Headlines, North America

POLITICS-US: Massive Turnout Expected to Tip Vote for Obama

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 2008 (IPS) - On the eve of Tuesday’s elections, Sen. Barack Obama and his fellow Democratic candidates appear to be on the verge of a historic victory, according to political experts attached to both major parties and the latest polling.

The latest national polling shows Obama leads by between six and 12 percentage points, with an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey conducted Sunday giving him a 51-43 percent advantage.

While the race for the White House has tightened slightly in the last several days, Republican Sen. John McCain will have to win virtually all of the remaining half-dozen “swing states” – those which are still considered too close to call – plus carry several more states that are currently considered leaning strongly toward Obama in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the all-important Electoral College.

Remarkably, however, the swing states that are still considered toss-ups at this late stage of the campaign include those that have voted reliably Republican in most recent national elections: Ohio, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and Montana. Several of those states have not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

“At this point, John McCain probably can’t win without divine intervention,” wrote the capital’s most influential political analyst, Charlie Cook, in Friday’s National Journal.

And while McCain and his campaign continue to express optimism that they can pull off that feat, the vast majority of Republican “insiders” polled late last week by the Journal believe Obama will prevail. More than four of the five insiders, who included top-party pros and advisers, surveyed by the Journal predicted an Obama victory.

All 74 of the Democratic counterparts interviewed by the Journal agreed with that assessment.

Even the nation’s political gamblers appear to have given up on McCain. According to the Intrade and the Iowa Electronic Markets betting sites, the chances of a McCain victory fell below one in 10 for the time in the election race over the weekend, a stunning plunge from the nearly 50:50 odds that were being offered as recently as mid-September.

The latest polling for Congressional races also points to major Democratic gains in both houses. Both the Republican and the Democratic cohorts predicted the Democrats will pick up seven seats in the Senate, bringing their effective total tantalisingly close to the 60 they need to defeat Republican attempts to filibuster legislation.

Both insider cohorts also predicted that Democrats will consolidate their majority in the House of Representatives by picking up 24 new seats there, bringing their total to 259 of the 435 seats. Some professional analysts, however, have insisted that Democrats could pick up as many as 33 seats in the lower chamber, giving them their biggest majority there in some 20 years.

Tuesday’s election is likely to be historic on several counts.

If, as now anticipated, Obama emerges the winner Tuesday, he will become the first biracial president in U.S. history, just as he was already its first biracial major-party candidate. With a white mother born in Kansas and a black father born in Kenya, Obama considers himself African-American.

While at least nine out of every 10 African-American voters are expected to cast their ballots for Obama, he is expected to reap large majorities of between 60 and 75 percent of other minority voters, including Latinos, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, and Native Americans, as well.

But he is also expected to do remarkably well among white voters, according to a series of national polls. In a New York Times/CBS poll published last week, 44 percent of white respondents said they intended to vote for Obama – just behind McCain, but a higher percentage than former President Bill Clinton garnered in his runs in 1992 and 1996. Among whites, Obama is running particularly well among younger voters, non-Hispanic Catholics, and women, according to an election-eve survey by the Pew Research Centre here.

Tuesday’s election turnout is also likely to be unprecedented, certainly in terms of the absolute numbers of voters. In virtually all of the 31 states that permit early voting, local officials are reporting record turnouts; in some cases, exceeding the number of all votes cast on election day four years ago. In some states, such as Georgia, Virginia, and Ohio, voters have reportedly lined up for as long as six hours to cast their ballots in the past week.

According to a study by American University’s Centre for the Study of the American Electorate released Monday, an estimated 153 million citizens – or nearly 75 percent of the total eligible population – are registered to vote, the highest percentage since women gained the suffrage in 1920. According to the Centre’s figures, Democrats gained nearly three million newly registered voters, while Republican registration fell by 1.5 million.

The study, which found an overall increase of 10 million registrants compared to the previous election cycle, led the centre’s director, Curtis Gans to predict a total turnout of as many as 135 million voters, or about 65 percent of eligible voters, the highest percentage since 1960, when John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic to be elected president and the politician with whom Obama is often compared, defeated then-Vice President Richard Nixon.

The new Pew survey predicted increased rates of voting among young people and African Americans – both groups that disproportionately favour Obama – in particular.

There has been a persistent concern in recent weeks that Tuesday’s turnout could overwhelm the voting machinery in many states and counties, particularly those where voters have not been able to cast early ballots. Officials in some jurisdictions have sought to assure voters that the polls will be kept open as long as necessary.

The cost of this year’s campaign is also likely to break all previous records. According to financial records released last month, Obama had raised more than 600 million dollars – a record 150 million dollars in September alone – in contributions averaging 86 dollars, from more than three million people as of Oct. 1.