Story Created:
Nov 5, 2008 at 12:33 AM EST
Story Updated:
Nov 5, 2008 at 2:31 AM EST
GARY, Ind. (AP) — Barack Obama upended 40 years of Republican tradition by winning the presidential race in Indiana in one of the closest contests in the nation between him and John McCain.
Indiana's voters split nearly down the middle as an unofficial tally by The Associated Press showed him defeating McCain by about 23,000 votes out of more than 2.7 million cast.
The close Indiana race came after Obama ran an unprecedented campaign in the state, spending millions of dollars in advertising and manpower in an effort to snap Indiana's streak of backing Republican presidential nominees for 10 straight elections.
Republicans were unable to match the effort on McCain's behalf, but recent statewide polls had shown the two in a dead heat, reflecting Indiana's strong Republican roots. Obama said during a campaign stop Tuesday in Indianapolis that the race was "tight as a tick."
McCain won many rural counties across the state Tuesday with 60 percent or more of the vote, but Obama offset that with big margins in many of the largest counties.
He won about two-thirds of the vote in Lake County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Gary and has the state's greatest percentage of minorities, and did nearly as well in Indianapolis, piling up a 105,000-vote advantage with 64 percent of the ballots.
McCain acknowledged as voters were going to the polls that Indiana was no longer a lock for the GOP.
"I think there have been a lot of changes in Indiana, there's obviously economic difficulties," he told Indianapolis TV station WTHR in a noontime satellite interview from Arizona.
Obama's campaign made Indiana an unexpected target during the May primary, which he narrowly lost to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and never let up.
He made 40 stops and spent about $6 million on TV commercials in the state during the primary, then spent at least that much more on Indiana television ads since June. The campaign also assigned dozens of staffers and opened about 40 field offices — many in counties with minimal Democratic organizations.
Television ads on McCain's behalf did not begin in the state until late September — and even then he was heavily outspent. The Obama campaign spent nearly $1.25 million on Indiana advertising from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, nearly four times the $336,000 spent on McCain ads, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
McCain spoke Monday at a rally in Indianapolis, but his last previous stop in the state was on July 1. Running mate Sarah Palin made three trips to Indiana in the closing weeks, drawing big crowds to rallies in Noblesville, Fort Wayne and Jeffersonville.
Obama's efforts reduced the typical Republican advantages in some GOP strongholds.
In Hamilton County, the state's most affluent just north of Indianapolis, McCain won with 60 percent of the vote — far less than President Bush's 75 percent in 2004.
"The key for us was his commitment to keep that organizing going all summer and to keep the momentum from that later primary and build on that grassroots effort," said former Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard, a Democrat who supported Obama during the primary.
Republicans held out hope that McCain would hold onto Indiana even though he lost the presidency.
"We certainly understand that Barack Obama had a lot more money to spend here and all that, but at the same time it is about winning and they won," said Luke Messer, the co-chairman of McCain's Indiana campaign.
Tallies remained incomplete early Wednesday in a handful of counties, such as Madison County, which had more than 11,000 absentee ballots still to count.
Calls to Madison County were not immediately returned early Wednesday, but county Clerk Ludy Watkins told The Herald Bulletin of Anderson that some ballots weren't coded correctly to be read by the county's vote counting machine.
Nicole Slater, a spokeswoman for supplier Election Systems & Software, told the newspaper the problem was with the county's machine.
Tuesday's tight race came just four years after Bush carried Indiana with 60 percent of the vote. Lyndon Johnson's victory in Indiana during his 1964 landslide win over Barry Goldwater was the last time a Democratic nominee had carried the state.
Indiana's unaccustomed position as a battleground state wasn't lost on voters.
Megan Nagasawa, an Indiana University sophomore from Los Angeles, said she registered to vote in Indiana because she wanted her ballot for McCain to matter.
"This is the first time in a long time Indiana has been on the bubble, and I wanted to vote where I thought it would be more important," Nagasawa said at her Bloomington voting site.
Obama supporter Daymond Ware, 49, of Gary said he was excited about having a black president but that race wasn't a major factor in how he voted.
"We're doing pretty bad right now, and any time things are going bad you want change and more people are going to be involved, especially when you can reach people like Obama has," Ware said. "Like when Kennedy was running, he was something new and different and could relate to the people. Obama has that same charisma."
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Associated Press writer Michael Marot contributed to this story.
