Barack Obama Elected 44th U.S. President

Obama played his cards well and won important swing states. In Ohio, Obama narrowly lost the white vote to McCain -- 51% to 47% -- and overwhelmingly won the African-American vote with 97% of the total. In New Mexico, Obama benefited from the help of Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who managed a strong ground game that 7 out of 10 hispanic voters supporting Obama.

One of the stories of this election may be the Latino vote out West. The Republican party had strongly lobbied against immigration reform last summer, and forced McCain to withdraw his support. More importantly, President Bush has increased immigration raids in many states. This news has gone largely unnoticed by most Americans, but has not been forgotten by Latinos.

A recent poll showed Latinos heavily favoring Obama over McCain, signaling a large reversal from the number of votes in 2004 garnered by President Bush.

Obama's victory in Pennsylvania was an early predictor of the demise of McCain's hope for a surprise win. The Keystone State had been close in both 2000 and 2004. McCain and Palin had camped out in the state, campaigning time and again down the stretch. However, Obama prevailed.

McCain's campaign had long recognized that Obama would pick up Western and Midwestern states won by Bush in 2004, including Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. So resources were reallocated to three blue states: Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

McCain surrendered in Michigan a month ago, but he had pressed hard in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. McCain also had to fight a wave of discontent. Bush's approval ratings had sunk into the 20th percentile, and large numbers of voters were worried the country was headed in the wrong direction.