Results/reactions on the presidential race here.
Results/reactions on Ohio District 1 and 2 congressional races here.
Results/reactions on Hamilton County Commission races here.
Results/reactions on city and state ballot issues here.
Photos from throughout Election Day and Election Night here.
Video interviews on Election Day here.
Change is in the air across the United States, but some things remain constant: for example, the slow pace of tabulating ballots in Hamilton County.
At 1 a.m. Wednesday, nearly two hours after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had conceded the presidential race to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Hamilton County Board of Elections had finished counting only half of its 880 precincts.
But 30 minutes later, with all but four precincts counted, the scope of Obama’s mandate became even clearer. Not only did he win the state of Ohio — variously credited or blamed for giving George W. Bush a second term in office in 2004 — but he even took a majority of the votes in Hamilton County, traditionally a bastion of the GOP.
CNN reported problems in Cincinnati midway through Election Day. Local election officials admitted that many voters had improperly been given provisional ballots because people running the polls misunderstood the requirements for identification.
But given the dramatic finish to the nearly two-year-long race for the White House, the local problems were just an annoying delay.
Across the United States, voters set aside old habits and old prejudices. For the first time in 44 years, the commonwealth of Virginia voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. Florida and Colorado — states once solidly in the Republican camp — were victories for Obama.
Ohio, as always a battleground state for the presidency, voted for Obama 51-47 percent over McCain, with Obama winning the state by just over 200,000 votes. Obama took Hamilton County by 52-47 percent — almost exactly his percentage win in the popular vote across the U.S.
The new president will have a larger majority in both houses of Congress. Democrats picked up at least five seats in the U.S. Senate, expanding their lead to 56-40, with several races still undecided. That can only bode well for Obama’s appointments for anticipated vacancies in the U.S. Supreme Court.
"It's disappointing,” said Hamilton County Republican Party Chair Alex Triantafilou. “We expected to carry Ohio. We still think we have the right message for voters. We may have to refine it some. We knew it was a poisonous environment for us."
For a contrast, one needed only step outside downtown, where motorists beeped their horns while yelling, "Obama, Obama!" In Mount Auburn, kids lit firecrackers in the streets and yelled, "We won, we won!"
