WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama won a second term in the White House on Tuesday, overcoming
deep doubts among voters about his handling of the U.S. economy to score a clear
victory over Republican challenger
Mitt Romney.
Americans chose to stick with a divided government in Washington, by keeping
the Democratic incumbent in
the White House and leaving the
U.S. Congress as it is, with Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans
keeping the House of
Representatives.
Obama told thousands of supporters in Chicago who cheered his every word that
"we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back" and that for America, the best is yet to come.
He vowed to listen to both sides of the political divide in the weeks ahead
and said he would return to the White
House more determined than ever to confront America's challenges.
"Whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned
from you. And you have made me a better president," Obama said.
The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about
50 percent to 49 percent for Romney after a campaign in which the candidates and
their party allies spent a combined $2 billion.
Romney, the multimillionaire former private equity executive, came back from
a series of campaign stumbles to make it close after besting the president in
the first of three presidential debates.
The 65-year-old former Massachusetts governor conceded in a gracious speech
delivered to disappointed supporters at the Boston convention center. He had
called Obama to concede defeat after a brief controversy over whether the
president had really won Ohio.
"This is a time of great challenge for our nation," Romney told the crowd. "I pray that the president will
be successful in guiding our nation."
He warned against partisan bickering and urged politicians on both sides to
"put the people before the politics."
Obama told his crowd that he hoped to sit down with Romney in the weeks ahead
and examine ways to meet the challenges ahead.
The president Obama scored
impressive victories in the crucial state of Ohio and heavily contested swing
states of Virginia, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado. They carried the Democrat past
the 270 electoral votes needed for victory in America's state-by-state system of
choosing a president, and left Romney's senior advisers shell-shocked at the
loss.
Obama, America's first black president, won by convincing voters to stick
with him as he tries to reignite strong economic growth and recover from the
worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. An uneven recovery has
been showing some signs of strength but the country's 7.9 percent jobless rate
remains stubbornly high.
Obama's victory in the hotly contested swing state of Ohio - as projected by
TV networks - was a major step 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 television network
projections.
Romney initially delayed his concession as some Republicans questioned
whether Obama had in fact won Ohio despite the decisions by election experts at
all the major TV networks to declare it for the president.
The later addition of Colorado and Virginia to Obama's tally - according to
network projections - meant that even if the final result from Ohio were to be
reversed, Romney still could not reach the needed number of electoral votes.
While Obama supporters in Chicago were ecstatic, Romney's Boston event was
grim as the news was announced on television screens there. A steady stream of
people left the ballroom at the Boston convention center.
THE SAME PROBLEMS
At least 120 million American voters had been expected to cast votes in the
race between the Democratic
incumbent and Romney after a campaign that was focused on how to repair
the ailing U.S. economy.
SOURCE: YAHOO NEWS
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