President Barack Obama has retained the White House and has defeated
Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The results was projected just before
11:30 p.m. ET by several U.S. networks including CNN, NBC and CBS.
“Four more years,” Obama was the simple message on Obama’s official twitter account.
Obama defeated Romney in a series of key swing states despite a weak
economic recovery and persistent high unemployment as U.S. voters
decided between two starkly different visions for the country.
Obama’s narrow wins in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New
Hampshire – all states that Romney had contested – effectively ended
Romney’s hopes of capturing the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the
White House.
Obama’s victory in the hotly contested swing state of Ohio — as
projected by TV networks — put him over the top in the fight for the 270
electoral votes needed to clinch the White House and ended Romney’s
hopes of pulling off a string of swing-state upsets.
Obama scored narrow wins in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and
New Hampshire – all states that Romney had contested – while the only
swing state captured by Romney was North Carolina, according to network
projections.
There was no immediate word from the Romney camp on the reported results.
Obama enters his second four-year term faced with a difficult task of
tackling $1 trillion annual deficits, reducing a $16 trillion national
debt, overhauling expensive social programs and dealing with a
gridlocked U.S. Congress that looked likely to maintain the same
partisan makeup.
The economy was rated the top issue by about 60% of voters surveyed
as they left their polling places. But more said former President George
W. Bush bore responsibility for current circumstances than Obama did
after nearly four years in office.
About 4 in 10 said the economy is on the mend, but more than that
said it was stagnant or getting worse more than four years after the
near-collapse of 2008. The survey was conducted for The Associated Press
and a group of television networks.
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| Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images: Supporters of U.S. President Barack Obama
cheer after networks project Obama as reelected during the Obama
Election Night watch party at McCormick Place November 6, 2012 in
Chicago, Illinois |
Democrats got off to a quick start in their bid to renew their Senate
majority, capturing seats in Indiana and Massachusetts now in
Republican hands.
In Maine, independent former Gov. Angus King was elected to succeed
retiring GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe. He has not yet said which party he will
side with, but Republicans attacked him in television advertising
during the race, and Democrats rushed to his cause.
Polls were still open in much of the country as the two rivals began
claiming the spoils of a brawl of an election in a year in which the
struggling economy put a crimp in the middle class dreams of millions.
The president was in Chicago as he awaited the voters’ verdict on his
four years in office. He told reporters he had a concession speech as
well as victory remarks prepared. He congratulated Romney on a spirited
campaign. “I know his supporters are just as engaged, just as
enthusiastic and working just as hard today” as Obama’s own, he added.
Romney reciprocated, congratulating the man who he had campaigned against for more than a year.
Earlier, he raced to Ohio and Pennsylvania for Election Day
campaigning and projected confidence as he flew home to Massachusetts.
“We fought to the very end, and I think that’s why we’ll be successful,”
he said, adding that he had finished writing a speech anticipating
victory but nothing if the election went to his rival.
But the mood soured among the Republican high command as the votes came in and Obama ground out a lead in critical states.
Like Obama, Vice President Joe Biden was in Chicago as he waited to
find out if he was in line for a second term. Republican running mate
Paul Ryan was with Romney in Boston, although he kept one eye on his
re-election campaign for a House seat in Wisconsin, just in case.
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| Supporters
of US President Barack Obama cheer results on election night November
6, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEBSAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty
Images |
Voters also chose a new Congress to serve alongside the man who will
be inaugurated president in January, Democrats defending their majority
in the Senate, and Republicans in the House.
The long campaign’s cost soared into the billions, much of it spent on negative ads, some harshly so.
In the presidential race, an estimated one million commercials aired
in nine battleground states where the rival camps agreed the election
was most likely to be settled – Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida,
North Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.
In a months-long general election ad war that cost nearly $1 billion,
Romney and Republican groups spent more than $550 million and Obama and
his allies $381 million, according to organizations that track
advertising.
In Virginia, the polls had been closed for several minutes when
Obama’s campaign texted a call for volunteers “to make sure everyone
who’s still in line gets to vote.”
In Florida, there were long lines at the hour set for polls to close.
Under state law, everyone waiting was entitled to cast a ballot.
According to the exit poll, 53 percent of voters said Obama is more
in touch with people like them, compared to 43 percent for Romney.
About 60% said taxes should be increased, taking sides on an issue
that divided the president and Romney. Obama wants to let taxes rise on
upper incomes, while Romney does not.
Other than the battlegrounds, big states were virtually ignored in
the final months of the campaign. Romney wrote off New York, Illinois
and California, while Obama made no attempt to carry Texas, much of the
South or the Rocky Mountain region other than Colorado.
There were 33 Senate seats on the ballot, 23 of them defended by Democrats and the rest by Republicans.
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| REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque: Supporters of U.S. President Obama cheer during his election night rally in Chicago |
Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, won a Connecticut seat long
held by Sen. Joe Lieberman, retiring after a career that included a
vice presidential spot on Al Gore’s ticket in 2000. It was Republican
Linda McMahon’s second defeat in two tries, at a personal cost of $92
million.
The GOP needed a gain of three for a majority if Romney won, and four
if Obama was re-elected. Neither Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada
nor GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was on the ballot, but each
had high stakes in the outcome.
All 435 House seats were on the ballot, including five where one
lawmaker ran against another as a result of once-a-decade redistricting
to take population shifts into account. Democrats needed to pick up 25
seats to gain the majority they lost two years ago.
Depending on the outcome of a few races, it was possible that white
men would wind up in a minority in the Democratic caucus for the first
time.
Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, raised millions to finance
get-out-the-vote operations in states without a robust presidential
campaign, New York, Illinois and California among them. His goal was to
minimize any losses, or possibly even gain ground, no matter Romney’s
fate. House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California campaigned
aggressively, as well, and faced an uncertain political future if her
party failed to win control.
In gubernatorial races, Republicans picked up North Carolina, where
Pat McCrory won easily. The incumbent, Democratic Gov. Bev Purdue, did
not seek re-election.
In a campaign that traversed contested Republican primaries last
winter and spring, a pair of political conventions this summer and three
presidential debates, Obama, Romney, Biden and Ryan spoke at hundreds
of rallies, were serenaded by Bruce Springstein and Meat Loaf and washed
down hamburgers, pizza, barbecue and burrito bowls.
Obama was elected the first black president in 2008, and four years
later, Romney became the first Mormon to appear on a general election
ballot. Yet one man’s race and the other’s religion were never major
factors in this year’s campaign for the White House, a race dominated
from the outset by the economy.
Over and over, Obama said that during his term the nation has begun
to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression. While he
conceded progress has been slow, he accused Romney of offering recycled
Republican policies that have helped the wealthy and harmed the middle
class in the past and would do so again.
Romney countered that a second Obama term could mean a repeat
recession in a country where economic growth has been weak and
unemployment is worse now than when the president was inaugurated. A
wealthy former businessman, he claimed the knowledge and the skills to
put in place policies that would make the economy healthy again.
In a race where the two men disagreed often, one of the principal
fault lines was over taxes. Obama campaigned for the renewal of income
tax cuts set to expire on Dec. 31 at all income levels except above
$200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.
Romney said no one’s taxes should go up in uncertain economic times.
In addition, he proposed a 20 percent cut across the board in income tax
rates but said he would end or curtail a variety of tax breaks to make
sure federal deficits didn’t rise.
The differences over taxes, the economy, Medicare, abortion and more were expressed in intensely negative advertising.
Obama launched first, shortly after Romney dispatched his Republican foes in his quest for the party nomination.
One memorable commercial showed Romney singing an off-key rendition
of “America The Beautiful.” Pictures and signs scrolled by saying that
his companies had shipped jobs to Mexico and China, that Massachusetts
state jobs had gone to India while he was governor and that he has
personal investments in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
Romney spent less on advertising than Obama. A collection of outside
groups made up the difference, some of them operating under rules that
allowed donors to remain anonymous. Most of the ads were of the attack
variety. But the Republican National Committee relied on one that had a
far softer touch, and seemed aimed at voters who had been drawn to the
excitement caused by Obama’s first campaign. It referred to a growing
national debt and unemployment, then said, “He tried. You tried. It’s OK
to make a change.”
More than 30 million voters cast early ballots in nearly three dozen
states, a reflection of the growing appeal of getting a jump on the
traditional Election Day. NP
Barack Obama
