Barack Obama Re-Elected President Of The United States
There are still votes to be counted, and the Romney campaign has yet to concede, but the race is over and Barack Obama has been re-elected.
There are still several states left to be called, including Florida and Virginia where there were reports as late as 10:45pm Eastern time that people were still in line waiting to vote, but thanks to a projected win in Ohio that seems fairly solid given the votes that have come in and those outstanding, Barack Obama has been re-elected President of the United States:
CBS News projects President Obama will win re-election with Ohio giving him more than 270 electoral votes.
Mitt Romney is projected to win North Carolina, making it the first battleground state to fall into his column.
President Obama is also projected to win Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, is one of the most competitive states on the map. Mr. Obama won the state by 4.6 percent in 2008. In 2004, President Bush won Ohio by 2.1 percent.
In 2008, Mr. Obama won Wisconsin by 13.9 percent. The state, which carries 10 electoral votes, hasn’t gone red in a presidential election since 1984. Even with Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on the ticket, Mitt Romney faced a steep challenge in his fight for the Badger State. However, the state has been a hotbed of partisan discord in recent years and Republicans saw huge gains at the state level in 2010.
New Hampshire has just four electoral votes, but it was one of the most competitive states in the nation — it’s the only state that George W. Bush won in 2000 but lost in 2004. In 2008, Mr. Obama won the Granite State by 9.6 percent.
By the time the night is over, it appears that Obama will end up winning most if not all of the outstanding swing states, thus giving him as many as 332 Electoral Votes, just a little off from what he garnered in 2008 and more than most analysts were predicting he would get.
The Romney campaign is, as of this writing, refusing to concede Ohio or the election and are apparently contending that there are still votes outstanding in Ohio that would make a Romney win possible. Looking over the numbers that I can find, this seems completely unlikely to me given the fact that one of the counties with the largest amount of outstanding votes is heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County. Karl Rove is making this same argument on Fox News Channel tonight and disagreeing with the network’s decision to call the state, and the election for the President of the United States. Clearly, this is just the beginning of the shell shock Republicans are likely to feel tonight and in the weeks and months to come. How it resolves itself will be interesting to watch unfold. Besides even if Obama doesn’t win Ohio, he’s also won Iowa and Colorado and is leading in Nevada. He could lose Ohio and still win the Presidency. And, we have yet to hear from Florida and Virginia.
There will be analysis of all of this tomorrow but the most obvious point here is that the polls, and Nate Silver, were absolutely correct here. Once the final votes are in, it will be interesting to see just how close the various state polls actually were and who the most accurate pollsters were but, at first glance it strikes me that they hit the nail on the head. The other lesson is that the right was completely wrong in the way that they were viewing this election. Influenced by their own four long years of opposing the President, they could not bring themselves to believe that people actually supported the President and they believed that everyone agreed with them. They were wrong and they are not going to learn the lessons of the 2012 election, or the 2008 election, or the Bush years until they recognize that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
Aren’t you calling this a little early Doug? We need to look at the unskewed Electoral College, and I think you will see that this remains a center-right nation.
The clear result is that OBOWma does NOT have a mandate and in fact should resign in disgrace because of Benghazi.
Karl Rove is the only one out there brave enough to take on the in the tank MSM and point out there are still votes to count.
Romney should not concede. In fact, he should declare victory. And start moving in to the White House.
Clearly the black panther party and voter fraud have fudged some of the numbers right now, but its clear America doesn’t support LIEBRULs agenda.
I think we can all agree on one thing, left or right:
Husted and Scott are failures.
Yes, we did. Again.
Also too, Nate Silver is golden.
Not so fast! Rove is turning into the Ohio Truther on Fox!
Seriously though, does Romney run again in 2016?
The vote is skewed. Too many Democrats voted.
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@Commonist: So far Romney seems to think there’s still hope for Husted to pull it out for them in Ohio. I hope Romney doesn’t know something about Diebold we don’t know.
Nate Silver=Winning!
Has George Will been fired yet? How about Michael Barone?
There are some unbelievably fascinating elements of the demographic internals of the total vote.
Obama actually got a lower percentage of the female vote than last time around, but women were a higher percentage of the electorate. I would have bet all the beer in Ireland that the election would come down to the working class male vote. But in fact it was the opposite: men didn’t show up. Or women really were ginned up to vote. Sandra Fluke’s revenge, I guess.
Obama lost ground from ’08 in every Latino-heavy battleground state. But he still won them. Just by narrower margins.
Going into the election we knew Romney would get around 60% of the white vote. We knew if he got 62% or more of the white vote he’d likely be elected. We knew if he got 58% of the white vote he’d fall short. At 60% it was possibly heading for a recount. Well, guess what? Romney got 58% of the white vote. Almost as if it were preordained.
Team Obama ran a stellar campaign. Skilled, cunning and ruthless. I for one admire them greatly.
Romney shouldn’t concede, just as every candidate shouldn’t concede until all the polls are closed and a majority of the votes are counted. This conceding early even if based on strong surveys is an insult to those voters who haven’t even been able to vote yet. If some media organization wishes to call the election fine, but the candidates shouldn’t insult voters by throwing in the towel based on speculation and not actual counted votes.
It looks like same-sex marriage is going to be approved by referendum in all three of Washington, Maine, and Maryland, bringing the total to nine states plus DC. Now we’ve won this battle in various states via the judicial branch, the legislative branch, *and* direct popular vote.
I have a hard time seeing how this isn’t a game changer in terms of momentum. It will be interesting to see how NOM and its allies attempt to move the goalposts after this.
@Scott O:
Why should they?
Dick Morris still gets to keep his job after always being wrong.
@cd6:
Seriously though, does Romney run again in 2016?
Nah. Republicans don’t even like Romney. They just hate Obama. In four years they’ll have someone new to hate. Plus they’ll convince themselves they lost this time by not pissing off quite enough women, hispanics and youth. They’ll decide they need an even bigger asshole. So I’m betting it’s Trump 2016!
@cd6:
Nah. Republicans don’t even like Romney. They just hate Obama. In four years they’ll have someone new to hate. Plus they’ll convince themselves they lost this time by not pissing off quite enough women, hispanics and youth. They’ll decide they need an even bigger a-hole. So I’m betting it’s Trump 2016!
Romney is getting ready to make his concession speech. ‘Bout time.
Now Mitt can take his well-deserved place on the scrap heap of history.
I dig Washington and Colorado…
Romney gave a good concession speech. He’s still a creep, but okay, he went out like a man.
@michael reynolds: Very gracious concession speech. Practice makes perfect.
Yeah but now that he’s gone, and this thing is over, we need complete recriminations against the failure of the media to let this thing get as close as it was. Romney shamelessly lied about his own positions. Never released his tax returns. Flip flopped on every major item. And this race was never as close as the lead up made it seem. But that’s not what the news said
And one we fix the nonsense in our media, we can confront the fact that our elections are a complete joke. The ballot issues, the screwed up machines with late patches, the huge lines, I mean, come on, this is 3rd world dictator nonsense. Can we grow up and treat our country like responsible adults now?
@JKB: I agree with you, JKB. Especially in a race as tight as this one.
It is just now a minute or two past midnight in the Central Time Zone and Mittens has finished his concession speech.
Gotta wonder JKB who hasn’t been able to vote yet…AK HI?
Maybe the loser should wait till all the votes are counted in a day or two and Fox News could cover all those folks in Boston moping around Romney HQ.
I’m sure it would be good for the liquor distributors and bartenders.
@ernieyeball: But they were pushing it when Virginia, Ohio and Florida were neck and neck. I’m enough of a competitor to not back down so quickly.
CBS reported that he was also preparing his remarks during some of those calls to concede.
>Romney gave a good concession speech.
I respectfully disagree. At best, it was a reasonably appropriate, but pretty generic, concession speech. (And what was with thanking all those people? What, did he think he was getting an Oscar?) McCain’s concession speech four years ago was more gracious and even a bit moving, and unlike Romney tonight, actually had some praise for Barack Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bss6lTP8BJ8
Maybe you should run for President of the USA! Four years from now both parties will need a new candidate.
Oh yeah, the campaign starts tomorrow…
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/if-obama-wins-even-if-he-doesnt-the-campaign-for-2016-will-begin-soon/
@ernieyeball: I ain’t volunteering for that nightmare.
positive news is that Obama got reelected for four more years , i hope he brings down unemployment rates below 4% this time
After a bad hurricane Sandy ,at least a good positive news to keep up the good spirit of hope in U.S to accomplish his plans to make America more successful.
Mitt, we hardly knew ye…
If one looks at the numbers, it should be obvious that the Republicans are no longer relevant in a national election. The Republicans were barely competitive in Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, There are not not states that the Republicans have a chance of winning to think that the Republivans can win in the future.
Everyone should just admit that the real election for president in 2016 will be the Democratic Party caucus in Iowa and the Democratic New Hampshire primary. If the same candidate wins both elections, everyone will know who will be the next president 11 months before the inaugural.
Unfortunately, the numerically challenged Paul Ryan will still be spewing incomprehensible budgetese on Capital Hill.
I just want to say even tho I didn’t vote for Obama, I am glad Romney lost.
As it stands right now, even tho Florida is still not called for either Obama or Romney, Obama has won with an even larger margin than Bush did in 2004. Yet, conservative pundit Mr. Krauthammer says that Obama has not won a mandate for his second term. Which I am sure is being parroted or will be parroted by other pundits like Charles.
Not quite sure of his reasoning, considering Bush also ran a negative campaign in 2004. The only difference I see is that republicans controlled both houses after that election. However, didn’t win a majority just kept it by the slimmest of margins. Is having the legislative branch and executive branch under control the only reason for a mandate?
Hopefully someone here, maybe even Steven, James, and/or Doug can inform me/write an article telling us all why Obama does not have a mandate after this election, but Bush did after the election in 2004? (Hopefully a little more of an explanation than IOKIYAR.)
@Scott O: George Will predicted an Obama landslide, although an odd one.
MO surprised me. They sent Todd Achin to the wingnut welfare rolls.
@OzarkHillbilly: Oddly enough, there are women everywhere.
Obama always had the edge here, and he now has to fix what has been stagnant or getting worse for years, and in 2016 if he hasn’t, whatever democrat is running can’t blame George Bush.
I don’t think he will though. I hope it succeeds, but everything I have to buy-housing, food, energy, insurance is getting more expensive.
This nation is headed towards becoming a nation of part time workers.
While I do think the GOP needs to figure out how to run a national election, I do think it is ridiculous and presumptuous to start declaring the GOP irrelevant and making cries of “Permanent winners forever” because the GOP fell into that pattern during the Bush years.
At some point the magic money tree is going to be known as the myth that it is-there is not magic money tree in DC and you can’t give everyone free stuff. The blue states and urban centers are going to get hit hard in the coming years-there is a pension crisis and there isn’t a magic money tree in DC to bailout all those states that have promised more than they can give.
At least now, Obama gets to own the mess.
And I hope that the AWOL media will begin to actually cover Obama rather than worship him, but I won’t hold my breath on that one.
@Mr. Replica:
I should have added this to my last post. I am basing that post on what President Bush said after his win in 2004.
This is Charles’ column after the 2004 election and the speech Bush gave quoted above.
http://townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/2004/11/05/chapter_two
I was watching Fox for the lulz, and at one point they were discussing the GOP problem with Latinos. The guy they had on to opine on it kept using the word “illegals”. Yeah. Good work there, can’t imagine why Latino voters voted for the other guy in record numbers. Douchebags.
Here’s something that I find deeply interesting. Go here and look at coverage.
@Janis Gore:
Yeah, and they have brothers and fathers and sons…. But around here so many think rape is what happens to “bad girls”. I know my view of the MO electorate is skewed by my surroundings but 2 yrs ago we sent Roy Blunt to the Senate.
My faith in the electorate is restored.
Romney gave a gracious concession speech…pitch perfect.
Karl Rove proved himself to be a whiney assed titty baby.
Donald Trump proved himself to be an idiot…again.
And I’m looking for Jan to admit just how wrong she is about pretty much everything.
G. Will, Dick Morris, david version, Peggy noonan and a bunch of others should slink into oblivion…never to be heard from again. There should be a price to pay for being wrong…consistently. If I was wrong in my work as often as they are I wouldn’t have a job. Neither should they.
@sam:
Just curious. Why would anyone give a thumbs down to my Wednesday, November 7, 2012 at 07:20? Exactly what was objectionable?
@C. Clavin:
Heh.
@superdestroyer: I think it is a truism that if one party gets too big and dominant it will split into factions. Politics is generally self-correcting.
@Scott:
I will believe you if you can point to a single pundit, wonk, or political scientist who can point out who will walk away from the Democratic Party.
David Axelrod is way ahead of you. If the Democrats grow the government put more people on the payroll, and limit taxes to a small percentage of the population. No group will be able to walk away from the massive bankroll that the Democrats will control in the future.
@swearyanthony: I think it will be discovered that a campaign strategy of bashing large segments of the population is not a winning one, especially in a national election.
@sam:
I’m going to guess that either they didn’t like the content and/or they do not know how to translate the page. For the record I don’t know how to translate the page to English, but I didn’t down-vote you for it.
@Mr. Replica: You clicked on translate at the top. Maybe Chrome allows that.
@sam: @sam:
Duhhh. It is all in Spanish. English is the only acceptable language in America. Get with it, Sam.
@Mr. Replica:
Well, I didn’t expect folks to read the Spanish. What I found interesting, and I should have made it clearer, is that a foreign newspaper devoted almost all of its front page to the American election. I don’t think most Americans really know just how much of an impact what goes on in this country, politically and culturally, has on the rest of the world. That front page is a testimony to the fact of that impact.
I find three things sad today:
a. The apoplectic response of many conservative web commentors (and a few NRO staffers) that the American experiment is over and that the nation will not survive the next four years, etc. What little faith in America they have.
b. The response (among most of those same conservatives) that stupid, lazy, ignorant voters, racist minorities, and white guilt won this election. How much they dislike their fellow countrymen.
c. That, since he was banned a while ago, I’ll probably never collect the $300 I just won from JWest (we bet on the outcome of this election in May 2011).
replica:
I’m not sure about “larger margin.” Bush’s margin in 2004 was 2.46. It looks like Obama’s current margin is either 1.94 or 2.25, depending on where I look.
But I agree with your larger point, because those numbers are still pretty close to the 2004 number, and plenty of people called that a “mandate.” Including supposedly liberal reporters. Link.
>Obama’s current margin is either 1.94 or 2.25
We really have to wait and see until all the votes are tallied, which may take a while. Since his electoral count is likely to strongly exceed Bush’s (332 as opposed to 286), I suspect his popular-vote margin will be slightly larger in the end (or less narrow, if you like) than Bush’s 2004 one.
>those numbers are still pretty close to the 2004 number, and plenty of people called that a “mandate.” Including supposedly liberal reporters
Also including guess who?
Good point, thank you.
Excellent, thank you. I didn’t know that, and it’s quite the icing on the cake. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be using that.
@James Joyner:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/04/george_will_predicts_romney_wins_big_321-217.html
What Krauthammer said when Bush won 286 electoral votes in 2004: “a solid mandate.” What Krauthammer said when Obama won 332 electoral votes in 2012: “he’s got no mandate.”
Priceless.
Popular vote in 2004: 50.7-48.3.
Popular vote in 2012 (as of now, according to WP): 50.3-48.1.
Pretty similar result.
@Janis Gore:
One of the only things I miss from when I used Chrome is that translate function.
@sam:
Most Americans are so disconnected to the rest of the world that they do not even know that England isn’t politically run by a monarchy anymore. They can’t name the President of Mexico or even the PM of Canada. Heck, there were plenty of people in the U.S. a few years ago during the PPACA fight that said if the U.S. became a socialist nation, they were going to move to Canada…
Anyway, I just thought I would throw this in.
This poll was done for the BBC a few months ago. 21 Countries, 22,000ish people. Every country on that list, except Pakistan, preferred Obama over Romney.
http://globescan.com/commentary-and-analysis/press-releases/press-releases-2012/245-global-poll-obama-overwhelmingly-preferred-to-romney.html
@sam: Chrome translates it if you tell it to. Most of it comes out fine, but here’s a fun headline translation:
“Romney: ‘It’s time for the unit'”
Randy Johnson 2016?
jukeboxgrad:
I really wanted to there to be a discussion about this, but the more I think about, the more I realize it is just another case of IOKIYAR and Krauthammer being a whiny assed titty baby.
I still can’t use the reply button on your posts. The comment I made using your linked name got caught in the spam filter again.
Yes, there’s something mysteriously magical about my name. I wish they would fix that.
“The Most Popular Tweet of All Time.”
Seamus and John Lauber both died a long time ago, but they finally got their revenge.
Agenda 21: read about it, take action now to stop it before it is too late!
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
@Mr. Replica: Aren’t most of those countries socialist/communist?
I’m nursing the mother of all hangovers this morning, but I’m going to try to find the bright side of all this. And several things come to mind.
1) Now that we’ve elected and re-elected a black man as president, we can finally MoveOn from “America is a racist nation” and Lean Forward on race as an issue.
2) President Obama will, hopefully, stop blaming Bush for everything and actually man up to do something.
3) Now that the election is over, we might actually get some real investigations into Fast & Furious and the Benghazi terrorist attack.
4) Now that Obama can’t run for re-election, he’ll stop campaigning and work on governing.
5) We’ll have four more years of the hysterically brain-damaged Joey Plugs to keep us entertained.
There are probably more reasons… but I’m going back to bed until the cannons stop firing inside my skull.
How about the next four years with some real transparency instead of cover up, change stories, and use “executive privilege”?
How about spending time working on real problems instead of having a beer with two people on the White House lawn?
How about meeting with the secretary of state people for a daily briefing so that you will know when the next attack on US citizens might occur, instead of being on “The View”?
Hey….
Well I just got out of the Hospital after emergency surgery for a blown up infected appendix and a hernia. I did every thing I could to get out and make it to vote… and I did…lol…
And I finally got some real food..but let me tell ya… this massive plate of “Wisconsin rules the universe/can you see November from Wisconsin” crow pie tastes like crap!!!!
The status quo remains, guys. In the end, after all the fuss, the balance of power is roughly the same.
So, what happens now with regard to the sequester/fiscal cliff? We will see. It’s pretty clear that there is pressure on both parties to avoid the cliff, but they’re coming from very different places (GOP wants to avoid the defense-side cuts and tax increases and the Dems want to avoid the other cuts… and frankly aren’t thrilled with the military cuts either). The question is, with the balance of power the same, can we realistically expect a less-excruciating process than the last one (the debt ceiling debacle)? If so, why?
@G.A.:
I hope you’re mending comfortably and have an excellent prognosis.
Out of curiosity, who’s your health insurance carrier?
@Jenos Idanian #13:
What do you mean “we,” white man?
Whites still voted completely opposite of all racial and ethnic minorities. Obama got less of a share of white voters than Dukakis.
I think it’s eye-opening to notice the parts of the country where Kerry (2004) did significantly better than Obama (2008). (And I’m sure these are also places where Obama did poorly yesterday.) Think about what that means, and then take a look at the map. Link.
The GOP is the party of the Confederacy.
@Console: What do you mean “we,” white man?
“We,” as in “we, the people.” He’s my president, too.
Not with my approval or assistance, but he is my president. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…