RALEIGH, N.C. -- Barack Obama won North Carolina on Thursday, a symbolic triumph for the president-elect that underscored his political strength as he turned nine states that President Bush won in 2004 to Democratic blue.

The Associated Press declared Obama the winner after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots. That survey found that Republican John McCain cannot close the 13,693-vote deficit among the remaining ballots.

North Carolina's 15 electoral votes brings Obama's total to 364 -- nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House -- to McCain's 162. Missouri is the only state that remains too close to call, with McCain leading by several thousand votes.

Obama's win in North Carolina was the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976.

Of Bush's 2004 states, Obama captured Virginia, Florida and North Carolina in the South, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa in the Midwest and Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the West.

Obama ran an aggressive general election campaign in North Carolina after his wide primary victory in the state over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested he could win a trove of electoral votes that most assumed would belong to McCain.

His campaign's focus on the state's two-week early voting period was critical. Obama won more than 1.1 million early votes, giving him a 180,000-vote advantage heading into Election Day -- a gap too great for McCain to overcome.

McCain spent months watching North Carolina from afar during the summer as Obama visited regularly, but the GOP nominee returned to the state in the campaign's final few weeks as polls suggested an Obama victory was possible.

Obama spent millions of televisions ads that were buttressed by hundreds of staff members in dozens of offices to take advantage of North Carolina's rapidly changing demographics and a large bloc of black voters galvanized by his bid to become the first African-American president.

North Carolina's growing population includes a booming urban corridor from Charlotte to Raleigh along Interstate 85, while retirees from northern states -- who are more willing to vote for Democrats -- are filling the state's coast and mountains.

That provided an opening for Obama that didn't exist 20 years ago, said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"There are persuadable voters available who are not caught up in the old constructs of the politics of North Carolina or Virginia," Guillory said. "So to me the interesting story out of this campaign is that the Obama campaign discovered an opportunity in the South, in those states that it seemed that had moved most briskly into the new economy."

Exit polls also showed that some 30 percent of voters still considered race a factor in their decision, with the numbers split evenly among voters who backed McCain and Obama. Nearly one in five voters considered race an important factor.

James Kessler, 40, of Salisbury, said while he considered a number of issues before casting a vote, he felt a "sense of pride" in voting for a fellow black man for president. "I didn't think this would ever happen," he said.

But Obama also performed well among white voters. He got 35 percent of the vote among whites, far higher than in deep South states such as Alabama and Mississippi, where he barely won 10 percent of the white vote.

The economy also played a key role -- with 60 percent of voters considering it the top issue, with those voters breaking slightly to Obama. The state's manufacturing industry has been devastated by competitive imports, and the state's banking economy centered in Charlotte was struck by economic turmoil that led to the downfall of Wachovia Corp., in the weeks before Election Day.

Carla Williams, 37, a medical reimbursement specialist who's originally from Connecticut and now lives in Raleigh, said she backed Obama for his ability to shake things up in Washington -- especially on the economy.

"This is a recession, and anybody who says it's not has got to be crazy," Williams said. People losing their homes, the cost of gas, the cost of food, the jobs that are being lost. We are in a recession. It's time for a change."

Obama's win completed the party's sweep at the top of the North Carolina ticket. Beverly Perdue was elected the state's first female governor, while Kay Hagan unseated one of the GOP's most respected figures in Sen. Elizabeth Dole.