Lots of excitement. Illinois “passed” when called upon alphabetically so that, symbolically, it can put its home-state senator, Barack Obama, over the top at the very end.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.