By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

Barack Obama's appeal to black voters worked.

The nation's first black president won 95 percent of the black vote in the United States on Tuesday.

That's according to national exit polls, which were beefed up after the debacle of 2004, when the polls erroneously indicated John Kerry had beaten George Bush.

On Tuesday Obama also won the under-30 crowd by 34 percentage points.

And Obama won two-thirds of Hispanic voters.