Early exit poll data indicates Sen. Obama is on his way to winning the states he needs to gain the Presidency.

They indicate he is well ahead in Pennsylvania and also leading in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and has smaller leads in several other states that remain too close to be sure.

Barring a change, the television networks are likely to proclaim a trend within the next hour.

– The Dallas Morning News

Based on exit polls, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain will win the state of West Virginia, according to CBS News and Fox News.

The Associated Press and other news organizations did not call the state for McCain.

Polls closed in the state at 7:30 p.m., and immediately, CBS News declared McCain the winner of West Virginia’s five electoral votes. Fox followed a couple of minutes later.

Throughout the race, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama had trailed the Republican senator from Arizona. Neither candidate spent much time in the state; McCain made a couple of brief appearances.

This marks the third straight presidential election that West Virginians have picked a Republican for president, after years of voting Democratic for the nation’s highest office.

In the state’s Democratic primaries in May, Obama was defeated by a 2-1 margin by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

-WVGazette.com

7:30 PM WASHINGTON DC – Republican presidential candidate John McCain grabbed a narrow lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the battleground state of Indiana as the first votes trickled in this evening, and the GOP nominee held a small but decisive advantage in Kentucky, traditionally a red state.

Both CNN and the Associated Press called McCain the winner in Kentucky and Obama the winner in Vermont, based on exit polls.

Just one percentage point separated McCain from Obama in Indiana, with 4 percent of precincts counted.

Polls closed at 4 p.m. PST in Virginia, which President Bush won in 2004 but which Obama has been hungry to capture. Polls also closed then in parts of Florida, another key swing state that rewards the winner with 27 electoral votes – 10 percent of the 270 needed to win the election.

No Democrat has carried Virginia or Indiana in a presidential election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Voters across the country swarmed to the polls today, with some people lining up before dawn to cast ballots in this groundbreaking election. Millions of Americans already voted before the polls opened.

The campaign, which gripped the nation for the past two years, will be historic no matter who wins. Obama, 47, the freshman senator from Illinois, would be the first African American elected president of the United States. And McCain, 72, the 22-year veteran senator from Arizona, would bring with him the first female vice president if he and running mate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, are victorious.

E-mail Rachel Gordon at [email protected].

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – John McCain has won Kentucky and collected eight electoral votes in a state that has picked the overall winner in presidential races dating back to 1964.

The call was based on an analysis of voter interviews, conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

The state has trended Republican in recent years, supporting President Bush in the past two elections.

Neither McCain nor Obama had campaigned in Kentucky recently. They instead spent their time in battleground states that had more electoral votes at stake and where the race was closer.

Agence France-Presse

CHICAGO — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday blew off the tension as he waited for voters to decide his fate with his traditional election day game of pick-up basketball.

The Illinois senator’s entourage pulled up at a gym on the west side of Chicago during the middle of the afternoon.

His presidential campaign declined to identify who he was playing with.

Obama, 47, forged his tradition of playing basketball during the long wait for voters to cast their judgements during the intense Democratic primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.

The ritual, which also seems to have taken on superstitious undertones, started with the Iowa caucuses in January, which Obama won over Clinton, setting his historic presidential quest off on a winning note.

By Joseph Rose, The Oregonian

With the deadline to vote in Oregon just a few hours away, activity at the Obama campaign office at Northeast Killingsworth Street and 15th Avenue is feverish. They’re acting like they’re fighting for a battleground state.

About 15 volunteers are on land lines and cell phones, calling names still unchecked on a voters list. “We can come by and pick it up for it you at your house,” a woman working the phone bank says into her handset. “Yes, we’ll give you a receipt for it. It’s safe. We’ll make sure it gets where it needs to be.”

Meanwhile, some 25 volunteers are still out, knocking on doors, urging holdouts to vote, said volunteer Lulit Mesfin. “They’ll be out until 7,” Mesfin says.

About 200 people shuffle around the tiny building. The place erupts in applause as another voters drops his ballot into the slot atop a wood box reading, “VOTE.”
Outside, Gary Clay Sr. of St. John’s shouts through a bullhorn at passing cars. “Obama!” “Obama!” “Tell a friend! Telle them to get their ballot in!”

Asked how long he has been calling out from his chair on the sidewalk. “A few days,” he says with a smile and horse voice.
“I’ve been in and out of the hospital with a heart condition,” Clay says. “Whenever I got out, this is where I’d come. It’s good for my heart, doing this”
He shouts into the megaphone again: “Change is a-comin'” Garbage men hanging from a passing big rig shout and honk.

(Joseph Rose; [email protected])