Obama wins re-election

[DT]

Predictions of a very close American presidential contest and a possible cliff hanger turned into a rout this morning when President Barack Obama fairly easily exceeded the 270 electoral votes needed to secure a second four year term in office.  

With four important states still to go, he secured 275 electoral college votes, five more than was needed to win. His Republican opponent, the former Massachusetts State governor Mitt Romney had 203 electoral college votes before Florida, Virginia, Nevada and Colorado were called.  

CNN projected Obama the election winner at 11.18pm American East Coast time [5.18 am Nigerian time] when results came in from Ohio. The president already had 257 votes and when Ohio's 18 votes were added, he went over the top.

At that point, he was also on course to win Florida, Nevada and Colorado for another 45 electoral college votes. Obama was also leading Romney in the southern state of Virginia and could still win that state as well.

Even though the electoral college vote difference was rather wide, the popular vote was much closer. At the time CNN projected Obama as the election winner, he was narrowly trailing Romney in the popular vote, with 42 million to 41 million. If that result held, it would be a repeat of 2000AD when George W. Bush won the presidency even though Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million.

Romney was not ready to admit defeat up till 6.45am Nigerian time, as his team believes Ohio was still in play as at the time the election was called.

For many months, opinion polls had predicted that a clutch of 10 so-called battle ground states will decide the election, since most other American states were either reliably "blue," that is Democratic, or reliably "red", that is Republican.

Last night, Obama won most of the battleground states notably New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio and was on course to win four more, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Virginia.

Ohio, which put Obama over the top, had for long been billed by opinion pollsters as the "king of the battle ground states." However, the very important battle ground state of Florida, predicted by most polls to go for Romney, was set to fall into Obama's column with its haul of 29 votes.

President Obama watched the results from his campaign headquarters in Chicago, Illinois while Romney watched the returns from Boston, Massachusetts. Indications that Obama would win the election emerged earlier in the night when he led Romney in Florida and gave him a close fight in Virginia.

Romney, 65, had taken the unusual step of going to Ohio on election day soon after he cast a vote in Boston, an indication of his anxiety. Without a win in Ohio, no Republican candidate had ever won the White House. Conversely, Obama was projected to have several routes to 270 electoral college votes even if he lost key states such as Florida, Virginia and even Ohio.

Fifty-one-year-old Obama is expected to be inaugurated for a second term in office on January 20, next year. The balance of power in Washington, DC was expected to remain the same because while Obama's Democrats retained controlled of the Senate, Romney's Republicans were projected to retain control of the House of Representatives.

GOP retains Congress

Republicans retained their control of the congress in yesterday's election, keeping John Boehner as the speaker of the House of Representatives.

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.

There were 33 Senate seats on the ballot, 23 of them defended by Democrats and the rest by Republicans.

Democrats won three races that Republicans had targeted as critical to their hopes of winning control of the Senate.

In Massachusetts, Harvard University law professor Elizabeth Warren ousted Republican Scott Brown.

In Indiana, Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly defeated Republican state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in one of the two races that drew national attention from advocates for and against legal abortion.

Former Maine Governor Angus King, running as an independent, also won an open Senate seat that had been held by Republican Olympia Snowe.

But in Nebraska, Republican state legislator Deb Fischer defeated former Senator Bob Kerrey to win the open seat of retiring Democratic Senator Ben Nelson.

Republican Ted Cruz defeated Democrat Paul Sadler to hold the open seat in Texas, succeeding retiring Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, NBC News projected.

In gubernatorial races, Democrat Margaret Hassan clinched the governorship in New Hampshire, defeating Republican OvideLamontagne for the seat of retiring Democratic Governor John Lynch.

Four incumbent governors, two from each major party, were declared winners: Democrats Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware and Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont; and Republicans Gov. Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota, and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.



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