Early results from Florida showed a tight race between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney among an electorate worried about the economy and the direction the country is headed.

Returns from some strongly Republican or Democratic states came in as expected. Mr. Romney won Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Georgia while Mr. Obama won Vermont, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maryland and Massachusetts.

In Florida, one of the most contested states, the president was running barely ahead of Mr. Romney with nearly four million votes counted. Mr. Romney was leading strongly in Virginia, another hard-fought state, with several hundred thousand votes counted.

Polls were closed in many Eastern and Midwestern states as of 8 p.m. Eastern time, after a day that saw long lines at many polling places around the country. Waits in some places were reported at two hours or more.

Most voters rated the condition of the nation's economy as "not so good" or "poor," and a slight majority said the country is "seriously off on the wrong track," according to an early wave of exit polls released Tuesday.

But the first glimpse of the 2012 electorate yielded conflicting messages, as many previous polls had, with a small majority saying that they have a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. Fewer voters held favorable opinions of Mr. Romney, the exit polls found, and just more than half said the Republican's policies favored the rich.

Early exit surveys also revealed a divided electorate in the states that will decide the winner of this election. In Ohio, perhaps the biggest prize among the swing states, voters were nearly evenly split on the question of who would better handle the economy, and a majority said former president George W. Bush was more to blame than Mr. Obama for current economic problems.

In Florida, the two candidates had similar favorability ratings, but more voters said Mr. Romney was the better choice for handling the economy. In Virginia, just more than half of voters had positive feelings about the Obama administration, but Mr. Romney still had the edge on the question of handling the economy.

Messrs. Romney and Obama entered Election Day locked in a near-dead heat, with both candidates expressing confidence that their supporters would deliver a win. Ultimately, voters in a handful of battleground states will have the final say in what has been the most expensive presidential contest in history. Polls suggest that decision day could stretch into a long night.

Voters in many places encountered lines. At an elementary school in Fulton County, Ga., they snaked through the gymnasium and out into the hallway, and some people waited more than two and a half hours to vote.

In Manassas, Va., poll worker Maurica Rodgers, who has volunteered at the site for 15 years, watched the line of hundreds of voters and said, "This is the most I've seen for a presidential election." At a Burbank, Calif., church, two dozen people were waiting to vote before the polls even opened, poll workers said.

Scattered problems with voting machines and poll watchers were reported across the country, mostly of the kind that is typically seen on Election Day.

As voters flocked to the polls, Mr. Romney continued to press his case during the final hours, flying to Ohio to visit a campaign office in Richmond Heights with running mate Paul Ryan. Mr. Romney also made a stop in Pennsylvania Tuesday.



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