Morning Edition

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renée Montagne. First-time mother and first-time voter Galicia Malone of Chicago didn't expect to become both on the same day. After going into labor a 3:00 AM, the 21 year old stopped by New Life Celebration Church to vote before driving to the hospital where she delivered a baby girl.

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Five hundred thirty-eight electoral votes were up for grabs on Election Day. President Obama has won, so far, 303 of them, a comfortable majority. Mitt Romney has 206. Twenty-nine are still unaccounted for - the electoral votes of Florida. Too close to call there. Less than a percentage point divides the candidates. But down the ballot, Democrats did well. The party retained a Senate seat and picked up a few key congressional races as well. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

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For weeks, months - make that years - the conventional wisdom has been that the presidential election would all come down to Ohio, and Ohio would be very close. Well, that was partially right. Ohio was very close, but as NPR's Tamara Keith reports, not as pivotal as predicted.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Jack Shumate(ph) flew into Ohio last Thursday from Dallas, Texas. He came here because this was the place where he felt he could really make a difference for his candidate, Mitt Romney.

For better or worse, the financial markets face a little less uncertainty — investors know who's going to be president for the next four years. Steve Inskeep talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about what the outcome of the presidential election means for the economy and financial markets.

President Obama will spend another four years in the White House after winning more than 300 electoral votes. In his victory speech from Chicago, the president promised that the "best is yet to come."

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Here we are on election morning, and in the swing state of Nevada, most of the work is already done. Most of the ballots were cast in early voting. Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston has been keeping close track of the tallies. He's on the line.

Welcome to the program, sir.

JON RALSTON: Hi, Steve.

INSKEEP: So, in recent days, what have you been seeing?

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Next, we go to Des Moines, Iowa where Sadhya Dirks of Iowa Public Radio joins us. Good morning.

SADHYA DIRKS, BYLINE: Morning.

MONTAGNE: And where did you start out this morning? I gather it wasn't Des Moines.

DIRKS: I was in a suburb of Des Moines. It's a more conservative part of Des Moines. It's Johnston, Iowa and I was at the Evangelical Free Church there, just talking to some voters and seeing what the turnout was like.

MONTAGNE: And what was it?

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Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan cast his vote in his home state of Wisconsin this morning. To learn more about voting in that battleground state on this Election Day, we reached Shawn Johnson of Wisconsin Public Radio. He's in the town of Middleton, just outside the state capital, Madison. Good morning.

SHAWN JOHNSON, BYLINE: Good morning.

MONTAGNE: Well, tell us a little about Middleton - partly what the scene is there, but also what kind of place is it?

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. People have been joking for weeks that the candidates are actually running for president of Ohio. That's how vital the state is, but here's a reminder about the electoral map. It is at least theoretically possible for either candidate to lose Ohio and still reach 270 electoral votes by winning some combination of other states. Many of those combinations include Florida.

It's at least theoretically possible for either candidate to lose the vital state of Ohio and still reach 270 electoral votes by winning some combination of other states. Many of those combinations include Florida — infamous for voting irregularities in 2000.

Renee Montagne talks to Josh Rogers of New Hampshire Public Radio about voting in rural and urban parts of the state. Election Day starts early, at 5 a.m., in much of the state, and there's a new voter ID law.

Ohio is possibly the most important state in this presidential race. A challenge over early voting there has turned into a dispute over provisional ballots.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

The triumph in some parts of the country this morning is that people are able to vote at all. Just over a week after Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore, people are voting today in New Jersey.

And in New York City, NPR's Robert Smith is in the Borough of Queens, part of New York City. He's on the line. Robert, what have you seen today?

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie finally met his state's favorite son. He attended more than 100 Bruce Springsteen concerts without meeting the devoted Democrat. But after the Republican governor toured storm damage with President Obama, the two embraced. Campaigning with Springsteen, the president later put the two men on the phone, matching the Boss with the governor who once sang Springsteen music in a TV appearance.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. When the Florida city of Boca Raton hosted the last presidential debate, even the previous debate's moderator mispronounced it. Outsiders do tend to call it Boca Raton, like baton, possibly because it dropped the E on the end decades ago. Now the mayor wants the E back in the name. She joked to the South Florida Sun Sentinel: We'll put you in jail like Al Capone if you don't say it like Boca Raton. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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New York's Mayor Bloomberg has hired a former FEMA official with experience in Hurricane Katrina to direct the city's housing recovery. NPR's Martin Kaste reports it's another sign of the seriousness of the housing shortage caused by the storm.

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Many Americans will spend extra time at the polls today, not just choosing candidates but also making law. They will vote on a variety of state ballot initiatives, which Josh Goodman of the Pew Center on the States is tracking.

I've printed out here a list of ballot initiatives in various states. And it's more than a page long. It's a ridiculous number. The Oregon Gillnet Fishing Initiative, the Utah Military Property Tax Exemption Amendment, Constitutional Amendment B 2012. We could go on for quite some time. This is quite a list.

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And today's last word in business is: Pinching Pennies.

In Garfield, Pennsylvania, the owner of a tattoo shop wanted to spruce up her floors. She could have gone with a nice tile or parquet.

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Instead, Mel Angst of the Artisan Tattoo and Coffee Gallery went with pennies - 250,000. She recruited some volunteers, and spent three weeks painstakingly gluing pennies to the floor.

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SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: And I'm Scott Horsley, traveling with the Obama campaign. Actually, the president's campaign travel is finished. Mr. Obama spent the night at his own home in Chicago. Today's plans call for some TV and radio interviews and maybe a game of basketball with some friends. Mr. Obama's last reelection rally came last night in Iowa, where 20,000 people gathered just outside the caucus headquarters where he launched his first presidential campaign more than five years ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

Superstorm Sandy got officials in New York and New Jersey talking about how to prevent flooding in a time of global warming and sea level rise.

But the place on the East Coast that's most vulnerable to flooding is several hundred miles south, around Norfolk, Va. — and Norfolk has already spent many years studying how to survive the rising waters.

Scientists say what Norfolk has learned is especially important in light of new research showing that the coastline from North Carolina to Boston will experience even more sea level rise than other areas.

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In upstate New York, Maraleen Manos-Jones, who cultivates a butterfly garden, discovered the late-bloomer in its chrysalis. She'll travel with the monarch on a plane to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, where it can join other monarchs on their epic migration to Mexico.

In the long presidential election campaign, both President Obama and Gov. Romney have surged in the polls and then fallen back. According to the latest opinion surveys, the race is too close to call. Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne talk to Bay Buchanan, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.

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Asking voters to raise taxes on themselves is a tough sell, but there are initiatives around the country doing just that. In Missouri, it's the cigarette tax. Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax of any state, and some of the highest smoking and lung cancer rates. St. Louis Public Radio's Veronique LaCapra reports.

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The U.S. economy has been slowly recovering, but economists warn it could plunge back into recession if Congress does not take action to avoid what's become known as the fiscal cliff.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

That is the name that some clever communications specialist gave to the combination of expiring tax cuts - in other words, tax increases - and broad, mandatory spending cuts aimed at reducing the deficit. The two are set to go into effect at the end of the year.

The final days of an election cycle bring an obsession with the short term — the very short term. Daily tracking polls. A relentless get-it, post-it, blog-it news cycle. Trending topics on Twitter telling us something (though it's not always clear what).

But for just a moment, let's slow it down, look at what's happening over a somewhat longer time frame, and see what it tells us about what the country will look like for the winner of the presidential race.

The Long View

Lianne La Havas was pretty much unknown until she appeared on the influential TV show in Britain called Later with Jools Holland. It was just her, singing and playing guitar. Her voice was clear, pure and soulful. The song she performed — called "Age" — was both jazzy and sassy.

"Time seemed to stand still," wrote one critic of La Havas' live performance. There were much more established artists on the music show that day, but Alison Howe, the producer, says La Havas was the standout.