By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Buoyed by a slowly but surely recovering economy and a display of cool leadership during superstorm Sandy, President Barack Obama scored a decisive victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney after a long, contentious and expensive election battle.
The glad tidings for Obama, who was engaged in one of the closest White House races ever, came around 11.15 p.m. Tuesday when major networks gave him 274 electoral votes to take him over the threshold of 270 required to win.
By midnight, Obama, who four years ago made history by becoming the first African-American to occupy the world’s most powerful office with a promise of hope and change to a country in the throes of a deep recession, had increased his lead to 290 and counting.
Joyful supporters danced and cheered at Obama’s victory party in Chicago as Obama tweeted: “Four more years.”
“We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you,” said another tweet from Obama, the 51-year-old son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother.
The mood at Romney’s election-night gathering in Boston was sombre as the challenger called the president and came out to make a concession speech shortly before 1 a.m.
Addressing a gathering of cheering supporters in Boston, Romney said he wished Obama and his family well.
It was a “time of great challenges for America”, Romney said, adding that he prayed that the “president would be successful in guiding our nation”.
He also thanked his running mate Paul Ryan. “Besides my wife Ann, Paul is the best choice I ever made,” Romney, 65, said.
“She would have made a wonderful first lady,” he added.
Romney, who fought a tough fight that went down to the wire, said this was a “critical time” for the nation. We can’t afford partisan bickering, the Republican challenger to the White House told the crowds, many of whom appeared to be listening with tears in their eyes.
“I believe in America. I believe in the people of America,” he said.
In early results, Obama won his home state of Illinois as well as Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, where Romney was governor from 2003 to 2007, besides Wisconsin, the home of challenger’s running mate Paul Ryan.
Apart from the battleground states of Ohio and Iowa, he also easily won traditional Democratic strongholds of California, New York and other populous states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Romney mounted a late but unsuccessful push, the channel said.
Exit polls showed Obama received strong support, as expected, from women voters as well as overwhelming support from African Americans and strong backing from Hispanic voters, similar to the coalition that carried him to victory four years earlier.
Meanwhile, CNN projected that Democrats will retain their majority in the Senate, ensuring another divided Congress after Republicans earlier were projected to hold their majority in the US House of Representatives.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])