Twitter
Advertisement

Americans turn up in record numbers to vote

Americans turned up in record numbers at polling stations across the country to cast their votes

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin
WASHINGTON: Voting in the historic US Presidential poll ended in some states like Indiana and Kentucky and America is just hours away from knowing who will be the country's new President.
 
Americans turned up in record numbers at polling stations across the country to cast their votes in the polls that pitted Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama against his Republican opponent John McCain, who is hoping for a surprise D-Day victory.
 
The so-called red state of Indiana is critical for both Obama and McCain. It is critical for McCain to hold on to this Mid-Western State as the Illinois senator has come within knocking distance of this state that borders yet another important Mid-Western state of Ohio.
 
The state of Kentucky is attracting lot of attention this election season where the Senate Republican Minority leader Mitch McConnel is involved in a tough re-election battle.
 
The Obama campaign is very much hoping for Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio to fall in the democratic column and is in the process boosting the electoral college votes.
 
By the same token the McCain campaign is hoping that Virginia, the political mid-west and Florida will stay with the Republicans and it is even hoping to wrench Pennsylvania away from the Democrats from where John Kerry was elected to the Senate in 2004.
 
As Americans lined up at the polling stations to cast their ballots, both the Democratic and Republican candidates hit the campaign trial till the last minute after casting their respective votes in Chicago and Arizona.
 
"I hope this works. I'll be really embarrassed if it doesn't," Obama told a poll worker as he fed his ballot into a machine at the Shoesmith Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois.
 
"Feeling good. Always feel at the end of the race here that it isn't over 'till it's over. So we're waiting until the polls close, right, guys? Are you going to deliver Virginia for us?" asked Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joseph Biden after casting his vote.
 
Meanwhile, the first exit polls by CNN showed that economy issue -- not Iraq or terrorism -- is the number One issue in the minds of Americans with 93 per cent of them saying that it is either not so good or poor; but there is optimism as well with 47 per cent saying that the situation will get better.
 
The first of the projections made by CNN said Obama will win the state Vermont, which has three electoral college votes, and McCain will emerge victoriuos from Kentucky with eight electoral college votes.
 
The projections are not a major surprise as the candidates were supposed to have won those states they have.
 
CNN projected former Governor of Virginia Mark Warner as the winner in the seat vacated by Republican Senator John Warner. It is the first of the pick-ups by the Democrats who are looking to get the filibuster proof margin of sixty seats in the Senate.
 
The win by the Democrats in Virginia is a critical boost to the Presidential race where Obama is  fighting to get that Red State that has voted only once for a Democrat in the Presidential contest in 56 years.
 
Meanwhile, polls closed in more states in the east and the Mid West with all eyes now on Indiana and Georgia, the two states McCain is fighting to retain in the Republican column.
Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement