WASH­ING­TON-Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Re­pub­li­can Mitt Rom­ney capped an ag­gres­sive, deeply neg­a­tive and vast­ly ex­pen­sive cam­paign and were await­ing the de­ci­sion of vot­ers last night in an elec­tion that left Amer­i­cans the choice of stark­ly dif­fer­ent vi­sions for the coun­try's fu­ture.

At stake at the end of elec­tion day were over­whelm­ing­ly dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es for heal­ing the ail­ing US econ­o­my, po­lar op­po­site views on so­cial is­sues, from abor­tion rights for women to how to deal with im­mi­gra­tion and the con­duct of Amer­i­can for­eign and mil­i­tary pol­i­cy across the globe.

With polls clos­ing in quick suc­ces­sion, The As­so­ci­at­ed Press has called races in 14 states and the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia, giv­ing Oba­ma 65 elec­toral votes to 40 for Rom­ney. In­clud­ed in that num­ber is Mass­a­chu­setts for Oba­ma. That is Rom­ney's home state and the one where he served as gov­er­nor. The win­ner will need 270 elec­toral votes.

While na­tion­wide polls go­ing in to elec­tion day showed Oba­ma and Rom­ney vir­tu­al­ly tied, the Pres­i­dent was seen as hold­ing slim leads in many of the nine swing states-Ohio chief among them-that were like­ly to de­ter­mine the win­ner. Ex­it polls found most vot­ers say­ing the econ­o­my is the top is­sue fac­ing the na­tion with three-fourths call­ing it poor or not so good.

The swing states were pulling out­sized at­ten­tion last night be­cause the Pres­i­dent is cho­sen in state-by-state con­tests, not ac­cord­ing to the na­tion­wide pop­u­lar vote. But with so many swing-state elec­tors still up for grabs, there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty of a re­peat of the 2000 elec­tion, when the win­ner, George W Bush, was not known for weeks af­ter a pro­tract­ed re­count in Flori­da and a Supreme Court de­ci­sion.

A nar­row vic­to­ry for ei­ther can­di­date this time is sure to deep­en po­lar­i­sa­tion and leave the win­ner with­out a strong man­date to face mount­ing prob­lems-no­tably, the "fis­cal cliff" of high­er tax­es and deep au­to­mat­ic cuts in spend­ing that loom in Jan­u­ary if Re­pub­li­cans and De­moc­rats in Con­gress can­not reach an ac­cord on US fi­nances.

Most ea­ger­ly await­ed were re­sults in Ohio and four oth­er swing states al­so in the east­ern sec­tion of the Unit­ed States-Flori­da, North Car­oli­na, Vir­ginia and New Hamp­shire. Mov­ing west, the polls will then close next in the swing states of Wis­con­sin and Iowa in the cen­tral time zone, then in Col­orado and Neva­da.

The race was seen as so close that the out­come might not be known un­til the ear­ly hours of to­day or lat­er. Oba­ma played bas­ket­ball in a gym­na­si­um near his home on Chica­go's south side yes­ter­day af­ter­noon as mil­lions of Amer­i­cans wait­ed in long lines to cast their bal­lots.

Ear­li­er he was met with ap­plause and tears from vol­un­teers as he en­tered a cam­paign of­fice be­fore pick­ing up a phone to call vot­ers. He con­grat­u­lat­ed Rom­ney on a "spir­it­ed cam­paign" and told re­porters he is "con­fi­dent we have got the votes to win but it's go­ing to de­pend ul­ti­mate­ly on whether those votes turn out."

Rom­ney and fam­i­ly were at his home near Boston to wait for the re­sults af­ter mak­ing two last cam­paign stops yes­ter­day with run­ning mate Paul Ryan in Ohio and Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia. That state was thought to have been solid­ly in the Oba­ma col­umn but one where the Re­pub­li­can chal­lenger had opened a last-minute dri­ve, a move seen as a bid to over­come a po­ten­tial loss in Ohio.

No Re­pub­li­can has ever cap­tured the White House with­out car­ry­ing Ohio. It wasn't just the pres­i­den­cy at stake Tues­day, All 435 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, a third of the 100 Sen­ate seats and 11 gov­er­nor­ships were on the line, along with bal­lot pro­pos­als in some states on top­ics rang­ing from gay mar­riage to le­gal­is­ing mar­i­jua­na.