Obama takes near-insurmountable lead over McCain dateline (2nd Lead)

Nov 5, 2008, 1:53 GMT

Washington/Chicago - Democratic candidate Barack Obama has taken a commanding lead in the US presidential election, capturing the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio by late Tuesday and leaving Republican John McCain with an almost impossible uphill battle to keep his hopes alive.

No candidate has captured the White House without Ohio's 20 electoral votes since 1960. No Republican has ever won the presidency without it.

Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, had been considered McCain's best shot of capturing a reliable Democratic state.

A total of 270 electoral votes is needed to win in the country's state-by-state, winner-takes-all US electoral system. The count currently stands at 200 electoral votes for Obama and 90 for McCain.

Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and New Mexico were all projected to be captured by Obama, according to US networks. Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana were some of the key states projected for McCain.

But the race remained tight as polls closed in other key battlegrounds including Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana and Colorado, marking the beginning of the end of an election day that could make Obama the first African-American president of the United States.

In Chicago's Grant Park, where tens of thousands of people were already gathering for Obama's election night rally, crowds gathered at jumbo screens showing cable news broke into cheers with the news from Pennsylvania, with shouts of 'We did it!'

A series of other party strongholds were also called for both candidates, including Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky for McCain. Obama's other wins so far include Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and his home state of Illinois.

The Obama campaign was satisfied with results so far, including voting procedures and early results from several states, said David Axelrod, chief political advisor to Obama.

'This is an electorate poised for change. People waited for hours and hours ... to vote for it,' Axelrod told CBS.

Millions of voters waited for hours at polling stations across the country as McCain and Obama made a final push for votes in swing states.

McCain campaigned in Colorado where he claimed he had regained momentum and expressed confidence that he would defeat Obama when all the ballots are counted.

Obama held his final campaign rally Monday night in front of 90,000 supporters in Manassas, Virginia, another battleground state, and was in Indiana Tuesday to meet with voters.

While Obama, 47, would be the first black president, McCain, 72, would be the oldest president ever to begin his first term.

In Chicago, the disproportionately young crowd awaiting Obama's rally had a large representation of both whites and blacks, with small numbers of Latinos and Asians. Tiffany Gholar, 29, a Chicago student and executive assistant, said that Obama's victory 'would make me feel like some real progress has been made since the civil rights movement.'

McCain's campaign was holding an evening rally at a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona.

Democrats were hopeful that eight years of President George W Bush's unpopular policies in Iraq and the slumping economy will have persuaded voters to hand them control of the White House and strengthen their control of Congress.

The Democrats have picked up four seats from Republicans in the Senate in elections on Tuesday and are poised to make significant gains to widening their majorities in both congressional houses, network projections showed.

The faltering US economy was by far the top concern of voters heading to the polls in Tuesday's general election, according to initial exit polls reported by US broadcaster CNN.

A full 62 per cent of voters ranked the economy as the key issue of this election, compared to 10 per cent invoking the war in Iraq and 9 per cent rating terrorism or health care highest.

Millions already voted in recent weeks in early or absentee voting allowed in 31 states, including key battlegrounds Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada.

Voters waited patiently in serpentine queues early Tuesday to cast ballots. Many had started lining up before dawn, and some braved pouring rain to cast their ballots.

It was a bittersweet end to the 21-month campaign for Obama, whose grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, 86, passed away overnight Sunday after a battle with cancer, the Illinois senator revealed Monday.