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Turnout records fall even in GOP-friendly states

AP, Montgomery. Alaska
Even in reliably red states where Barack Obama has little chance of winning, unprecedented numbers of registrations and early votes have been tallied yesterday, and elections officials are predicting a record turnout in places where neither candidate even bothered to campaign.
An aggressive and well -financed get-OUt-the-vote campaign helped Obama's campaign mobilise unprecedented numbers of African-American and new voters who could help decide the presidential election by swinging states like North Carolina and Virginia to the Democrat.
But even in states like Alabama. Utah, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Republican strongholds where John McCain could post doubledigit wins. Obama's candidacy helped boost registration numbers. particularly in urban areas. Republicans countered by mobilising their own base, a process aided by McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, who's popular among conservatives.
"It may not shift Alabama from red to blue, or shift Tbrfnessee from red to blue." Ferrel Guillory, an expert in Southern politics at the University of North Carolina, said of the turnout projections. ' But it could have an effect over die long term."
And while these states have been comfortably in McCain's column for months, a record turnout could benefit candidates further down the ballot. As in swing states, the consensus among experts is that the trend favours Democrats.
In Alabama, a state that has gone consistently Republican in presidential elections since picking Ronald Reagan in 1980, Obama's army of volunteers conducted voter registration drives that helped push the state's voter rolls past 3 million for the first time, and they registered blacks at a faster rate than whites.
"Obama realised there was no way to wrestle Alabama away from McCain," but a higher African-American turnout is likely to benefit Democrats running for the state Supreme Court and other offices, said D'Linell Finley, a political scientist at Auburn University Montgomery.
The story is similar in Tennessee, which saw many more early voters than in 2004, especially in Democratic-leaning counties; and in South Carolina, where
records fell for both registration and absentee voting.
"There are going to be some tight races that normally were not going to be tight," said South Carolina's Republican Party chairman, Katon Dawson, who has no doubts about a McCain victory there but is worried about down-the-ballot contests.
"I think we have very good prospects to pick up a congressional seat or two,” said his Democratic counterpart, Carol Fowler.
In Utah, Kentucky, Louisiana all solidly red states this election has inspired intense interest.
Nebraska, which has given all five of its electoral votes to Republicans in every election since 1964, fell just 3,000 short of a record for voter registration, but Secretary of State John Gale was forecasting record turnout anyway.
And even there "Republicans are not gaining to the same degree as Democrats and independents," he said. "You definitely have to attribute it to the Obama campaign."
Nebraska is one of two states that can split its electoral votes, and Obama opened three offices in Omaha to try to shave off one of those votes.