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Election '08: Voters write historic chapter by electing African American president
The two-year presidential campaign may have seemed as though it never would end, but it's now over. Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, beat John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona. Obama will be inaugurated Jan. 20 as our nation's 44th president -- and its first black chief executive.
Results appear at newspaper web sites and all major TV networks. For the first time, The Associated Press provides live video coverage of results through an online network that includes the Web sites of 2,000 news partners.
Turnout reached an estimated 64 percent of eligible voters, making 2008 the highest percentage turnout in generations. Millions of young voters registered this year, pushing their age group's participation to a new high. The percentage of eligible voters under 30 who cast ballots also rose in 2004 and 2006 after two decades of decline.
 Historic impact: "Many Americans rolled into the streets to celebrate what many described, with perhaps overstated if understandable exhilaration, a new era in a country where just 143 years ago, Mr. Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a slave." -- New York Times front-page article, Nov. 5, 2008
Front Page Talking Points is written by
Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2013
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Voters also decided about school board members, municipal officials and local ballot questions. Find advance coverage or results involving an election in your community or county.
"Every vote counts" is a valid expression. In results tables printed or posted Wednesday, see if you can spot an election decided by about 100 votes or less.
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