BREAKING NEWS
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
msnbc.com
updated 11:14 p.m. ET Nov. 4, 2008
Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president in the history of the United States, according to projections by NBC News.
Obama reached the 270 electoral votes he needed for election at 11 p.m. ET, when NBC News projected that he would win California, Washington and Oregon. The Associated Press reported shortly after 11 p.m. that Obama’s opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had called Obama to offer his congratulations.
Campaigning as a technocratic agent of change in Washington pathbreaking civil rights figure, Obama swept to victory over McCain , whose running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was seeking to become the nation’s first female vice president.
A crowd nearing 100,000 people gathered in Grant Park in Chicago, awaiting an address by Obama. Hundreds of thousands more — Mayor Richard Daley said he would not be surprised if a million Chicagoans jammed the streets — were watching on a large television screen outside the park.
Surveys of voters as they left polling places nationwide indicated the breadth of the victory by Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother. As expected, he won overwhelmingly among African-American voters, but he also won a slim majority of white voters. He won among women and Latino voters, reversing a longstanding Republican trend. And he won by more than 2-to-1 among voters of all races 30 years old and younger.
That dynamic was telling in Ohio, which President Bush won in 2004, and in Pennsylvania, where McCain poured in millions of dollars of scarce resources. Obama won both.
Obama also took Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, all states with hefty electoral vote hauls, NBC News projected. He also won Virginia, reversing 40 years of Republican victories there.
McCain countered with Texas and numerous smaller states, primarily in the South and the Great Plains.
In interviews with NBC News, aides to McCain said they were proud that they had put up a good fight in “historically difficult times.”
A senior adviser said McCain himself was “fine” but that he felt “he let his staff and supporters down.”
Obama will have a strongly Democratic Congress on the other end of Capitol Hill. The Democrats won strong majorities in both the House and the Senate. NBC News projected that the party would fall just short of a procedurally important 60 percent “supermajority” in the Senate, however.
Record turnout delays key resultsIn the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent elections, had little impact. Florida had been closely watched, but results there and in other closely contested states were delayed after record numbers of voters flocked to polling stations, energized by an election in which they would select either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president.
Surveys of voters as they left polling places nationwide indicated the breadth of the victory by Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother. As expected, he won overwhelmingly among African-American voters, but he also won a slim majority of white voters. He won among women and Latino voters, reversing a longstanding Republican trend. And he won by more than 2-to-1 among voters of all races 30 years old and younger.
That dynamic was telling in Ohio, which President Bush won in 2004, and in Pennsylvania, where McCain poured in millions of dollars of scarce resources. Obama won both.
Obama also took Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, all states with hefty electoral vote hauls, NBC News projected. He also won Virginia, reversing 40 years of Republican victories there.
McCain countered with Texas and numerous smaller states, primarily in the South and the Great Plains.
In interviews with NBC News, aides to McCain said they were proud that they had put up a good fight in “historically difficult times.”
A senior adviser said McCain himself was “fine” but that he felt “he let his staff and supporters down.”
Obama will have a strongly Democratic Congress on the other end of Capitol Hill. The Democrats won strong majorities in both the House and the Senate. NBC News projected that the party would fall just short of a procedurally important 60 percent “supermajority” in the Senate, however.
Record turnout delays key resultsIn the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent elections, had little impact. Florida had been closely watched, but results there and in other closely contested states were delayed after record numbers of voters flocked to polling stations, energized by an election in which they would select either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president.
Obama, who led in nearly all public opinion polls, and McCain both launched get-out-the-vote efforts that led to long lines at polling stations in a contest that Democrats were also hoping would help them expand their majorities in both houses of Congress.
Americans voted in numbers unprecedented since women were given the franchise in 1920. Secretaries of state predicted turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland.
At New Shiloh Church Ministries on Mastin Lake in Huntsville, Ala., Stephanie Lacy-Conerly brought along a chair, expecting to stay for hours.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “It’s an historical moment.”
Americans voted in numbers unprecedented since women were given the franchise in 1920. Secretaries of state predicted turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland.
At New Shiloh Church Ministries on Mastin Lake in Huntsville, Ala., Stephanie Lacy-Conerly brought along a chair, expecting to stay for hours.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “It’s an historical moment.”
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