TODAYonline

Voters decide historic McCain-Obama clash

WASHINGTON — Millions of voters have flooded polling stations across the United States, looking to elect Democrat Barack Obama as the first black US president or hand Republican John McCain an upset win in their historic clash.

Mr Obama enjoyed a solid lead in recent national polls and held the edge in a string of battleground states that could still swing the election either way, as both candidates hunted the 270 Electoral College votes needed for the win.

Well before sun-up, long queues snaked outside polling places as voters braved hours-long waits, rain, or shivering cold amid unanimous predictions of vast turnout at the climax of the longest and costliest White House race. Results were due to start pouring in after the first polls closed at 6pm, though it was not clear when it would be known who will succeed US President George W Bush when his second term ends at midday on Jan 20.

In the eye of the worst financial storm since the 1930s and with US troops embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Mr Obama and Mr McCain have vowed to restore the frayed self-confidence of the world’s lone superpower.

After an epic campaign, a political realignment in Washington was also possible, with Democrats targeting big gains in the Senate and House of Representatives in a rout fuelled by Mr Bush’s record unpopularity.

“I feel great,” Mr Obama, a Hawaiian-born US senator from Illinois, told reporters as he voted in Chicago alongside his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia.

Mr McCain kept silent after voting in his home state of Arizona, while his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, cast her ballot in her hometown of Wasilla and said she was hopeful of becoming the first woman US vice-president.

“We have an optimistic and confident view of what is going to happen today,” she said with husband Todd at her side. “I recognise that this is an historical event, no matter which ticket prevails.”

Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Mr Obama’s running mate, voted in his home state with his 91-year-old mother and wife Jill.

More than 100 million people were expected to trek to the polls, while 30 million advance ballots have been cast in the state-by-state electoral battle.

Mr Obama and Mr McCain, one of whom will become the first sitting senator elected president since Mr John F Kennedy in 1960, hit the finish line on Monday with competing cross-country campaign blitzes.

The Democrat senator then won the nation’s earliest contests, capturing the usually Republican northern New Hampshire villages of Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location.

Mr Obama plans to await the voters’ verdict in Chicago. Mr McCain huddled with top aides at a posh hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, while Mr Bush stayed out of sight at the White House.

Mr Obama has promised supporters they were close to “changing the United States of America”, but Mr McCain was defiant, vowing to confound pollsters and pundits and overcome a treacherous political map that has him barely holding on to Republican bastions. AGENCIES