Obama wins Florida en route to White House

TAMPA -- Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama won Florida Tuesday night, his edges in staffing and campaign money proving too high a hurdle for Republican John McCain to overcome.

Obama prevailed by running strong in the pivotal counties along the Interstate 4 corridor from here to Orlando, home to 43% of the state's electorate; by doing well with Latino voters, particularly Puerto Ricans in Osceola County; and by turning out young and African-American voters.

"They were able to improve on the (2004) John Kerry vote in the I-4 corridor in just about every county," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.

Obama also compiled larger margins of victory in reliably Democratic counties such as Miami-Dade, Monroe and Broward. "I cannot overstate the importance of having the money to come in here and get people registered," MacManus said.

She said that Obama also out-spent McCain significantly in television advertising and that that made the difference. "The people that made up their minds late broke toward McCain, and that's because he only had money to put some decent ads late in the campaign."

Obama's win capped an Election Day that saw high voter turnout across Florida eight years after the 2000 election deadlocked here for 36 days between Bush and Democrat Al Gore amid faulty voting machines and legal challenges.

Floridians saw long lines at many precincts, including waits of three hours at the University of South Florida here and the University of Central Florida in Orlando. "We'd characterize the turnout between medium and heavy," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said.

About 4.3 million people cast votes during early voting and absentee balloting; Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 360,000 among those voters, but it was unknown how they voted.

McCain had treated Florida as an all-but-must-win state in his bid for the White House.

Political analysts had said that another important region in Florida was the Panhandle, an area where Republicans normally win but where Obama poured resources. Obama didn't do as well in those counties as Kerry in 2004.

Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, said a key moment in the campaign came in September when polls showed McCain leading by 5%-6%.