Obama set to make history
WASHINGTON - A CONFIDENT Democrat Barack Obama stood ready to make history by being elected America's first black president after wrapping up a marathon two-year campaign. But Republican John McCain stubbornly promised an underdog upset in Tuesday's election.
Mr Obama and Mr McCain, separated by 25 years and a seemingly unbridgeable political gulf, had agreed on one thing during the longest presidential campaign in US history - their promise to slam the door on the era of George W. Bush.
Barack Obama
Democratic US presidential candidate
US SENATOR Barack Obama of Illinois is the Democratic candidate for president in Tuesday's election. Following are some of his biographical details:
Age: 47
... more
Joe Biden
Democratic US vice presidential candidate
DEMOCRATIC vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is a long-time US senator from Delaware with considerable experience on judicial and foreign policy issues.
Following are some biographical details for Mr Biden:
... more
But they were deeply at odds over how to fix the nation's crumbling economy and end the 5 1/2-year war in Iraq, the issues that sent Mr Bush's job approval rating plummeting to a record low at the end of his 8-year presidency.
Record numbers of Americans were expected at polling stations across the US, adding their ballots to 29 million citizens who had already voted in 30 states. The early vote tally suggested an advantage for Mr Obama, with official statistics showing that Democrats voted in larger numbers than Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa. All four states voted for Mr Bush in 2004.
Democrats also anticipated strengthening their majority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, although Republicans battled to hold their losses to a minimum and a significant number of races were rated as tossups in the campaign's final hours.
'I'm feeling kind of fired up. I'm feeling like I'm ready to go,' Mr Obama told nearly 100,000 people gathered for his final rally Monday night in Manassas, Virginia, near the site of the first major battle of the American Civil War that ended slavery.
'At this defining moment in history, Virginia, you can give this country the change it needs,' Mr Obama said to voters in a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 44 years. He later flew home to Chicago.
The Illinois senator's final day of campaigning was bittersweet: he was mourning the loss of his grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, 86, who helped raise him but died of cancer in Hawaii late on Sunday and never got to see the results of the historic election.
'She's gone home,' Mr Obama said, tears running down both cheeks as tens of thousands of rowdy supporters at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte grew silent as he announced Dunham's death. The family said a private ceremony would be held later.
Mr Obama came up a winner in two small New Hampshire towns, where a tradition of having the first Election Day votes tallied lives on.
Mr Obama defeated Mr McCain by a 15-6 vote in Dixville Notch, while Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Mr Obama, 10 for Mr McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Mr Bush carried both towns in the last two elections.
Mr McCain, a 72-year-old four-term Arizona senator, ended the contest Monday with a frantic and grueling dash through several traditionally Republican states still not securely in his camp or even leaning to Obama.
Mr McCain stopped in Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada. And he again passed through Pennsylvania, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 where he still hoped for a win.
He sought to raise fears among Americans that the Democratic nominee was outside the American mainstream, saying 'Sen Obama is in the far left lane'.
As he sought to distance himself from the unpopular Mr Bush, Mr McCain stressed he was deeply at odds with White House economic policies while promising to clean house in the capital after years of scandal.
Mr McCain said he sensed an upset in the making even though national and key state polls showing him trailing Mr Obama.
'This momentum, this enthusiasm convinces me we're going to win tomorrow,' Mr McCain told a raucous evening rally in Henderson, Nevada.
He closed out the endurance test past midnight at a home-state rally in Prescott, Arizona. Mr Obama ran television commercials in Arizona in the campaign's final days after polls showed the race tightening.
'My friends, it's been a long, long journey,' he told supporters.
On election eve, the 47-year-old Mr Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, was favored to win all the states Democrats captured in 2004, when Bush defeated Democratic Sen. John Kerry. That would give him 251 electoral votes.
He was leading or tied in several states won by Bush, giving him several paths to the 270 vote threshold - such as victories in Ohio or Florida, or in a combination of smaller states.
Mr McCain, meanwhile, must hold as many Bush states as possible while trying to capture a Democratic stronghold, such as Pennsylvania.
While no battleground state was ignored, Virginia and Ohio, where no Republican president has ever lost, seemed most coveted.
Together, they account for 33 electoral votes that Mr McCain must win.
Mr Obama sprinted into the lead after economic concerns overwhelmed the war in Iraq, as the primary concern among voters.
Even though Republican experts argued the race was tightening, several polls suggested Mr Obama's lead was growing.
A USA Today/Gallup poll published on Monday found likely voters nationwide favouring Mr Obama by 11 points over McMr Cain, 53-42 per cent, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Other polls showed Mr Obama with a 7 or 8 per centage-point lead.
Polls conducted by Quinnipiac University showed Mr Obama with significant leads in two critical swing states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and tied with Mr McCain in Florida, where the prize is 27 electoral votes. A win for Obama in any of these three states would be hard for McCain to overcome.
The American presidential election amounts to separate contests in the 50 US states plus Washington, D.C. At stake are 538 electors, with the winning candidate needing to capture at least half plus one. Electors are apportioned to the states roughly according to population.
Mr McCain's running mate, Alaska Govenor Sarah Palin, raced through five traditionally Republican states - Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada - in an effort to boost conservative turnout for Mr McCain.
Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Mr Obama's running mate, campaigned in Missouri, Ohio and held a late night rally in Pennsylvania.
Mr Obama has benefited from an astounding record fundraising effort and capitalised on a US demographic shift as more young and non-white voters enter the electorate.
The Republicans have tried to curtail Mr Obama's surge, dubbing him too inexperienced, too liberal and too tainted by associations with the political left to trust with the presidency. The message appealed to core Republican voters, but appears to have failed to convince a significant number of Democrats and independents.
The likelihood of Republican defeats in both the presidential and congressional races was not lost on Mr Bush, who has become virtually invisible in the final days of the campaign.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president was out of sight because 'the Republican Party wanted to make this election about John McCain'.
Mr Obama planned a quick campaign stop in Indiana on Election Day before a massive outdoor rally in front of the skyline in his adopted hometown of Chicago.
Mr McCain planned events in Colorado and New Mexico, then a party at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.
Despite his lead in the polls, Mr Obama urged his supporters against overconfidence.
'Even if it rains tomorrow, you can't let that stop you. You've got to wait in line. You've got to vote,' he said. -- AP
