Steven Knight, Sherry Garrett (centre) and Beth Orrick, in a picture of racial unity, celebrate with supporters as CNN called the presidential election in favour of Senator Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona, last night. - AP
Confident Jamaicans were among anxious Americans who braved long queues outside polling stations in battleground states yesterday to ensure victory for Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the historic presidential contest against Republican John McCain.
At 3 p.m. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, yesterday, polling booths had already surpassed the numbers of voters polled in the previous election according to Democratic senator and Obama supporter, Vincent Hughes.
"And there are five more hours left in the day. We haven't seen people coming from work yet, so we could see another 20 per cent," a confident Hughes told The Gleaner yesterday afternoon. The turnout, naturally, was especially large from African-American communities in Philadelphia, he said. Hughes is also the husband of Jamaica-born actor Sheryl Lee Ralph.
"People are not willing to take four more years of the four years we have had," Hughes said.
Ralph, who also spoke with The Gleaner, said energy in Philadelphia was high as people waited in line for as long as two hours to vote yesterday. Support for Obama, she explained, flowed from white and black communities alike as polling stations swelled with voters.
"America always said she is beautiful, but now she shows she is indivisible!" exclaimed Ralph.
With its 21 electoral votes, Pennsylvania was one of the states up for grabs in yesterday's election, though up to election day it leaned towards Democrats. Its manu-facturing base was hit hard by the economic crisis.
"I have never seen anything like this," exclaimed Blane Stoddart, a young professional Jamaican who lives and works in Philadelphia.
Of the 8.8 million registered voters in Pennsylvania, he predicted a turnout of 6.5 million voters, above the record turnout during the presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Most of those votes, he said, were expected to go to Obama.
Confidence
Over in the battleground states of Ohio and Florida, Jamaicans were feeling just as confident. Both states, with their combined 47 electoral votes, were also hit hard by the US financial meltdown.
"Everybody's saying Barack," said nursing assistant and Westmoreland native, Norma Taylor. Taylor lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her five daughters and grandchildren. She has been living there for 40 years.
"It's (the voter turnout) more than it used to be. I mean everybody is interested and it's going great," she said. The turnout from the young voters in particular has been tremendous, she said, due to the effort pumped into bringing them out by their celebrity role models in the final weeks leading up to the election.
No Republican candidate has ever won an election without winning Ohio.
"Since the second or third week in October, you have actors, rappers like Jay-Z and basket-ballers like Lebron James [encouraging young people to vote]. They had a concert in downtown last week and they had 205,000 filling the stadium," she told The Gleaner.
In Florida, people were out from as early as 4 a.m. to vote.
Jamaican-born Suzette Ottey, a 38-year-old mother of two, was among those early out of the blocks Tuesday morning. Notwithstanding the swing to the Republicans in the last two elections, she was confident of victory for Obama.
Florida was the deciding state that gave victory to George W. Bush in 2000.
"People here in Florida, after eight years, they all say that they need change. A lot of the middle class need change and Barack is for change," she said.
