Obama Wins!

Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States of America. There were scenes of jubilation last night at Obama HQ in Chicago as the networks called Ohio, and therefore the presidency, for Obama. The scenes at Romney HQ in Boston were much quieter with some people even crying. Many were expecting a very close night; one which kept Americans up to dawn as they waited for a network to call the election. The reality was surprisingly different, at 11:15pm EST (4:15am UK time) NBC called the entire election for Obama.

On Twitter I called the election much earlier, after the networks declared Pennsylvania so quickly I believed that Obama’s chances were very, very high. The only electoral votes that Obama won in 2008 and lost in 2012 were Indiana and Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, both of which were expected results and North Carolina, which Romney won by 2.2%.

Florida was extraordinary again last night; both candidates were basically tied the entire night! At one point just 3,000 votes separated them despite over 6.4 million votes already being declared. People began to wonder if Florida would be the controversy that it was in 2000 when just 500 votes decided who won Florida and therefore the presidency. Either candidate could still win as provisional ballots still need to be counted, after this happens if the margin of victory less than 0.5% then an automatic recount occurs.

At the beginning of the evening a lay person may have thought that Romney was running away with it in Virginia. For the first couple of hours after Virginia’s polls closed Romney was leading by up to 17 points! The reason for this massive margin? Republican counties were releasing their results much faster than the Democratic ones. This explains why the networks called Wisconsin for Obama despite Romney leading at the time, simply it was down to which counties had reported their votes thus far.

Here are the swing states and their margin of victory for the winning candidate:

State	Margin	% reporting
Colorado	O - 4.7%	95%
Florida	Not called
Iowa	O - 5.6%	99%
Nevada	O - 6.6%	99%
New Hampshire	O - 5.7%	99%
North Carolina	R - 2.2%	100%
Ohio	O - 1.9%	99%
Wisconsin	O - 6.7%	99%
Virginia	O - 3.0%	99%

Yet Romney did make a bit of history, although it’s not something he’ll be telling people: He lost his home state by the largest margin that a Republican or Democrat has ever done. He lost Massachusetts by 23.2%, his nearest rival is Herbert Hoover who lost Iowa by 18 points in 1932!

Yet the presidential race is far from the only election that occurred last night, 10 governorships, 34 Senate seats and 435 House seats were up for grabs as well as positions in state politics and numerous ballot initiatives and referendums.

The Senate turned out very well for the Democrats, considering they were expected to lose control of the Senate at the beginning of this cycle. They managed to flip Indiana and Massachusetts from red to blue as well as pick up a seat in Connecticut which had previously been held by an independent. The open seat in Maine went from a Republican to an independent, Angus King. He is expected to caucus with the Democrats. The only piece of good news for Republicans here was the gain of Nebraska from the Democrats. The makeup of the Senate will go from 51 Democrats, two independents (who caucus with the Democrats) and 47 Republicans to 53 Democrats, two independents (who are expected to caucus with the Democrats and 45 Republicans.

There was excellent news for the Republicans in the House; they managed to retain their majority. In fact, there is barely any chance from 2010, currently there are 193 Democrats called, the same number as the current congress; so not a great night for Democrats in this area.

In the Gubernational Elections there has only been one change so far, North Caroline flipped from Democrat to Republican. Indiana, North Dakota and Utah all stayed red whilst West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont and New Hampshire all remained blue, Washington is still undeclared.

The election was a good one for left-wing ideals, both Washington and Colorado legalised Marijuana for recreational use. In Maine, Maryland and Washington gay marriage was legalised or upheld whilst Minnesota voted not to ban it. Considering that before this election gay rights had only won one referendum (which was later overturned in another referendum), a clean sweep of all four is a major victory.

This election was undoubtedly a success for the Democrats, yet the results have meant that there is going to be barley any change in Washington DC. The Democrats still control the Senate and presidency; the Republicans control the House and can filibuster in the Senate. In fact things could get even less bi-partisan in the Senate, the three Republicans being replaced by democrats or independents are all ones open to compromise; Olympia Snowe in Maine, Dick Lugar in Indiana and Scott Brown in Massachusetts. With fewer moderate voices on the Republican side, it is easy to see how this Congress could actually be worse than the last. And there’s nothing Obama can do about it.