Voting closes in some states in U.S. polls

Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington, Nov 5 (PTI) Voting in the historic U.S.
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 percent of them
saying that it is either not so good or poor; but there is
optimism as well with 47 percent 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.
PTI SK
AM