Barack Obama wins a second term as president
Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago, and by remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interests.
Obama (the nation’s first African American president) scored a decisive victory by stringing together a series of narrow ones. Of the election’s seven major battlegrounds, he won at least six.
“While our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up” – Obama told a cheering crowd of supporters in his home town of Chicago early Wednesday morning. “We have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that, for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.”
He said he intends to sit down with Romney in the weeks ahead to talk about how the two can work together.
Barack Obama.
President Obama won a second White House term Tuesday night, overcoming concerns about the fragile economic recovery to soundly defeat Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
“We’ve got more work to do” – Obama declared, addressing a cheering crowd at his victory rally in Chicago early Wednesday morning. Obama spoke to supporters at his campaign headquarters shortly after Romney called the president to concede. Obama congratulated his opponent on a “hard-fought campaign.”
After one of the nastiest political battles and most gridlocked terms in modern American history, the president vowed to reach out to the other side in a second term on everything from immigration to the deficit. He asked supporters to keep the “hope” and said that while the “passions” and “controversy” won’t wane after Election Day, “progress will come in fits and starts.”
Romney struck a conciliatory note as he conceded. Thanking his supporters – he said he had called Obama and wished the Democrat the best.
“I so wish – I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction, but the nation chose another leader” – Romney said. “And so Ann and I join with you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation.”
The hard-fought election did not end without some late confusion. Television networks declared Obama the winner in the key state of Ohio, but by only a slim margin.
The projected victory prompted questions about whether Romney’s campaign would challenge the result.
Romney waited almost two hours after networks called the election before making his concession speech in the ballroom of a Boston convention center. Staffers told waiting reporters there had been an unspecified delay.
But as more swing states (including Virginia, Nevada and Colorado) moved into the Democratic column, aides said Romney would concede shortly.
He appeared on stage at about 1 a.m. and the ballroom fell silent. A small group of men rendered an off-key version of “God Bless America” until Romney was introduced.