It took some time for North Carolina votes for president to be tallied and a final winner to be decided, but as of Thursday afternoon, president-elect Barack Obama has presumably secured North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections Web site still listed results as unofficial Thursday night although Obama’s vote lead had remained the same for nearly 24 hours.

As of Thursday, the N.C. BOE’s vote counts put Barack Obama at 2,123,390 votes, or 49.7 percent. His opponent, Sen. John McCain, remained more than 10,000 votes behind with a total of 2,109,698, or 49.38 percent.

Several major news networks, including NBC, called North Carolina for Obama Thursday morning.

While the official election results may not be available until later in November after provisional ballots are tallied and formalized by state Board of Elections officials, networks may have felt Obama’s lead secure enough to declare him the victor.

The Associated Press also declared North Carolina for Obama Thursday, satating there were not enough outstanding provisional ballots for Sen. McCain to make up the difference in votes.

With his victory in North Carolina, Obama brought the number of states he turned from red to blue to nine.

Obama captured victories in Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico — states that voted for President Bush in 2004.

With North Carolina included in the electoral count total, Obama now leads 364 to 162. The only state left uncalled as of Thursday was Missouri.