An historic victory for Barack Obama

With crucial wins in the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 47-year-old Illinois Senator Barack Obama gained the 270 electoral votes needed to become the first African-American to win the White House.

"If there's anyone out there that still doubts that all things are possible, if the dreams of our founders is still alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight's your answer," said Obama at a massive rally filled with tens of thousands of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park.

"Change has come to America," he added.

Obama also acknowledged that his presidency would not be an easy one, bringing up the spectre of two wars and an economic crisis.

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there," he said.

John McCain in his concession speech spoke of the historic nature of Obama's win. "This is an historic election and I recognize the special significance it has for African Americans and the special pride they feel tonight," he said at a rally in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

"Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this the greatest nation on earth," he added.

He striked a note of unity, asking his supporters to cast aside their differences in what was an often rancorous campaign.

"We have come to the end of a long journey," McCain told supporters in Phoenix. "I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him but offering our next president our goodwill."

President George W. Bush also congratulated Obama, the White House said, adding that Bush invited him and his family to visit to the White House.

"You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself," Bush said to Obama according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Projected wins in west coast states California, Oregon and Washington pushed the presidency out of the reach of Republican John McCain. With a number of states still undecided, Obama looked set to win a hard-fought 2008 election in decisive fashion.

The Illinois senator captured the key battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania earlier in the evening, dealing McCain's hopes of becoming president a back-breaking blow. No Republican has ever won the White House without winning the Buckeye State and its 20 electoral votes.

Obama's win in Ohio, the state which propelled George W. Bush to re-election in 2004, meant McCain needed to score a major upset in a traditionally Democratic state in order reach the 270 electoral votes required for victory.

The odds became even longer after U.S. news organizations projected Obama had also captured New Mexico, which voted Republican in 2004, and its five electoral votes.

McCain's best hope to upset Obama had been in Pennsylvania, where he campaigned heavily in the final days of the race, but U.S. networks projected a Democratic win in the Keystone State early in the evening.

Obama was also holding leads in Florida and North Carolina and was locked in a tight battle for Virginia and Indiana, states that have not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson's victory in 1964.

News of Obama's projected win in Ohio triggered an ear-splitting roar in Chicago's Grant Park, where several hundred thousand supporters gathered in anticipation of a potential victory by the Democratic candidate.

The jubilation was a contrast to the McCain rally in Phoenix At one point in the evening CNN reported that TVs at the McCain party were turned off, possibly to keep many partygoers unaware of how the evening was unfolding.

Earlier in the evening, the news networks projected wins for Barack Obama in the Northeast, a traditional stronghold for the Democratic party. He is also slated to win his home state of Illinois and its 21 votes. They also put New Jersey, with its 15 electoral college votes, and much of New England into the Democratic column. He is also projected to carry Michigan, a state that the McCain campaign once thought was winnable but that they later abandoned to focus on other battlegrounds.

The McCain campaign is projected to take most of the traditionally Republican states in the south including Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina as well as prairie states North Dakota and Wyoming.

The nail-biting conclusion to the presidential election followed an epic, roller-coaster campaign that was both the longest and most expensive in American history.

The early momentum for Obama on Tuesday night carried through to congressional races across the nation, as voters delivered a stinging rebuke to Republicans after eight years of controlling the White House.

It was estimated Democrats would gain more than 25 seats in the House of Representatives, expanding their majority after big gains in the 2006 midterm elections.

They were also eyeing an expanding majority in the Senate but are unlikely to reach a super majority of 60 seats, the number needed to pass legislation immune to a Presidential veto. But a number of high profile Republican incumbents fell in New Hampshire and North Carolina. Among the defeated Republican senators was North Carolina's Elizabeth Dole, the wife of former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and John E. Sununu, son of George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

It wasn't all bad news for the Republicans. Senate leader Mitch McConnell was projected to win his seat in Kentucky after fending off a strong challenge from Democrat Bruce Lunsford.

The marathon presidential campaign continued even after polls opened across the country on Tuesday morning.

McCain held election-day rallies in both New Mexico and Colorado, two traditionally Republican-leaning states where polls showed Obama leading on the campaigns final days.

"I feel the momentum. I feel it. And you feel it. And we're going to win this election," McCain told supporters at an afternoon rally in Grand Junction, Colo. "Get your neighbours to the polls. Drag them there if you need to."

McCain voted in his home state of Arizona, telling reporters, "We're going to work hard until the polls close."

By late Tuesday evening, however, McCain's top aides appeared solemn and resigned during several network interviews.

Obama also campaigned on election day, hunting for last-minute votes in Indiana. He visited a union hall in Indianapolis and called voters from a local campaign office.

"I think we can win Indiana, otherwise we wouldn't be in Indiana," Obama said.

Obama appeared upbeat and confident as he cast his ballot at his home precinct in Chicago earlier Tuesday.

He and his wife, Michelle, arrived with their two daughters through a side entrance of the polling station in the city's South Side.

"I feel great," Obama said. "Voting with my daughters, that was a big deal." Following a personal election-day tradition, Obama played a game of pickup basketball with a group of friends in Chicago.

Both campaigns expected voter turnout to break all-time records, with early predictions that more than 130 million people would cast ballots. An estimated 45 million people cast ballots in early voting, setting new records.

At polling stations across the country, a wave of voters arrived before dawn to find long lines that forced waits exceeding several hours in some Florida, Ohio, Missouri and several other battleground states.

From the beginning, and in almost every aspect, the 2008 presidential campaign promised to unfold as one full of history-making firsts. When it began 22 months ago, former first lady Hillary Clinton was heavily favoured to win the Democratic nomination in pursuit of becoming the nation's first female president. But she fell to a first-term senator who energized millions of new voters with a message of "hope" and who opened new frontiers for political campaigning through Internet fundraising and voter outreach.

McCain, 72, was seeking to become the oldest president ever sworn into office. But his ticket's effort to make history really unfolded with the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, making her the first female ever to join a Republican ticket.

Fuelled by the power of his oratory, Obama's campaign evolved into a mass political movement. During the Democratic primaries and in the final weeks of the general election, he attracted 10s of thousands of supporters to almost every campaign rally.

In August, he accepted the Democratic nomination before a crowd of 80,000 at Denver's Invesco Field football stadium – the largest presidential acceptance speech since John F. Kennedy spoke to 75,000 at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.

With a week to go before the election, Obama drew an estimated 100,000 people to an outdoor rally in downtown Denver. On the eve of the election, 90,000 people turned out to hear him speak in Manassas, Va.

Exit polls showed 72 per cent of new voters cast ballots for Obama.

But for all of his oratorical skills and hyper-enthusiastic supporters, it was a very traditional political issue – the faltering U.S. economy – that transformed the campaign over its last six weeks.

Exit polls on Tuesday showed 62 per cent of voters ranked the economy as the number one issue, with the war in Iraq a distant second at 10 per cent.

McCain had carried a narrow lead over Obama into mid-September thanks to a Republican base energized by his selection of Palin.

But a trio of catastrophic economic events – the failure of several Wall Street financial firms, the plunge of U.S. stock markets and the $700-billion congressional rescue plan – badly wounded McCain's campaign.

His decision to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to deal with the crisis backfired when congressional Republicans scuttled an early deal, leaving McCain embarrassed and without a political victory.

From Sept. 25 until election day, Obama led in every national poll as he relentlessly cast McCain at rallies and in television advertising as a policy clone of outgoing President George W. Bush.

After his initial uncertain response to the financial crisis, McCain appeared to regain its footing in late October after Obama's widely publicized encounter about taxes with Samuel “˜Joe The Plumber' Wurzelbacher on a campaign rope line in Toledo, Ohio.

McCain seized on Obama's remark that he wanted to "spread the wealth" to liken his opponent's policies to socialism and mock him for wanting to be "redistributionist in chief."

Obama's campaign relied heavily on a strategy aimed at "expanding" the traditional electoral college map by competing against McCain in several conservative-leaning states that supported Bush in 2004.

He poured resources into western states like Colorado, Nevada and Mexico, where changing demographics – more affluent voters in large urban centers and a surge in Hispanic voters – made this election cycle more favourable to Democrats.

He also surprised McCain's campaign by fielding an overpowering campaign organization in longtime Republican states like Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana – forcing Republicans to spend precious resources defending home turf.

McCain faced a narrower path – concentrating his efforts on holding recent Republican states like Florida and Ohio. Amid expectations he would lose some GOP states from 2004, McCain made an intense effort in the final weeks to capture Pennsylvania, which has voted Democrat in the last several election.