Today is the final day to cast a ballot for the next U.S. president, and with voter turnout expected to be exceptionally high this Election Day, neither candidate has let up from full-steam-ahead tactics.
According to the final Gallup pre-election poll, Sen. Barack Obama has the support of 53 percent over Sen. John McCain, who holds 42 percent of likely voters.
Yahoo! News has set Obama as the projected winner for weeks now, with 318 projected electoral votes to McCain’s 196. A candidate must get 270 electoral votes to win, but McCain has not let his underdog status slow him.
For the past few rallies, both Obama and McCain have stuck to familiar premises, with Obama expressing disdain for the conduct of the war in Iraq while McCain pledges to keep taxes low and not give in to any pressure of voting along party lines. Obama’s strength stems from his ability to attract the youth and minorities, while McCain relies on his history of serving the nation as well as being a political individualist, not typecasting himself along party lines just because he is part of the Republican Party. McCain supporters say he has the experience for the job, and Obama supporters say their candidate has the fervor and desire for change needed to heal the nation.
Despite all of the political advertisements, news coverage and talk among citizens within the previous month, who the candidates are and what they stand for is not clear for some voters. A statewide poll conducted by the Texas Politics Project and the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin from Oct. 15 through 22 showed 23 percent of Texans believe Obama is Muslim. National polls shows that 5 to 10 percent of Americans share this false notion. Similarly, many Republicans are unsure of how conservative their "maverick" candidate is.
Because misconceptions about Obama and McCain remain, neither candidate has held anything back in the past few weeks. The general consensus of the polls is Obama will come out victorious as the 44th President of the U.S.
History, however, has shown that polls and the news can be misleading, no matter how credible the source. On Nov. 3, 1948 the Chicago Tribune’s front page read, "Dewey defeats Truman," and they were not the only newspaper to make the mistake, just the most referenced. Also, McCain is not one to give up. He has fought for months, disregarding the label of underdog and has refused to slow down. He made an appearance on Saturday Night Live in an attempt to sway some younger voters’ decisions when they head to the voting booths.
No matter the outcome of this election people will have a new, historic presidential administration to lead them on Jan. 20.
