Americans placed their faith in Barack Obama today, overcoming a past of slavery and segregation, and electing the first African-American to the US presidency.

At Obama’s election party in Chicago, there were raucous celebration and tears of joy as the US TV networks just after 11pm ET (4am GMT) declared that the Democratic candidate had been voted America’s 44th president.

He was carried across the threshold by epic voter turnout across the country, giving him a wider margin over John McCain than any other president in the last two decades.

Obama, accompanied to the podium in his home town of Chicago by his wife Michelle and his two daughters, alluded to the historic nature of his victory.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” he said.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

The Illinois senator spoke moments after McCain made a gracious concession speech in front of his supporters in Phoenix, Arizona, bringing the election to a close after nearly two tumultuous years.

“We have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly,” McCain said.

The defeated Republican said America had come a long way from the racial injustices that were a stain on the country’s history, and called for the country to unite behind Obama.

He said he deeply admired and commended Obama for winning a “historic election”.

The scale of Obama’s victory exceeded Democratic expectations, as Obama was projected to win 338 electoral votes to McCain’s 129.

Obama’s successes in the White House race were matched by Democratic wins in congressional seats. The backlash against Bush provided the Democrats with one of their most satisfying wins of the night, ousting the veteran Republican Elizabeth Dole.

McCain’s hopes began unravelling when networks projected Obama would win Pennsylvania, the state where the Republican planned to make his last stand.

An even bigger setback for McCain followed when networks projected Ohio would go to Obama. The state decided the 2004 race between George Bush and John Kerry.

Piling on the humiliation for the Republican, Obama was projected to win Virginia, the first time the state has voted for a Democrat in a presidential race since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Obama was projected to hold on to all the states the Democrats took in 2004, and win half a dozen or more of the battleground states that had been held by the Republicans.

The Democrat was also projected to win New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

McCain was projected to win Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina.

Fears that many white voters would fail, in the privacy of the polling booth, to vote for a black candidate appeared to be unfounded, suggesting that race is becoming less of an issue in the US.

Americans voted in record numbers throughout the day as they finally got the chance to turn their backs on George Bush’s disastrous presidency and choose a new leader after America’s longest and costliest election campaign.

From the eastern shores of Virginia, across the industrial heartland of Ohio, and on to the Rocky mountain states of Colorado and New Mexico and beyond, poll workers and voters reported long lines and waits of several hours in the most eagerly anticipated US election for half a century.

Turnout was at levels not seen since women were first given the vote in 1920. Election officials predicted turnout would come close to 90% in Virginia and Colorado, and 80% in Ohio and Missouri.

The odds had been stacked against McCain from the start, linked, as he was, to George Bush, with his near-record low popularity ratings, hostility towards the Iraq war and an impending recession.

But McCain managed to hold his own until mid-September, when the Wall Street crash saw Obama open up a commanding lead.

The next president will inherit horrendous economic problems that will limit the scope of his ambitions. Obama, in his final rallies, was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on healthcare and education reform.

Independent election monitors reported sporadic instances of delayed openings of polling stations, broken voting machines, ballot shortages, voter confusion and occasional abuse in a number of battleground states including Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Virginia. [via The Guardian UK]