Surrounded by excited staffers and supporters, candidate remains his characteristicly calm self.

Eli Saslow | 8:37 p.m. ET

Jennifer Shelton of Catonsville, Maryland, said she had to wait almost 40 minutes to vote Tuesday.

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"We had a great ride. We had a great experience. It's full of memories that we will always treasure," he said aboard his election plane.

He and Sen. Barack Obama were both expected to be watching the results come in from their home states.

The first polls closed at 6 p.m. ET in parts of Indiana and Kentucky.

CNN does not project a winner in any state until all polls have closed in that state.

At 7 p.m. ET, all polls will be closed in Georgia, Indiana and Virginia, three states where McCain and Obama are in a close race.

All polls close in Ohio and North Carolina close by 7:30 p.m.

No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio.

McCain has been campaigning hard in Pennsylvania, a state that voted for the Democratic candidate in the past two presidential elections.

Polls there will be closed by 8 p.m., as will polls in Florida, another key battleground.

The first exit polls out Tuesday reflect what voters have said all along: The economy is by far the top issue on their minds. Watch more on the top issues »

Sixty-two percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue. Iraq was the most important for 10 percent, and terrorism and health care were each the top issue for 9 percent of voters.

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The economy has dominated the last leg of the campaign trail as Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have tried to convince voters that they are the best candidate to handle the financial crisis.

Voters expressed excitement and pride in their country after casting their ballots Tuesday in what has proved to be a historic election.

When the ballots are counted, the United States will have elected either its first African-American president or its oldest first-term president and first female vice president.

Besides choosing between McCain and Obama -- or a third-party candidate -- voters were making choices in a number of key House and Senate races that could determine whether the Democrats strengthen their hold on Congress.

Poll workers reported high turnout across many parts of the country, and some voters waited hours to cast their ballots.

Reports of minor problems and delays in opening polls began surfacing early Tuesday, shortly after polls opened on the East Coast.

Among them: Palm Beach, Florida, reported minor sporadic voter machine failures, and wet voters in rainy Chesapeake, Virginia, were being asked to dry off before voting because they were getting their optical-scan ballots wet, according to election officials in those locales.

CNN is asking people to call its Voter Hotline at 1-877-GO-CNN-08 (1-877-462-6608) if they witness any problems or irregularities. Read about election problems

But many said the chance to vote was worth the wait.

"It feels great to be an American today. The best hour and a half of my life," exclaimed Jude Elliot, an eighth-grade social studies teacher in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Elliot, who has been voting in Orangeburg since 1998, said it usually takes him five minutes to vote, but on Tuesday it took about 90 -- and he arrived at 6:45 a.m.

"Polling station was packed: young, old, black, white, disabled, not," he said. "It was amazing."

Rick Garcia's motivation for voting was more personal. His brother was killed August 1 by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan while he served in the Army.

"It's the main reason why I came to vote: in his honor," said Garcia, of West Palm Beach, Florida. "He would have wanted everybody as American citizens to do it." Watch a voter explain how he's honoring his brother »

For many voters, Election Day began well before dawn.

Ronnie Senique, a math teacher from Landover, Maryland, said he got up early and was the first one at the polls when he arrived at 4:10 a.m., almost three hours before the polls opened.

By the time he left, "the lines were around the corner. They snaked around the school. They went into the street," Senique said.

Tuesday was Senique's first time to vote in a U.S. presidential race. Senique, who is from the Bahamas, became a U.S. citizen about three years ago.

High turnout was not necessarily a theme at every polling station around the country. iReport.com: Share your Election Day experience

"I was there at 10 in the morning, and I jokingly said the [entire] line was my wife -- and that's only because I let her through the door first ," said Nathan Grebowiec, a 27-year-old resident of Plainville, Kansas.

The presidential candidates both voted early in the day before heading out to the campaign trail one last time. Watch Obama family at polls »

iReporter Lindsey Miller, 23, votes at the same polling place as Obama. She said Secret Service agents were checking names off a list and using metal-detecting wands on some would-be voters as they entered the polling place. The line was around the block at 6 a.m., she said.

"A lot of people were in pajamas. I know I was; not the time you want to be on national TV," the University of Chicago graduate student said. Read what Obama is up to Tuesday

Tuesday also marked the end of the longest presidential campaign season in U.S. history -- 21 months -- and both candidates took the opportunity to make their final pitch to voters.

As McCain and Obama emerged from their parties' conventions, the race was essentially a toss-up, with McCain campaigning on his experience and Obama on the promise of change. But the race was altered by the financial crisis that hit Wall Street in September. Watch how this election is history in the making »

Obama began to pull away in the polls nationally as well as in key battleground states. A CNN poll of polls calculated Tuesday showed Obama leading McCain 52 percent to 44 percent, with 4 percent undecided.

Obama also opened a lead in the race for electoral votes. As of Monday, CNN estimated that Obama would win 291 electoral votes and McCain would win 157, with 90 electoral votes up for grabs. To win the presidency, 270 electoral votes are needed.

Although most of the attention has been focused on the presidential race, the outcome of congressional elections across the country will determine whether the Democrats increase their clout on Capitol Hill.

Few predict that the Democrats are in danger of losing their control of either the House or the Senate, but all eyes will be on nearly a dozen close Senate races that are key to whether the Democrats get 60 seats in the Senate.

With 60 votes, Democrats could end any Republican filibusters or other legislative moves to block legislation.

Many political observers also predict that the Democrats could expand their majority in the House.

Voters will also weigh in on a number of ballot initiatives across the country, many of them focused on social issues like abortion and affirmative action. Check out the hot-button issues on the ballot

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(CNN) -- Voters will head to the polls Tuesday not only to choose a president, but to decide on a series of proposals that could create major policy changes in their communities for years to come.

Voters in California, Arizona and Florida will weigh in on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

"Ballot measures are tremendously important. They're not recommendations; they're actual laws and constitutional amendments that voters pass directly," said Jennie Bowser, senior elections analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Once the voters say yes, it goes on the books."

Social issues including abortion rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage dominate this year's list of some 150 ballot measures in 33 states.

Colorado could come close to banning abortion if voters approve a proposal to define person to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization." The term would apply to sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect "natural and essential rights of persons."

In South Dakota, voters will decide whether to allow abortions only in cases of rape and incest. California's Proposition 4 requires physicians to provide parental notification to guardians of minors at least 48 hours before performing an abortion.iReport.com: Watch Prop 8 debate in Utah

Affirmative action measures in Colorado and Nebraska would prohibit state governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, color, sex or national origin.

If California's Proposition 8 on same-sex marriage passes, it would overrule a state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex unions in May. An Arkansas proposal would prohibit unmarried sexual partners from adopting children or serving as foster parents.

DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

Dixville Notch residents wait for the stoke of midnight to be the first voters for the nation's presidential election.

People in the isolated village in New Hampshire's northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday.

It was the first time since 1968 that the village leaned Democratic in an election.

Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, won 6 votes.

A full 100 percent of registered voters in the village cast ballots. And the votes didn't take long to tally.

The town, home to around 75 residents, has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960, drawing national media attention for being the first place in the country to make its presidential preferences known.

However, since 1996, another small New Hampshire town -- Hart's Location -- reinstated its practice from the 1940s and also began opening its polls at midnight.

The result in Dixville Notch is hardly a reliable bellwether for the eventual winner of the White House -- or even the result statewide.

While New Hampshire is a perennial swing state -- with 4 Electoral College votes at stake -- Dixville Notch consistently leans Republican. The last Democrat it picked was Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in 1968.

President Bush won the town in a landslide in the last two elections: He captured 73 percent of the vote in 2004 (19 residents picked Bush while six preferred Sen. John Kerry), and secured 80 percent of the vote in 2000 (21 votes for Bush, five votes for Al Gore.)

But villagers expected the results to be close this year given Democrats now outnumber Republicans there.

Getty Images

By Theo Francis and Jane Sasseen

The winner on Tuesday, Nov. 4, won't get much of a chance to rest on his laurels—or rest at all, for that matter. The calendar may show 11 weeks until Inauguration Day, but the President-elect will be expected to stage what may amount to the fastest transition in history.

"He'll have about a day to rest. His Presidency will start on Nov. 6," says one top staffer for a key Democratic senator.

That may be a slight exaggeration, but events won't wait for the new Administration. Congressional Democrats are laying the groundwork for a fiscal stimulus package they hope to pass in late November. Under pressure from European leaders—and perhaps with an eye on his own legacy—President Bush is hosting a summit of world leaders on Nov. 15. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has scheduled a hearing on the bailout for Nov. 18. And the President-elect may hold his own economic summit as well, as Bill Clinton did in 1992.

Meanwhile, Detroit is clamoring for $25 billion more in loan guarantees (BusinessWeek.com, 10/31/08), and all sides say something has to be done—soon—to help homeowners and stem the housing market collapse.

A History of Wrong Guesses

Whoever wins, naming a Treasury Secretary is sure to be high on the list, followed by other key economic posts. Among other things, an early Treasury nominee will give the new Administration more influence over how the rest of the $700 billion bank bailout is rolled out.

Beltway pundits are working overtime to predict who will snag this key job, but "the guesses about the Clinton Cabinet were hilariously wrong in almost every respect," says Matt Bennett, spokesman for progressive Washington think tank Third Way, who worked in Clinton's 1992 campaign and in the White House during his second term. "Even Lloyd Bentsen [Clinton's first Treasury Secretary] wasn't on the top of people's lists."

Says Paul Stevens, CEO of Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund trade group: "I've heard about six different names, but in Washington that means it's none of the six."

The Bush Administration has already set aside a conference room for the winner's Treasury transition team and is preparing reams of briefings on everything from terrorism financing to travel policies. Nor is cooperation likely to be confined to administrative matters.

"There's no question we'll be consulting on big decisions with the President-elect's team," a Treasury Dept. official says. "It's in the best interests of the financial markets."

Hold Off Till January?

But the President-elect might consider mimicking Franklin Roosevelt, who famously declined to help out with policy before Inauguration Day during the Great Depression, on the grounds that the country has one President at a time. That's especially true with the planned Nov. 15 summit, which is likely to chart broad policy with little concrete action.

"There is a principle behind it, but it's also politically smart," says one lobbyist on financial issues. Both candidates have worked overtime to distance themselves from the deeply unpopular Bush Administration, and working too closely with it just weeks before taking office could undermine public support for the President-elect's policies.

But even if they don't get visibly involved in policy decisions just yet, economic advisers to whoever wins will undoubtedly start working overtime to better understand the nitty-gritty of how the Treasury is managing the financial rescue plan and making decisions about who does and does not get money.

Then there's Capitol Hill. With an Obama victory and a significant increase in the Democrats' margins in Congress, a bare-bones, lame-duck session is likely this fall. That session would focus on a fiscal stimulus package that includes extended unemployment benefits and perhaps aid to state and local governments; more sweeping fiscal measures would wait for the new Administration.