New president plans to invest $10bn in infrastructure, creating 2 million construction jobs
Barack Obama has been elected president of the US, declaring the win a “new dawn of American leadership”.
Obama is the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to win an American election with significantly more than 50% of the vote. States that had previously been staunchly Republican were taken, including Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa and Florida.
“On every level America will be changed by this result… [it] will never be the same,” Obama said.
He warned his supporters in Chicago that “the road ahead will be long; our climb will be steep,” and added that the challenges of tomorrow would be the “greatest of our lifetime”, with the “worst financial crisis in a century”.
In his election campaign, Obama announced he would invest $10bn (£6bn) over 10 years in local government to fund projects and develop and maintain a national infrastructure. He said this would create 2 million jobs for the construction industry.
In his campaign, he said that the US needed to address not only “the immediate crisis in the housing market” but also to create a “21st century regulatory framework”.
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