Romney concedes defeat, Obama wins second term

Washington — President Barack Obama rolled to re-election and a second term in the White House on Nov. 6 (Wednesday, Philippine time) with a victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney as the Democrat overcame deep doubts about his handling of the US economy.

Romney, closeted with advisers in Boston, did not immediately concede defeat because of questions about whether Obama had really won the pivotal state of Ohio. But other projected Obama victories in Virginia, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado carried the president past the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

He later went live on national television to congratulate Obama.

Republican Mitt Romney conceded the US presidential election to Obama early on Wednesday morning after a hard-fought campaign.

"This is a time of great challenges for America and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation," Romney told supporters in Boston after calling Obama to congratulate him.

Obama defeated Romney in a number of key swing states, despite the weak economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment that dogged his campaign.

Television networks called the election late on Tuesday, but the Romney campaign waited more than an hour to agree on the results in Ohio.

"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 in his concession speech.

This is the second time the former Massachusetts governor has made a run for the presidency. Romney had promised to revive the nation's economy through reforming the tax code, reducing the debt and confronting China on its trade practices.

Obama, America's first black president, won by convincing voters to stick with him as he tries to reignite strong economic growth and recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. An uneven recovery has been showing some signs of strength but the country's 7.9 percent jobless rate remains stubbornly high.

Obama's victory in the hotly contested swing state of Ohio - as projected by TV networks - was a major step in the fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the White House and ended Romney's hopes of pulling off a string of swing-state upsets.

Obama scored narrow wins in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire - all states that Romney had contested - while the only swing state captured by Romney was North Carolina, according to television network projections.

The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close.

There was no immediate word from the Romney camp on the reported results, with some Republicans questioning whether Obama had in fact won Ohio despite the decisions by election experts at all the major TV networks to declare it for the president.

The later additional of Colorado and Virginia to Obama's tally - according to network projections - meant that even if the final result from Ohio is reversed, Romney still could not reach the needed number of electoral votes in America's state-by-state system of choosing a president.

While Obama supporters in Chicago were ecstatic, Romney's Boston event was grim as the news was announced on television screens there. A steady stream of people left the ballroom at the Boston convention center.

At least 120 million American voters had been expected to cast votes in the race between the Democratic incumbent and Romney after a campaign that was focused on how to repair the ailing US economy.

The same problems that dogged Obama in his first term are still there to confront him again.

He faces a difficult task of tackling $1 trillion annual deficits, reducing a $16 trillion national debt, overhauling expensive social programs and dealing with a gridlocked US Congress that kept the same partisan makeup.

The next four years

Obama's victory will set the country's course for the next four years on spending, taxes, healthcare, the role of government and foreign policy challenges such as the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Each man offered different policies to cure what ails America's weak economy, with Obama pledging to raise taxes on the wealthy and Romney offering across-the-board tax cuts as a way to ignite strong economic growth.

Whether both Democrats and Republicans will now be able to come together and craft a compromise is an open question as Republican congressional leaders vow to stick to their pledges not to raise taxes on anyone.

Inside Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters, staffers erupted into cheers and high fives as state after state was called for the president.

Romney, who would have become America's first Mormon president, made last-minute visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday to try to drive up turnout in those states, while Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to Ohio.

Republicans are likely to face questions about their ability to appeal to non-white voters as Hispanics, a growing minority, voted heavily for the president.

Obama's Democrats held their Senate majority, while Romney's Republicans retained House of Representatives control.

Democrat Claire McCaskill retained her US Senate seat from Missouri, beating Republican congressman Todd Akin, who stirred controversy with his comment in August that women's bodies could ward off pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape."

Democrats gained a Senate seat in Indiana that had been in Republican hands for decades after Republican candidate Richard Mourdock called pregnancy from rape something that God intended. Democratic congressman Joe Donnelly won the race.

In another high-profile Senate race, Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a law professor who headed the watchdog panel that oversaw the government's financial sector bailout, defeated incumbent Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown.

Former Maine Governor Angus King won a three-way contest for the Senate seat of retiring Republican Olympia Snowe. King ran as an independent, but he is expected to caucus with Democrats in what would amount to a Democratic pick-up.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson easily beat back a challenge from Republican congressman Connie Mack to win a third term, while Democratic congressman Chris Murphy beat Republican Linda McMahon, a businesswoman who had served as chief executive of a professional wrestling company. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Obama, Romney locked in tight swing state battle

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney were locked in a tight race with three critical battleground states too close to call on Tuesday as US voters decided between two starkly different visions for the country.

In early results, Obama and Romney piled up victories in the states they were expected to win easily. Early vote-counting in the swing state of Florida showed them running neck and neck. Obama led in the critical battleground state of Ohio and Romney held an early lead in a third swing state, Virginia.

Romney needs all three of those states to navigate a narrow path to the presidency, while Obama can afford to lose one or two of them and still win a second four-year term.

At least 120 million people were expected to render their judgment between the Democratic incumbent and Romney after a long, expensive and bitter presidential campaign that magnified the differences between Americans wanting to continue Obama's approach to fixing the ailing economy and those who want to try a new approach.

In a victory that would seem to limit Romney's path to a victory, Obama won Michigan, the Republican's state of birth but where he ran afoul of voters by opposing an auto industry bailout pushed by Obama. Some polls had shown a tight race there.

MSNBC projected Obama won Pennsylvania, and Fox News projected the president won in Wisconsin, the home state of Republican vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan. Romney had hoped to pull off an upset in either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin and had visited each state recently.

Television networks projected Romney the winner, as expected, in Republican states Alabama,Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Indiana. He was declared the winner in Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Obama was projected the winner in the Democratic strongholds of Maryland, Vermont, Connecticut,Delaware, Massachusetts and his home state of Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C., New York and New Jersey.

Who Americans choose will set the country's course for the next four years on spending, taxes, healthcare, the role of government and foreign policy challenges such as the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Each man offered different policies to cure what ails America's weak economy, with Obama pledging to raise taxes on the wealthy and Romney offering across-the-board tax cuts as a way to ignite strong economic growth.

National opinion polls before the election showed Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat, although Obama had a slight advantage in several vital swing states—most notably Ohio—that could give him the 270 electoral votes needed to win the state-by-state contest.

According to Reuters-Ipsos Election Day polling, one in three Obama voters said the economy was the most important issue for them, while half of Romney voters agreed. Healthcare was the second most important issue for Obama voters and the budget deficit was second for Romney voters. Unemployment was third for both.

Three-quarters of both Romney and Obama supporters decided to vote for their preferred candidate before the October debates between the candidates, according to the data.

The Romney side was encouraged by what was described as heavy turnout in Republican areas from Florida to Colorado.

Romney made last-minute visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday to try to drive up turnout in those states, while Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to Ohio. Obama remained in his hometown of Chicago.

'I'm very proud'

Expressing confidence, Romney told reporters on his plane as he flew back to Boston that he had written only one speech for evening, one celebrating his victory.

"I'm very proud of the campaign that I've run, to tell you the truth," he said. "I'm sure like any campaign, people can talk to mistakes, but that's going to be part of anything that's produced by human beings," he said.

Obama told a Denver television station he had speeches ready for either outcome. "You always have two speeches prepared because you can't take anything for granted," he told FOX31.

The multimillionaire former head of a private equity firm and a former governor of Massachusetts, Romney would be the first Mormon president and one of the wealthiest Americans to assume the nation's highest office.

Obama, the country's first black president, seeks to avoid being relegated to a single term, something that has happened to only one of the previous four occupants of the White House.

Whichever candidate wins, a razor-thin margin might not bode well for the clear mandate needed to help break the partisan gridlock in Washington.

Fueled by record spending on negative ads, the battle between the two men was focused primarily on the lagging economic recovery and persistently high unemployment, but at times it turned personal.

The close race raises the prospect of a disputed outcome similar to the 2000 election, which ended with a US Supreme Court decision favoring George W. Bush over Al Gore after legal challenges to the tight vote in Florida. Both the Romney and Obama campaigns have assembled legal teams to deal with possible voting problems, challenges or recounts.

Complaints and frustration

Although voting appeared to go smoothly in most places, complaints about procedures and possible irregularities surfaced sporadically across the electoral map. But there were no immediate claims of anything widespread or systematic enough to cast doubt on the credibility of the election outcome.

Storm-weary residents across New York and New Jersey encountered long lines as they went to cast their ballots just over a week after the devastating storm Sandy caused havoc in the region. New Jerseygranted a last-minute extension to the deadline for email voting.

The balance of power in the US Congress will also be at stake in races for the Senate and House of Representatives that could affect the outcome of "fiscal-cliff" negotiations on spending cuts and tax increases, which kick in at the end of the year unless a deal is reached.

Obama's Democrats are now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority, while Romney's Republicans were projected to retain House control.

Former Maine Governor Angus King won a three-way contest for the Senate seat of retiring Republican Olympia Snowe. King ran as an independent, but he is expected to caucus with Democrats in what would amount to a Democratic pick-up.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson easily beat back a challenge from Republican congressman Connie Mack to win a third term, while Democratic congressman Chris Murphy beat Republican Linda McMahon, a businesswoman who had served as chief executive of a professional wrestling company. –Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com