Barack Obama has so far picked up 102 electoral votes, to McCain’s 34.
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN, ABC
As the polls close on the east coast, Barack Obama is sweeping through Northeast state and is projected to win Pennsylvania, a battleground state that John McCain saw as a potential key to winning the election.
Besides Pennsylvania, Obama is also projected to win New Hampshire, another state where McCain campaigned in closing days in the hopes of capturing its electoral votes.
Other states projected to be in Obama’s column according to exit polls are Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington DC, Delaware, Illinois, and three of Maine’s four electoral votes.
McCain is projected to win Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
Obama’s projected victory in Pennsylvania which has 21 electoral votes was a blow to McCain’s White House hopes. While it was carried by Democrat John Kerry in 2004, McCain had hoped to turn it into a red state.
“We’re going to win Pennsylvania tomorrow and I’m going to be the President of the United States,” McCain said at a rally Monday. “Pennsylvania will do it, and Pittsburgh will be the important area.”
There is still not enough information to project a winner in the battleground state of Virginia and Indiana.
Virginia has become a key to both candidates’ strategies, with Obama having outgunned McCain in the ground-game fight for the state.
Early exit polls found that Virginians were contacted more frequently by Obama campaign workers and believed that McCain unfairly attacked his Democratic rival.
Fifty-one percent of Virginia voters said they were personally contacted by an Obama campaign worker, versus 37 percent who were contacted by the McCain campaign.
Some 69 percent of voters in that state said McCain unfairly attacked Obama, versus 46 percent who thought Obama unfairly attacked McCain. In the final weeks of the campaign, McCain made negative attacks a mainstay of his race, going after Obama on his relationships and questioning his judgment.
The economy is nationally the overwhelming issue for voters casting their ballots in today’s historic presidential election, according to early exit polls.
Despite the possibility of Obama becoming the nation’s first black president, the turnout of black voters as a percentage of the national vote was at 13 percent, just slightly higher than in 2004, according to early exit polls.
The economy has long dominated the campaign, and voters’ concerns became heightened when the major banks and credit markets needed a massive federal bailout to avoid a fiscal catastrophe.
Four in 10 voters say their family’s financial situation is worse than it was four years ago, and eight in 10 are worried the current economic crisis will hurt their family finances over the next year.