President Barack Obama has won re-election in spite of the dismal economy.
Obama becomes the first incumbent President to win re-election with the unemployment rate over 7.5 percent since Franklin Roosevelt did it in 1940. But Obama was able to sell millions of Americans on the idea that he inherited a deep mess from George W. Bush and that he needs another four years to fix it.
The President’s victory in Ohio sealed what had been a tight race throughout much of the evening, ending any chance for Romney to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win. But the Romney campaign isn’t giving up on Ohio with 991 votes separating Romney from Obama.
Nontheless, the closely divided electorate could deliver a repeat of 2000 because Romney leads Obama in the popular vote with a total of 47.3 million votes cast compared with 47.1 million for the President as of 11 p.m.
Romney spent the weekend prior to the election chasing votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, but that was to no avail as the President held onto both states, which he won in 2008.
As the evening progressed, both Romney and Paul Ryan lost their respective home states of Massachusetts and Wisconsin, as well as Michigan where Romney grew up and his father was a popular governor.
The GOP ticket did particularly dismally in the Rust Belt in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which many Republicans thought they could draw inroads into by putting Ryan on the ticket.
The story of the night was the strong outpouring of support by Hispanics for Obama and the Democrats. According to “Latinos Post,” exit polls showed that 73 percent of Hispanic voters said they would vote for Obama, a full 49 percentage points higher than the 24 percent who said they planned to vote for Romney.
This had a major impact in states such as Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico which have been called for the President, and in Florida which has yet to be called, where the President has a slight lead over Romney and in other areas around the country with sizable Hispanic populations, but where Obama leads.
If Romney is unable to win in Ohio and Florida, it will eliminate any path he has at getting the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Such an outcome seems likely as the President enjoys slim leads in both states.
Obama’s “War on Women” rhetoric hit home with unmarried women voting for the President by 38-point margin.
Republicans also lost all hope of capturing the Senate with Sen. Scott Brown going down in defeat against Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts; Richard Mourdock losing the Indiana Senate race against Rep. Joe Donnelly; Rep. Todd Akin losing to Claire McCaskill in Missouri; and Independent Angus King picking up retiring GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe’s seat in Maine. But the GOP had a ray of light in Nebraska as Deb Fischer beat former Sen Bob Kerrey in her bid to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Nelson.
