have won in a landslide. What the Democrats don’t understand is that yes, we do understand your message, and we reject it.

I don’t think the Democrats are ready to accept that, yet. Related thoughts here:

The Democratic Party–my party–has finally become nothing more than the party of cognitive dissonance. That is why, like Zell Miller and a large fraction of usually Democratic middle America, I backed the other side on this one. . . .

Mainstream media bragged of being able to boost the Dems by 15 percent (do you remember Newsweek saying that?). The “blogosphere” has been crowing that MSM failed to do so (for which the blogs also claim responsibility), but I don’t agree. I think the MSM actually succeeded in bringing the Dems a 10 to 15 point boost in the election (and maybe more). Before the media spin machine started systematically slamming Bush 18 months ago, he was favored at around 66% in the polls. 66% minus 15% is…well…the 51% margin Bush was re-elected by. Thing is, even the thinly veiled support of most major media outlets wasn’t enough to put Kerry in the White House. The Democratic party has completely, utterly, undeniably marginalized itself. The Dems no longer have a national party. All it takes is one look at the electoral map to illustrate that. The so-called “Purple Map” may make them feel better, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. A party that can only win in the Northeast and Left Coast is not a national party anymore. A party that manages to lose by 3 percent even with a huge boost from blatantly partisan favorable media coverage is on its deathbed politically.

I’m afraid that’s right and — since I’m not a Republican and don’t share Karl Rove’s ambition to do to the Democrats what Tony Blair has done to the Tories — I’m not happy about it. But I think “self-marginalized” is about right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Doh. The first paragraph in the email quoted above is from an editorial in yesterday’s Wall St. Journal. That wasn’t clear to me from the original email. I’d provide a link, but it’s on the pay side.

And William Schneider emails: “That Yahoo map has NY at only 3% reporting, which would account for Bush’s “new” lead over Kerry.” Using Mozilla, I wasn’t getting the popup with state data, but I opened it up in another browser and he’s right. Weird. I don’t know why Yahoo is so far behind, but this CNN page seems more up to date and shows Bush 3.5 million ahead.