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President Barack Obama will make a statement on the economy later, setting the stage for a political showdown over a looming budget crisis.
Barack Obama is expected to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff, a package of tax rises and spending cuts due early next year unless Congress acts.
Budget analysts warn the US will tip into recession unless a deal is struck.
Barack Obama has repeatedly called for the wealthy to pay more taxes, but such a plan is anathema to Republicans.
The fiscal cliff would see Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012, combined with automatic, across-the-board reductions to military and domestic spending.
The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly warned that failure by US lawmakers to reach a deal would deepen uncertainty over the global economy.
Investor concerns over the issue have been partly blamed for two straight days of losses on financial markets.
John Boehner, leader of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, told ABC News on Thursday: “Raising tax rates is unacceptable.
“Frankly, it couldn’t even pass the House. I’m not sure it could pass the Senate.”
John Boehner reiterated his opposition to tax rises in a news conference on Friday morning.
He spoke shortly before Barack Obama was due to deliver his statement from the East Room of the White House at 13:05.
Barack Obama is expected to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff, a package of tax rises and spending cuts due early next year unless Congress acts
The president’s statement could set the tone for his second-term working relationship with Republicans, whom he has battled repeatedly over the last four years.
A White House official said the president’s oft-stated call for tax rises on the wealthy has been vindicated by his resounding victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s election.
“One of the messages that was sent by the American people throughout this campaign is … [they] clearly chose the president’s view of making sure that the wealthiest Americans are asked to do a little bit more in the context of reducing our deficit in a balanced way,” senior White House adviser David Plouffe was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
Barack Obama’s position has been that taxes should rise on earnings above $250,000.
John Boehner says his party is willing to countenance cutting loopholes and special exemptions, but only in exchange for an overhaul of the tax code.
Republican lawmakers also want cuts to federal healthcare programmes such as Medicare, Medicaid and food-stamp assistance for the poor.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published on Thursday warned that the US economy would fall back into recession if no deal were struck on the fiscal cliff.
The analysis projected that the package of tax rises and spending cuts would cut the ballooning US deficit by $503 billion through to next September, but also shrink the economy by 0.5% and cost millions of jobs.
Meanwhile, as Barack Obama turns his attention to shaping a second term in office his administration is expected to undergo a shake-up in the coming weeks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are among those expected to leave their posts.
Speculation has been swirling in Washington over possible replacements, with Democratic Senator John Kerry among those tipped as a substitute for Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to find out what went wrong their presidential election campaign.
The party’s officials said they would poll voters extensively in battleground states, as well as holding focus groups and discussions with supporters.
The review would not attempt to alter the party’s ideological base, Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told the Washington Post.
“This is no different than a patient going to see a doctor,” Sean Spicer said.
What is the fiscal cliff?
• Under a deal reached last year between President Barack Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress, existing stimulus measures – mostly tax cuts – will expire on 1 January 2013
• Cuts to defence, education and other government spending will then automatically come into force – the “fiscal cliff” – unless Congress acts
• The economy does not have the momentum to absorb the shock from going over the fiscal cliff without going into recession
Several American businesses reacted to the news of President Barack Obama’s re-election with both anger and despair, as one McDonald’s location hung the US flag at half-mast and upside-down.
Some diners at the Follansbee restaurant in West Virginia could not believe their eyes when the say the flag on the day after Barack Obama secured more electoral votes than Republican rival Mitt Romney.
An upside-down flag is a “signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”, according to federal law.
Mitt Romney won West Virginia in Tuesday night’s election – and its five electoral votes.
Karen Mezan, the McDonald’s franchise owner, said in an emailed statement to WTOV-TV: “Unfortunately, a flag cable broke and during the process of trying the fix the flag, it was inadvertently turned upside down.
“It wasn’t noticed that the flag was upside down until a customer inquired about it. We are working on fixing the flag right now. It’s important to note that this was an accident, not intentional.”
Follansbee McDonald’s restaurant hung the US flag at half-mast and upside-down
While US flag flew in reverse in West Virginia, a Florida real estate mogul backed down from a pledge to lay off some or all of his 8,000 in protest of Barack Obama’s victory.
Instead, David Siegel says he gave all of his workers a raise this week, to help them cope with new taxes and regulations that he believes the president will heap on in his second term.
David Siegel is perhaps known for his ambitious attempts to build the largest house in the world outside Orlando, Florida.
Modeled after the Palace of Versailles in France, he hopes it will be worth $100 million when it’s completed.
The property magnate’s 1,400-word rant was largely copied from a chain email which circulated around the time of the 2008 presidential election, according to Gawker.
David Siegel told Bloomberg BusinessWeek on Wednesday, the day after the election, that he hadn’t laid off anyone – yet.
“I’m going to work my hardest to keep the company going and expand the best I can. We’ll see what happens,” he said.
He added that he had given all employees in his company a raise, at least five per cent, to “help them handle the additional burdens the government will put on them”.
Last month, David Siegel told his workers that the company was performing well, saying: “The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job.
“What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.”
He added: “So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current president plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.
“Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.
“So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t? Whose policies will endanger your job?
“Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job.”
The 77-year-old starred alongside his wife Jackie, 46, in a documentary film titled Queen of Versailles, chronicling the construction of the 30-bedroom house and the struggles of David Siegel’s company during the financial crisis and recession.
The flamboyant businessman has previously boasted of using his employees for political ends.
He apparently surveyed his 8,000 workers before the 2000 election, and encouraged only those who supported George W. Bush to vote – an act which he believes brought the Republican victory in Florida, and therefore in the race as a whole.
In Bedford, Virginia, Lyons Jewelers posted a massive sign in the store window saying: “Closed to mourn the loss of the America that our forefathers endowed to us.”
WDBJ-TV reports that the store also had a sign that said “Shame on the U.S. and Virginia” and one that read “Lyons will reopen tomorrow to continue the fight against a president who seeks my demise”.
Also on Wednesday, a man who claimed to own a business in Las Vegas called into a local radio station to announce he had fired 20% of his staff.
The man, who called a talk radio program on KXNT, gave his name only as “Dave” and said “elections have consequences”.
He claimed that Tuesday night’s victory for the Democratic president was the tipping point for him to decide that he needed to cut back his business to save money.
He said he had 114 employees and that he sacked 22 of them.
“I explained to them a month ago that if Obama gets in office that the regulations for Obamacare are gonna hurt our business, and I’m gonna have to make provisions to make sure I have enough money to cover the payroll taxes, the additional health care I’m gonna have to do, and I explained that to them and I said you do what you feel like in your heart you need to do, but I’m just letting you know as a warning this is things I have to think of as a business owner,” he said.
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Many of Americans were upset when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost the election and most of them used social media to post shockingly racist tweets against President Barack Obama.
A map collected by Floating Sheep, a collective of geography academics, shows the shocking demographic of racist “hate tweets”, many of them collected from states that were won by Mitt Romney.
The majority of the tweets, as Jezebel noted, were often from young white residents in southern states.
One male user wrote on Election Day following Romney’s loss: “Ok we pick a worthless n***** over a full blooded American what the h*** has our world come its (sic) called the white house for a reason.”
Another wrote: “F*** you, Obama. Your (sic) a stupid n***** and you don’t do anything good for our country.”
Using geodata called DOLLY (Data On Local Life and You), Floating Sheep mapped out tweets beginning November 1. They then calculated the percentage of each state’s so-called hate tweets in relation to the gross number of tweets coming out of that state.
Their results showed that states like Arkansas and Mississippi were relatively inundated with racist tweets. However, they measured only the quantity of tweets, noting that a lone Twitter user could be sending out dozens of vitriolic tweets all on their own, thus adding to the location-inspired measure, or LQ.
A map collected by Floating Sheep, a collective of geography academics, shows the shocking demographic of racist hate tweets after Barack Obama re-election
The map also reveals other southern states like Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas had their fair share of people tweeting bigoted things. Floating Sheep noted that both the East and West coast had a lower number of such tweets.
The site noted, too, that the phenomenon wasn’t only in the south – a series of racist tweets trickled up the Eastern Seaboard, and could also be found in Utah and Missouri.
While it was not openly addressed by the candidates on the campaign trail, political pundits have insisted that demographics and race played a huge role in helping Barack Obama keep the White House.
On Election Day, a riot broke out at The University of Mississippi – known as Ole Miss – as more than 400 students yelled out racial slurs and burned Obama-Biden campaign posters after the Democratic incumbent was crowned the victor.
Emotions ran high among the angered college conservatives in Oxford, Mississippi, with university police being called in shortly after midnight to diffuse the crowd.
The incident began as a small gathering of frustrated voters, meeting to share their misery at Barack Obama getting another four years in office, shortly after midnight.
But word soon spread over social media and the crowd began to swell to hundreds of students, yelling out racial slurs, chanting anti-Obama rhetoric and some reportedly throwing rocks at cars.
Police were called and told the crowd to go home but their presence only attracted more attention and the mass began to multiply.
Two students were arrested in the fracas, one for public intoxication and one for failure to comply with police orders, the university confirmed.
“Disperse or go to jail,” University Police Department officers told the crowd, according to the student newspaper, The Daily Mississippian.
But Ole Miss student Nicholas Carr tweeted that the whole thing was being overblown, saying that more people were taking pictures of the so-called riot than actually joining in on the chanting.
“I was there the whole time. No rocks were thrown. There was 1 sign lit on fire. For about 45 seconds,” Nicholas Carr wrote.
“Mostly, it was 100s of college kids who heard the word riot and ran to take pictures and see what it was about. Again, no rocks or missiles thrown.”
But the school’s administration confronted students on Wednesday and blasted Tuesday’s behavior as “a very immature and uncivil approach to expressing their views about the election”, University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones said in statement.
“The gathering seems to have been fueled by social media, and the conversation should have stayed there.”
President Barack Obama won re-election with a similar coalition that carried him to the presidency in 2008: women, young voters, African Americans and Latinos.
But the popular vote was not as strongly in Barack Obama’s favor this time, owing to declines in some key but shrinking parts of the electorate.
1. The female vote
Men and women split between the candidates: overall, 55% of women voted for Barack Obama, 44% for Mitt Romney. For men, 52% voted for Mitt Romney and 45% for Barack Obama.
In 2008, Barack Obama gained a higher percentage of the male vote (49%) and a similar percentage of the female vote (56%).
However, there was a division between married and unmarried women: 53% of married women voted for the Republican candidate, while Barack Obama won unmarried women two-to-one: 67% to 31%.
Overall, women make up more of the electorate – 53% – slightly more than their share of the US population.
2. The ethnic vote
Barack Obama overwhelmingly won the black vote with 93%, a sliver lower than four years ago. Latinos also voted strongly for the Democrat – 71% in total and probably made electoral differences in Colorado and Nevada. Latinos or Hispanics made up 10% of total voters in the US, up one percentage point from 2008.
President Obama lost some of the white voters that propelled him to a strong win in 2008, with 39% voting for a second Barack Obama term in comparison to 43% in 2008. The white electorate, while still a majority, dropped to 72% of the country as a whole, down from 74% four years ago, and 77% eight years ago.
3. The youth vote
Young voters were a key part of Barack Obama’s victory for a second time.
Sixty per cent of voters aged 18 to 29 years voted for Barack Obama, slightly down from his percentage four years ago of 66%.
But the percentage of voters in this age range increased slightly, to 19% of the electorate.
Voters aged 30 to 44 were fairly split, with a slight inclination to Barack Obama, 52% to 45%.
The largest percentage of the electorate in terms of age, 45 to 64, went to Mitt Romney with 51%.
President Barack Obama won re-election with a similar coalition that carried him to the presidency in 2008: women, young voters, African Americans and Latinos
4. Lower-income Americans
Lower-income voters went decisively for Barack Obama.
Of those making under $50,000, 60% voted for Barack Obama.
The president did not do badly with middle-income and richer voters either, gaining 46% and 44%, respectively in each category.
The three income categories are fairly split among the electorate, with the lower-income group representing 41% of the total vote.
5. The religious vote
Mitt Romney gained 62% of the Protestant vote.
Catholics and other Christians were split among the two major candidates.
Those of no religion as well as Jewish voters gave Barack Obama a vote of confidence at 70%.
Mitt Romney, who would have become the first Mormon president if he had won, also gained the large majority of Mormon voters: 78%.
Those who went to religious services at least once a week were more likely to vote for Mitt Romney (59%).
However, 55% of those who said they attended such services “a few times a month” voted for Barack Obama.
6. The economy
Throughout the campaign, both candidates said it was all about the economy, and voters’ decisions largely came down to who they thought was best on the issue.
Fifty-nine per cent of those polled said the economy was their foremost concern. Among those, a slight majority (51%) went for Mitt Romney. So how does this match with an Obama win? Fifty-four per cent of voters who named unemployment as their top economic concern voted for Barack Obama.
The president also received many more votes from those concerned about healthcare and foreign policy, while deficit-minded voters strongly chose Mitt Romney.
7. Mitt Romney’s empathy gap
What matters most in Americans’ minds when they vote? About three in 10 wanted a “vision for the future” and another three in 10 wanted a president who shared their values.
Those who wanted a vision for the future voted more for Mitt Romney (54% to 45% for Barack Obama).
However, another two in 10 voters wanted a president who “cares about people like me”.
They overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama – 81% in total – a sign that Mitt Romney suffered an empathy gap among some voters.
All numbers based on exit polling conducted by Edison Research across the United States on 6 November.
Wednesday after Election Day, Roll Call’s Political Wire posted screen grabs of some of the pages from the website that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would have released had they won the election.
The homepage of the site has a seal of “The Office of the President Elect” and had a quote on the top signed by President-Elect Mitt Romney.
“I’m excited about our prospects as a nation. My priority is putting people back to work in America,” the large quote says.
It shows links to information about the would-be inauguration (taking place in Washington, DC on January 21, 2013) and his vision of a “smaller, simpler, smarter” America.
Romney victory site has a seal of The Office of the President Elect and had a quote on the top signed by President-Elect Mitt Romney
There are three other pages, titled “Join the Administration”, “The President-Elect” which goes into further detail about the inauguration, and “The Nominees” which briefly describes the process of electing a cabinet.
Unfortunately for political junkies, the nominees page cuts off before any actual nominees are identified, so the page does not give any true insight into the way that the Romney-Ryan team would have proceeded with their transition.
Political Wire does not explain how they found the site or how long it was live, only saying that it was taken down quickly.
Romney victory site has a seal of The Office of the President Elect and had a quote on the top signed by President-Elect Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney thanked family and campaigners for support in his concession speech after admitting defeat in 2012 US election.
Congratulating Barack Obama on his win, Mitt Romney said the Republican Party’s “principles would endure” the defeat and asked his supporters to join him and his wife Ann in praying for Obama and the U.S.
“Thank you.
I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory. His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters.
This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.
I want to thank Paul Ryan for all that he has done for our campaign and for our country. Besides my wife, Ann, Paul is the best choice I’ve ever made. And I trust that his intellect and his hard work and his commitment to principle will continue to contribute to the good of our nation.
I also want to thank Ann, the love of my life. She would have been a wonderful first lady. She’s – she has been that and more to me and to our family and to the many people that she has touched with her compassion and her care.
I thank my sons for their tireless work on behalf of the campaign, and thank their wives and children for taking up the slack as their husbands and dads have spent so many weeks away from home.
I want to thank Matt Rhoades and the dedicated campaign team he led. They have made an extraordinary effort not just for me, but also for the country that we love.
And to you here tonight, and to the team across the country – the volunteers, the fundraisers, the donors, the surrogates – I don’t believe that there’s ever been an effort in our party that can compare with what you have done over these past years. Thank you so very much.”
Mitt Romney thanked family and campaigners for support in his concession speech after admitting defeat in 2012 US election
“Thanks for all the hours of work, for the calls, for the speeches and appearances, for the resources and for the prayers. You gave deeply from yourselves and performed magnificently. And you inspired us and you humbled us. You’ve been the very best we could have imagined.
The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work. And we citizens also have to rise to the occasion.
We look to our teachers and professors, we count on you not just to teach, but to inspire our children with a passion for learning and discovery. We look to our pastors and priests and rabbis and counselors of all kinds to testify of the enduring principles upon which our society is built: honesty, charity, integrity and family. We look to our parents, for in the final analysis everything depends on the success of our homes. We look to job creators of all kinds. We’re counting on you to invest, to hire, to step forward. And we look to Democrats and Republicans in government at all levels to put the people before the politics.
I believe in America. I believe in the people of America. And I ran for office because I’m concerned about America. This election is over, but our principles endure. I believe that the principles upon which this nation was founded are the only sure guide to a resurgent economy and to renewed greatness.
Like so many of you, Paul and I have left everything on the field. We have given our all to this campaign.
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. And so Ann and I join with you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation.
Thank you, and God bless America. You guys are the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, guys.”
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Barack Obama announced that the “best is yet to come” during a moving acceptance speech as the news came that he had been re-elected as President of the United States.
President Barack Obama vowed to return to the White House “more determined and inspired than ever”, saying he had “listened and learned” during his campaign.
As the re-elected President thanked his family for their support, his Republican rival Mitt Romney did the same in his concession speech.
Congratulating Barack Obama on his win, Mitt Romney said the Republican Party’s “principles would endure” the defeat and asked his supporters to join him and his wife Ann in praying for Obama and the U.S.
Barack Obama announced that the “best is yet to come” during a moving acceptance speech as the news came that he had been re-elected as President of the United States
Barack Obama acceptance speech in full:
“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward,’ The newly re-elected President said.
It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.
Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, 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.
I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that.
Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.
I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight.
In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.
I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.
And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.
Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.
To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics – the best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning.
But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the life-long appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley.
You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.
I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.
You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity.
You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift.
You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse whose working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.
That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.
That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.
But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers. A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this – this world has ever known.
But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag.
To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president – that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go – forward. That’s where we need to go.
Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.
By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin. Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over.
And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.
Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.
But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizens in our Democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.
This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores. What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.
The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.
I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job.
I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.
I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm.
And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.
I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own.
And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.
And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future.
I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.
I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.
And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.
Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.”
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Moments after Barack Obama’s victory was projected by several news outlets last night, Donald Trump took to Twitter to voice his outrage, demanding a “revolution”.
Donald Trump also said that the Democrat’s re-election to office was a “great and disgusting injustice”.
Earlier Tuesday, Donald Trump took to Twitter reminding his followers: “Whoever wins today, remember that tomorrow we still have a country struggling.
“Our work is not done until America is strong again.”
However, as it became apparent that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would not win the election, Donald Trump’s tweets became more enraged, and more hyperbolic.
He began with: “Well, back to the drawing board!”
Donald Trump quickly followed up with a call to revolution. He wrote: “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”
He later deleted that tweet.
But he was far from over.
“This election is a total sham and a travesty,” he wrote.
“We are not a democracy!”
He also added the “serious and unprecedented trouble” that America is in – “like never before”.
Donald Trump said that Barack Obama’s re-election to office was a great and disgusting injustice
Donald Trump, 66, later went onto attack the Electoral College, but offered a kernel of hope for the still-Republican House of Representatives.
“Hopefully the House can hold our country together for four more years,” he tweeted.
“House shouldn’t give anything to Obama unless he terminates Obamacare.”
He did not tweet anything after Mitt Romney’s gracious concession speech.
Donald Trump’s attacks on Barack Obama have been more frequent in the weeks preceding the election.
Only last week, he lashed out at Barack Obama for using Superstorm Sandy to garner more votes and essentially buy the election.
The billionaire’s grudge hasn’t gone unnoticed by the president.
During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Barack Obama quipped that their rivalry began when the two were growing up in Kenya.
“We had constant run-ins on the soccer field, he wasn’t that good,” Barack Obama told the NBC late-night host.
Barack Obama won re-election to the White House tonight with a landslide victory over Mitt Romney, according to projections from most of the television networks.
Broadcast networks called the 2012 presidential election for Barack Obama as he swept the map with wins in the swings states of Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia while Florida still hung in the balance.
Barack Obama seemed poised for a resounding electoral college win – despite predictions of one of the tightest finishes in history and the dogged insistence of Mitt Romney advisers that they were making gains all over the political battlefield.
Despite unemployment standing at 7.9% and Barack Obama performing very poorly during the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney was crushed nationally, though he might finish only just behind in the popular vote.
Barack Obama won re-election to the White House tonight with a landslide victory over Mitt Romney
Minutes after his victory was announced, Barack Obama tweeted: “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you.”
He also posted a picture of himself embracing his wife Michelle Obama – and the post rapidly became the most popular tweet of all time.
Mitt Romney called Barack Obama to concede defeat shortly before 1:00 a.m., a few minutes before he was set to take the stage at his Boston headquarters to deliver his concession speech.
Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican rival Mitt Romney.
With results in from most states, Barack Obama has secured the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to win the race.
Barack Obama prevailed despite lingering dissatisfaction with the economy and a well-funded challenge by Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama’s margin of victory is not yet certain because four states have yet to report results.
With swing states Virginia, Florida and Colorado still too close to call, Barack Obama has won 281 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 203.
Under the US constitution, each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes – by prevailing in the mostly winner-takes-all state contests – becomes president.
The popular vote, which is symbolically and politically important but not decisive in the race, remains too close to call.
Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican rival Mitt Romney
On Tuesday, the president held the White House by assembling solid Democratic states and a number of important swing states such as Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. His narrow victory in Ohio, a critical Mid-Western swing state, sealed the victory.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, won North Carolina and Indiana, as well as the solid Republican states.
But he was unable to win in Ohio or other states needed to breach the 270 threshold.
Also on Tuesday’s ballot were 11 state governorships, a third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are projected to keep control of the House, while Democrats are tipped to remain in control in the Senate.
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2012 Election: voting results so far
Alabama (9 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 61% (1,245,221 votes)
Barack Obama 38% (787,027 votes)
Alaska (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 55% (120,329 votes)
Barack Obama 41% (90,743 votes)
Arizona (11 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 55% (896,302 votes)
Barack Obama 43% (707,744 votes)
Arkansas (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 60% (631,244 votes)
Barack Obama 37% (387,139 votes)
California (55 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 38% (3,542,862 votes)
Barack Obama 59% (5,474,746 votes)
Colorado (9 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 47% (1,100,186 votes)
Barack Obama 51% (1,199,142 votes)
Connecticut (7 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 41% (567,679 votes)
Barack Obama 58% (815,227 votes)
Delaware (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 40% (165,476 votes)
Barack Obama 59% (242,547 votes)
District of Columbia (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 7% (17,337 votes)
Barack Obama 91% (222,332 votes)
Florida (29 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 49% (4,083,321 votes)
Barack Obama 50% (4,129,360 votes)
Georgia (16 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 53% (2,054,373 votes)
Barack Obama 45% (1,745,283 votes)
Hawaii (4 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 28% (119,494 votes)
Barack Obama 70% (303,090 votes)
Idaho (4 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 65% (375,417 votes)
Barack Obama 32% (182,505 votes)
Illinois (20 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 41% (2,087,366 votes)
Barack Obama 57% (2,912,872 votes)
Indiana (11 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 54% (1,407,195 votes)
Barack Obama 44% (1,134,577 votes)
Iowa (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 46% (727,545 votes)
Barack Obama 52% (816,174 votes)
Kansas (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 60% (671,154 votes)
Barack Obama 38% (425,383 votes)
Kentucky (8 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 61% (1,086,970 votes)
Barack Obama 38% (679,105 votes)
Louisiana (8 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 59% (1,149,054 votes)
Barack Obama 40% (781,733 votes)
Maine (4 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 40% (230,048 votes)
Barack Obama 56% (321,017 votes)
Maryland (10 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 37% (894,718 votes)
Barack Obama 61% (1,480,976 votes)
Massachusetts (11 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 37% (1,115,559 votes)
Barack Obama 61% (1,813,580 votes)
Michigan (16 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 46% (2,041,969 votes)
Barack Obama 54% (2,398,517 votes)
Minnesota (10 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 45% (1,312,426 votes)
Barack Obama 53% (1,536,520 votes)
Mississippi (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 55% (661,056 votes)
Barack Obama 44% (521,036 votes)
Missouri (10 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 54% (1,478,961 votes)
Barack Obama 44% (1,215,031 votes)
Montana (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 55% (236,677 votes)
Barack Obama 42% (180,259 votes)
Nebraska (5 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 61% (462,972 votes)
Barack Obama 38% (289,154 votes)
Nevada (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 46% (462,422 votes)
Barack Obama 52% (528,801 votes)
New Hampshire (4 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 47% (300,241 votes)
Barack Obama 52% (335,004 votes)
New Jersey (14 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 41% (1,356,792 votes)
Barack Obama 58% (1,916,190 votes)
New Mexico (5 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 43% (330,863 votes)
Barack Obama 53% (407,111 votes)
New York (29 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 36% (2,204,525 votes)
Barack Obama 63% (3,844,883 votes)
North Carolina (15 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 51% (2,272,506 votes)
Barack Obama 48% (2,175,670 votes)
North Dakota (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 59% (187,586 votes)
Barack Obama 39% (124,490 votes)
Ohio (18 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 48% (2,571,539 votes)
Barack Obama 50% (2,672,302 votes)
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 67% (888,844 votes)
Barack Obama 33% (442,359 votes)
Oregon (7 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 44% (641,965 votes)
Barack Obama 53% (779,964 votes)
Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 47% (2,610,385 votes)
Barack Obama 52% (2,894,079 votes)
Rhode Island (4 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 35% (146,395 votes)
Barack Obama 63% (262,464 votes)
South Carolina (9 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 55% (1,005,870 votes)
Barack Obama 44% (799,026 votes)
South Dakota (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 58% (210,539 votes)
Barack Obama 40% (144,983 votes)
Tennessee (11 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 59% (1,450,595 votes)
Barack Obama 39% (951,406 votes)
Texas (38 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 57% (4,542,012 votes)
Barack Obama 41% (3,285,200 votes)
Utah (6 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 73% (670,394 votes)
Barack Obama 25% (229,271 votes)
Vermont (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 31% (87,966 votes)
Barack Obama 67% (189,301 votes)
Virginia (13 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 48% (1,745,397 votes)
Barack Obama 51% (1,852,123 votes)
Washington (12 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 43% (822,611 votes)
Barack Obama 55% (1,062,561 votes)
West Virginia (5 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 62% (412,406 votes)
Barack Obama 35% (234,985 votes)
Wisconsin (10 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 46% (1,397,888 votes)
Barack Obam 53% (1,599,656 votes)
Wyoming (3 electoral votes)
Mitt Romney 69% (170,259 votes)
Barack Obama 28% (68,779 votes)
Voting results election 2012
An electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania has been removed from service after it changed votes for Barack Obama into those for Mitt Romney.
An 18-second clip posted onto YouTube shows a voter’s finger repeatedly pressing the button for Barack Obama, but the check mark instead comes up next to Mitt Romney’s name.
This is the latest in a flurry of voting glitches across the country today from West Palm Beach in Florida where ballot counting machines broke down, to vast swathes of New Jersey where text alert systems for residents sent them to the wrong polling stations.
In comments attached to the clip, the anonymous user named “centralpavote” said that “all the other buttons worked fine” and asked voters either side if they were experiencing similar problems – which they denied.
NBC News has reported that since the clip was posted to Reddit this morning, it spread across the Internet and the offending machine has been retired from service.
The video which was filmed on the YouTube users Android phone shows the potentially serious malfunction affect only a vote for the incumbent president.
A vote for any other of the candidates for the presidency and vice presidency resulted in a successful choice – it was only a vote for Barack Obama that caused the machine to change to Mitt Romney.
An electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania has been removed from service after it changed votes for Barack Obama into those for Mitt Romney
“I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted,” said “centralpavote” on the introduction to his video on YouTube.
“I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney.
“Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode.
“I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine.
“Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the <<active areas>>.
“From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney.
“From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama.
“Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.”
The voter reported the problem to an electoral official who declared it a non issue.
“I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it,” said “centralpavote”.
“She him hawed (sic) for a bit then calmly said <<It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK>>. and went back to what she was doing.
“I then recorded this video.”
However, far from evidence of electoral fraud, experts have weighed in with the theory that this is a calibration problem specific to the machine.
“It’s a concern but not because of fraud… that’s an obviously miscalibrated iVotronic (ES&S) voting machine,” said Jospeh Lorenzo Hall, Senior Staff Technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology to Gawker.
“We would recommend that poll workers would recalibrate the machine and everything would be fine.
“Also, with some models of voting system if you place a thumb on accident while resting on the machine it can <<bias>> the calibration of the touchscreen up towards the errant thumb.
“That could be happening to, if it’s only for this one voter.”
Further controversy over voting continued at a polling place in a Philadelphia school where workers ignored a judge’s order to cover a mural of President Barack Obama “in its entirety”.
The art work which is positioned behind voting machines contains the words “change!” and “hope” together with a quote from the president and a painting of him.
However, electoral poll workers only covered up the mural with three pieces of paper – leaving the Obama logo and quote from the serving president in full view of all prospective voters.
Seeing an attempt to influence the votes of those attending the polling place in Ward 35, Republicans were outraged.
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The final voting precincts on the west coast won’t even begin to be tallied until early Wednesday morning, but the election could be decided much earlier than that.
Polls begin to close at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and results will flood in not long thereafter. Whichever candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes wins the White House.
Crucially, Barack Obama won each of the swing states listed below in 2008.
7:00 p.m.: Virginia is the first battleground state to close its polls. Barack Obama has a slight lead in most recent polls, but the state is essentially a tossup. The president won the state in 2008 by 6.3% – but Mitt Romney has made it essential to his election strategy. If he wins Virginia, and its 13 electoral votes, it will confirm that the national race is as tight as everyone believed it to be. If Barack Obama wins, Mitt Romney’s chances of taking the White House become narrower.
Polls begin to close in North Carolina, as well. Barack Obama won the state by a narrow margin in 2008, though a strong rightward swing in the last four years means Romney has a large advantage.
7:30 p.m.: Polls close in Ohio – the most important swing state in the nation. This is a must-win for Mitt Romney. If he cannot take Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, he will have to win nearly every other swing state in the country. No Republican has ever won the presidency without Ohio. If Barack Obama loses Ohio, his chances of winning reelection become significantly smaller. Watch the Cincinnati metro area – which is perhaps the most important region of the state for determining the overall outcome. Barack Obama won Ohio by 5.4% in 2008.
It is important to note that Barack Obama is likely to take an early lead in Ohio as early voters are counted first. Polls show he leads among people who cast their ballots before Election Day.
The final voting precincts on the west coast won’t even begin to be tallied until early Wednesday morning, but the election could be decided much earlier than that
8:00 p.m.: Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania close their polls.
Florida is another essential state for Mitt Romney, though it is less important to Obama’s strategy. With 29 electoral votes, Florida is the largest swing state in the country. Mitt Romney has a 1.5-point advantage, though both candidates have fought hard for it. However, don’t expect rapid results from the Sunshine state. Ballots in Florida are long and voting lines are expected to be even longer – meaning it could be hours before results are tabulated.
Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, is heavily leaning in Barack Obama’s favor, but Mitt Romney has fought hard to reduce the Democratic lead.
New Hampshire has just four electoral votes, but both candidates have visited multiple times. Barack Obama holds and edge in the polls, but Mitt Romney owns a house in the Granite State and was governor of neighboring Massachusetts.
9:00 p.m.: Wisconsin and Colorado polls close.
Colorado isn’t a big catch, with nine electoral votes, but it’s a major test of Barack Obama’s support among Hispanic voters. Both candidates have campaigned heavily here and Barack Obama has a narrow lead in recent polls.
A Mitt Romney win in Wisconsin would be hugely symbolic. With ten electoral votes, the state has not gone for a Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984. However, Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan hails from Wisconsin and the divisive Republican Gov Scott Walker recently survived a recall election. Polls show Barack Obama has a four-point lead in polls.
10:00 p.m.: Iowa and Nevada, the last of the swing states, close their polls.
Iowa has just six electoral votes, but it’s important to Barack Obama – it’s the state where his presidential campaign began in 2008. The president currently leads here, though it’s a traditionally white, working-class state with a largely rural electorate – all Mitt Romney’s strong points.
Nevada, also six electoral votes, is the westernmost swing state. Barack Obama leads here in polls, as well, though the economy has been badly battered by the housing crisis and unemployment is more than 11% – much higher than the rest of the nation.
Chrysler gave all 55,000 of its employees the day off work on Election Day and urged them to go vote – a move that is likely to help President Barack Obama, since most employees are members of the heavily Democratic United Autoworkers union.
The automaker, which received a $6.6 billion government bailout under Obama’s presidency, has been at odds with Republican Mitt Romney after he accused the company of shipping jobs to China.
Voting has now opened in all 50 states and millions of Americans are standing in long lines to cast their ballots. Hawaii, which opened their polls at noon Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. local time), was the last to begin.
It’s impossible to tell yet what voter turnout for the pivotal presidential election will be – but throngs of Americans are already showing up. In Florida, some voters are reporting waiting in line for up to three and a half hours. Waits in other states were more than an hour before 10:00 a.m. and likely to grow only longer as the day progressed.
Thousands of voters turned out before dawn, hoping to cast their ballots before heading to work. Polls opened at 6:30 a.m. in Ohio, which is perhaps the most important state in this year’s neck-and-neck election. In Virginia and New Hampshire – two other pivotal states – voters began lining up before 6:00 a.m.
Chrysler gave all 55,000 of its employees the day off work on Election Day and urged them to go vote
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler’s vice president for product design, announced on Twitter that the company was shutting down for the day.
“Chrysler gave its entire work force the day off to Vote Today! Let’s go! #America,” he wrote.
Mitt Romney ran an ad in Ohio last month claiming that Chrysler was planning to build its Jeep SUVs in China. The company strenuously denied those claims and Ralph Giles even tweeted: “You are full of s***!” when Donald Trump repeated Mitt Romney’s allegation.
Ralph Gilles pointed out that all UAW workers already had the day off – a perk the union has negotiated for the last 15 years. Chrysler, which is owned by Italian car company Fiat, only extended the policy to its non-union employees.
Mitt Romney and his wife Ann showed up together at their local polling station in Belmont, Massachusetts, outside Boston, to cast their ballots early Tuesday. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was seen at the polls in Wisconsin with his family.
Barack Obama won election in Hart’s Location, one of two tiny New Hampshire villages that get to cast the first votes of the presidential race on Election Day.
Barack Obama won with 23 votes, Mitt Romney received 9 and Libertarian Gary Johnson received 1 vote.
In 2008, Barack Obama received 17 of the 29 votes cast.
Barack Obama won election in Hart’s Location, one of two tiny New Hampshire villages that get to cast the first votes of the presidential race on Election Day
President Obama and Mitt Romney tied in Dixville Notch, the other New Hampshire town that enjoys first-vote status.
Each candidate received five votes – the first tie in Dixville Notch history.
In 2008, Barack Obama received 15 of the 21 votes cast.
The towns have proudly held their first-vote status since 1948.
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Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney.
The voting ends a hard-fought race that began nearly two years ago and has cost more than $2 billion.
Polls will begin closing in eastern states at 19:00 EST – a winner could be known by midnight.
Polls show the race is neck and neck, although the president holds a slender polling lead in crucial swing states.
National polls by Washington Post/ABC News and the Pew Research Centre both give Barack Obama a three-point edge over his rival.
As many as 30 million voters have already cast their ballots, with more than 30 states allowing either absentee voting or in-person early voting.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama has already voted in his adopted hometown of Chicago, becoming the first sitting presidential candidate ever to vote early. Mitt Romney is expected to cast his own ballot in Belmont, Massachusetts, later on Tuesday.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes – by prevailing in the mostly winner-take-all state contests – becomes president.
Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney
Also on Tuesday’s ballot are a handful of state governors, one third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
The presidential candidates spent Monday frantically criss-crossing the crucial battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Virginia, making final appeals to voters. Their task: Push their own supporters to the polls while persuading the sliver of undecided voters to back them.
In speeches, Mitt Romney kept up his attack on Barack Obama’s record, reciting a litany of statistics he says illustrate the president has failed to lift the US economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929.
“If you believe we can do better, if you believe America should be on a better course, if you’re tired of being tired… then I ask you to vote for real change,” Mitt Romney told a rally in a Virginia suburb of the capital, Washington DC.
The president appeared at rallies with singer Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z. He acknowledged frustration with the still-lagging economy but told voters “our work is not done yet”.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” the president said in Ohio.
“We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint… We’ll finish what we started. We’ll renew those ties that bind us together and reaffirm the spirit that makes the United States of America the greatest nation on Earth.”
With observers anticipating a close race, both sides have readied teams of lawyers for possible legal fights, especially in the critical battleground state of Ohio.
Some analysts fear the election will not be decided on Tuesday night if the state’s vote becomes mired in legal battles.
On Tuesday Mitt Romney is to hit the campaign trail again with events in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio, before holding an election night rally in Boston.
Barack Obama will hold his own election night rally at a convention centre in Chicago.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters.
Mitt Romney went to Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and then to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.
President Barack Obama appeared in Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio, joined at rallies by Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z.
The election will be decided in just a handful of states, with Ohio in particular seen as crucial to victory.
Barack Obama closed his re-election campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, – the city where his bid for the presidency began in early 2007.
At a late-night rally, he told the crowd that Iowa had started “a movement that spread across the country”.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, was due to end his campaign with a late-night rally in New Hampshire but made the surprise announcement that he would extend campaigning into election day itself – visiting Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, in a campaign that has cost more than $2 billion.
But surveys of the nine or so battleground states that will determine the election show Barack Obama narrowly ahead.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
The race has been most intense in Ohio – no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning there.
Mitt Romney would become the first Mormon president of the US if he wins on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters
In Fairfax, Virginia just outside Washington DC, the former Massachusetts governor said the president had failed to make good on the promise of his 2008 campaign and it was time for a new direction.
“Look at the record,” he exhorted supporters.
“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s earned with effort. When the president promised change, you can look and see what happened. Four years ago then-candidate Obama promised to do so very much but he’s done so very little.”
He summed up his pitch to voters: “Do you want four more years like the last four years? Or do you want real change?”
In Ohio, Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z helped warm up a crowd for Barack Obama before the president appeared.
“I’ve got a lot of fight left in me and I hope you do,” Barack Obama told the rally, his voice hoarse from nearly non-stop campaigning.
“The folks at the very top in Washington don’t need another champion. They’ll always have a seat at the table. The people who need a champion are the people whose letters I read every day.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now. We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint.”
Thirty million Americans have already cast their ballot through early voting across 34 states. In the 2008 presidential election, 130 million people voted.
With the election expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin, both sides are readying teams of lawyers for legal fights.
Democrats in Florida have filed a legal case demanding an extension of time available for early voting, citing unprecedented demand after voters reportedly queued up for hours on Sunday,
In Ohio, Republican election officials were going to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials that tightens requirements needed for provisional ballots to be counted.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed an order allowing residents to vote at any polling place, not just the one to which they had been assigned.
The city and surrounding areas were devastated by super-storm Sandy last week. Many residents remain without power and many polling places were damaged.
Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.
In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Barack Obama.
Average of national opinion polls shows Barack Obama heading into election day with a single-point lead among likely voters, 49% to 48%.
Mitt Romney remains favored among whites, older people and evangelical Christians; Barack Obama among women, non-whites and young adults.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, a RealClearPolitics.com average of polls shows Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 49.6% to 46.6%.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes becomes president.
A handful of governors, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are also up for election on Tuesday.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
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A poll of more than 570,000 people across the globe has revealed non-Americans want Barack Obama to remain President of the United States.
The research, conducted across 36 countries outside the US, revealed 81% were in favor of Barack Obama spending another four years in office.
And only 19% preferred his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to the findings from MSN.
Interestingly, the only country that would prefer Mitt Romney as the next President was China – with 52% voting in his favor.
A poll of more than 570,000 people across the globe has revealed non-Americans want Barack Obama to remain President of the United States
Argentina: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Austria: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
Belgium: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
Brazil: 90 % Obama, 10 % Romney
Canada: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Chile: 80 % Obama, 20 % Romney
China: 48 % Obama, 52 % Romney
Colombia: 77 % Obama, 23 % Romney
Costa Rica: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Finland: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
France: 88 % Obama, 12 % Romney
Germany: 92 % Obama, 8 % Romney
Greece: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
Hong Kong: 85 % Obama, 15 % Romney
India: 64 % Obama, 36 % Romney
Indonesia: 87 % Obama, 13 % Romney
Ireland: 86 % Obama, 14 % Romney
Italy: 87 % Obama, 13 % Romney
Japan: 75 % Obama, 25 % Romney
Latin America: 79 % Obama, 21 % Romney
Mexico: 88 % Obama, 12 % Romney
Middle East: 79 % Obama, 21 % Romney
Peru: 75 % Obama, 25 % Romney
Philippines: 62 % Obama, 38 % Romney
Poland: 64 % Obama, 36 % Romney
Portugal: 94 % Obama, 6 % Romney
Russia: 73 % Obama, 27 % Romney
Singapore: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
South Africa: 68 % Obama, 32 % Romney
Spain: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
Sweden: 90 % Obama, 10 % Romney
Taiwan: 69 % Obama, 31 % Romney
Thailand: 65 % Obama, 35 % Romney
Turkey: 73 % Obama, 27 % Romney
UK: 85 % Obama, 15 % Romney
Venezuela: 77 % Obama, 23 % Romney
Mitt Romney’s chances of winning presidential election were boosted today by two polls which gave him a slender lead over Barack Obama.
Polls by Gallup and Rasmussen both gave Mitt Romney 49% of the national vote, ahead of Barack Obama on 48%, flying in the face of other polls which had appeared to show the President in the driving seat over the weekend.
The slim advantage could allow Mitt Romney to snatch victory in the key swing states which he needs to win in order to carry him to the White House.
The odds had appeared to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning on Tuesday. Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there was a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama was about to be re-elected, particularly after Hurricane Sandy.
On Sunday, a raft of new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post found a tie nationally.
Rasmussen poll released on Monday
The Gallup poll, released at lunchtime on Monday, was the first since the firm suspended operations during Sandy, and showed a small swing to Obama. Its last poll before the hurricane gave Mitt Romney 51% of the vote with the President on 46%.
Both candidates were plunged into frantic activity on the last full day of campaigning before Tuesday’s election.
Gallup poll released on Monday
Barack Obama scheduled appearances in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa alongside A-list celebrities including Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, while Romney planned a whistle-stop tour of four different swing states – Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire.
The fact that both men included Ohio on their itineraries shows the crucial importance of the state, which both campaigns consider almost indispensable to their victory hopes.
A national poll of more than 36,000 voters in 27 states forecasts that Barack Obama will win re-election by two percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235.
In what it bills as “one of the most extensive polls ever conducted”, British-based YouGov conducted its survey via the internet between October 31stand November 3rd.
The survey included all the battleground states along with the largest states such as New York, California and Texas.
The figures are much more optimistic for Barack Obama than other polls conducted over the weekend.
ABC/Washington Post, Rasmussen, George Washington University/Politico, and Fox News polls all found the race as tied. NBC/Wall Street Journal gave Barack Obama a one-point advantage.
YouGov projects that Barack Obama will win 18 states comfortably, giving him a base of 237 electoral college votes, 33 short of his target. Mitt Romney is projected to win 24 base states, giving him 191 electoral college votes, 79 short of victory.
There are 110 electoral college votes up for grabs in the remaining nine states, with Barack Obama needing to win just under a third of them and Mitt Romney needing almost three-quarters of them.
But Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, hedged his bets by saying that “while the President looks set for re-election, a Romney victory cannot be ruled out”.
Such an outcome, however, “would need YouGov’s figures – and those of almost all other pollsters – to be systematically wrong”.
Latest national poll shows Barack Obama will win re-election by 2 percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235
YouGov identified the following as sources of possible error: a late swing towards Mitt Romney; different turnout to what the pollsters predicted; inaccurate methodology; or response rates that over-represent Barack Obama’s support.
Peter Kelner said: “We are predicting that Obama is going to hang on to the presidency, but by a smaller margin than in 2008. It’s even possible that Obama will narrowly lose the nationwide popular vote and still win the electoral college.
“Mitt Romney could win one million more votes than Obama across American and still lose the election. There have been elections when the winner of the popular vote has lost the Electoral College, most recently in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but still lost the election to George W Bush.
“In such a tight race, no doubt the Democrats are not only concerned about losing the White House, but are also worried about the cloud that could hang over Obama’s second term if he does not win the popular vote. Whatever happens tomorrow, this will undeniably be an historic election.”
Barack Obama maintains a polling edge in all-important Ohio with a 2.8% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. Mitt Romney leads by 1.4% and 0.3% in Florida and Virginia respectively – two swing states he must win if he is to oust Barack Obama.
But the Romney campaign remains strikingly confident that a surge in Republican turnout and a swing among late-deciding voters will put them over the top.
Rich Beeson, Mitt Romney’s political director, told Fox News on Sunday: “There’s an intensity factor out there on the side of the Republicans, that is a significant gap and we see it out on the ground.
“We see it when people are knocking on the doors, we see it when people are making the phone calls and again, it gets back to the simple fact that Governor Romney is out there talking about big things and big change, not about small things.”
There were “two numbers to keep in mind” he said.
“One is independents. Independents are going decide this race in all of these states. Governor Romney consistently leads among independents because they have seen his message, for creating 12 million jobs, real recovery and strengthening the middle class.
“The second number is you’ve got an incumbent president who has been running for this job for the last four years since the day he got elected, will have raised and spent over $1 billion and he is stuck well below 50, at 48, 47, 46, in all of these polls.
“When you’re an incumbent under 50, and well under 50, that’s a bad place to be.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his praise for President Barack Obama’s support after Hurricane Sandy, but said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney in this Tuesday’s election.
“The fact of the matter is what New Jerseyans expect from their governor is to work for them, not to work for any particular political party,” Chris Christie told Israel’s Channel 2 television in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“I’m a Republican and I have endorsed Mitt Romney, I support him and I intend to vote for him on Tuesday,” said Chris Christie, interviewed in his home state by a visiting Israeli television reporter.
Chris Christie, a popular governor widely seen as a possible Republican contender in 2016, had frustrated some in the Romney campaign who feared he had given what could be a critical boost to Barack Obama, a Democrat.
He referred to Barack Obama’s pledge of federal aid during a visit to help New Jersey recover from the storm that knocked out power to some 2.4 million of its residents and said: “If the president of United States comes here and he’s willing to help my people and he does it then I’m gonna say nice things about him because he’s earned it.”
Barack Obama “provided help to my people at one of the worst crises that this state has ever faced”, Chris Christie added.
“When somebody does a good job, they deserve credit.”
“Anybody who is upset in the Republican Party about this, they haven’t been to New Jersey. Come see the destruction, come see the loss.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney
Chris Christie’s reaffirmation of support for Mitt Romney comes after the typically-brash governor spent a significant amount of time this week praising the President for his handling of the Hurricane Sandy aftermath.
Barack Obama visited New Jersey on Wednesday, taking a helicopter tour of the damaged areas with Christie before walking around the town of Brigantine and talking to survivors.
“I want to thank the president for coming here today [Wednesday, October 31st]. It’s really important to have the president of the United States acknowledge all the suffering that’s going on here in New Jersey and I appreciate it very much.”
Barack Obama returned the kind words, telling the crowds of beleaguered New Jersey residents who had gathered that their Republican governor was “working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal”.
Governor Chris Christie changed his partisan tune after the storm, regularly singing President Barack Obama’s praises in relation to the federal aid given toward disaster relief support.
“The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency],” Chris Christie told the Today Show on Tuesday.
He later told news anchor Soledad O’Brien that President Barack Obama “has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state, and not once did he bring up the election”.
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The odds appear to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning the 2012 presidential election on Tuesday.
Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there’s a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama is about to be re-elected.
On Sunday, new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, Rasmussen, GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post finds a tie nationally.
More worrying for Mitt Romney is the state polls, particularly in Ohio, where the RealClearPolitics average has Barack Obama with a lead of 2.8%.
If everything goes Mitt Romney’s way on election day it is possible he could achieve out a victory that would stun Democrats and turn the polling world upside down.
Based on conversations with the Romney campaign, including a frank discussion with a senior Mitt Romney adviser, here’s how they see the Republican nominee winning.
Of course, campaign aides spin reporters because they want their optimistic scenarios to become part of a media narrative that helps drive voters. They are also part of a self-reinforcing campaign bubble in which belief in eventual victory is a prerequisite of getting through grueling days.
But the adviser quoted here, for what it is worth, correctly identified to me weeks beforehand that the first debate would be a game-changing moment for Mitt Romney, has always predicted a very close race and is honest enough to identify states such as Nevada which Romney probably won’t win.
If we look at the 2008 electoral college map, when Barack Obama beat Senator John McCain by an electoral college landslide of 365 to 173 (and seven percentage points in the popular vote), we can view the terrain on which the 2012 contest is being fought.
The distribution of electoral college votes (which are based on congressional districts and U.S. Senate seats) has changed slightly in 2012 to produce this map. Because of the changes, Barack Obama’s advantage has shrunk to 359 to 179 in the electoral college. The winner needs 270 votes. So for Mitt Romney to win, he needs to take 91 electoral college votes from the states that Barack Obama won in 2008.
We can immediately give one vote in Nebraska (based on winning a congressional district) and 11 in Indiana to Mitt Romney. Barack Obama is not campaigning for those. Next up is 15 in North Carolina. Barack Obama won it by just 14,000 votes in 2008 and early voting patterns indicate he’s probably going to lose there.
Then we have Florida – its 29 votes are a huge prize. The latest Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll has Barack Obama being crushed by six points there. That’s the next state Mitt Romney needs. The Romney adviser was very confident, saying: “North Carolina’s baked. Florida’s baked.”
From there, it gets more difficult. Virginia, with 13 votes, is tighter than Florida but, again, early voting patterns suggest Mitt Romney will win it, though not by much. The Romney adviser said that “Virginia’s baked” though he added that it was “much closer than Florida”.
At this point, the Obama campaign would be really sweating. But so too would Mitt Romney’s team. We’d be down to Ohio, just as President George W. Bush was in 2004. This year, it has 18 electoral college votes.
If Mitt Romney bags Ohio, he’s on 266 electoral college votes and has multiple opportunities to get the four more he needs. Colorado’s nine, New Hampshire’s four, Iowa’s six and Wisconsin’s 10 look most likely. It’s very hard to see Mitt Romney winning Florida, Virginia and Ohio and Barack Obama keeping the White House.
Mitt Romney’s aides seem very bullish about Iowa – more so, even, than Colorado, where they say he took a hit in their internal polling with women independents after Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy. The latest Des Moines Register poll gives Barack Obama a five-point advantage. But the Romney campaigns that the same poll put Barack Obama up 17 in 2008 and he won the state by 10 points.
How Mitt Romney can still win US presidential election
Privately, the Romney campaign has effectively conceded Nevada, which has six votes.
“Nevada, we’ll probably fall short,” said the Romney adviser.
“That’s just tough.”
Mitt Romney hasn’t travelled there since October 24th, just as Barack Obama has stayed away from North Carolina.
More remarkably, the adviser said that Minnesota, 10 votes, and Pennsylvania, 20 votes, were distinct possibilities. He even predicted a possible win in Minnesota.
Pennsylvania is intriguing. There’s a Susquehanna poll that puts the two candidates dead level. Barack Obama has to be a heavy favorite – no Republican presidential candidate has won there since George H.W. Bush in 1988
But the Obama campaign has sent Bill Clinton to do four events in Pennsylvania on the eve of Election Day. After Barack Obama himself – and perhaps even ahead of Obama – Clinton is their most valuable campaign resource. There is clearly some worry there.
So that’s the electoral college arithmetic. There is not too much difference between the way the two campaigns view it.
The more difficult case to make is how Mitt Romney’s vote is lifted so that on the spectrum of Barack Obama states to capture (the order in terms of confidence seems to be Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada and Michigan) it is a tide that rises above the Ohio threshold.
For that, several things have to happen: the battleground polls have to be wrong; undecideds have to vote for Mitt Romney; Romney’s turnout has to be very high; Barack Obama’s vote has to be depressed.
Can so many polls be wrong? The short answer is yes. It is worth remembering that in January 2008 virtually no one in the political world believed that Hillary Clinton could win the New Hampshire primary over Barack Obama, fresh off his Iowa victory. But win it she did.
This year, apart from Gallup and Rasmussen, pollsters have consistently over-sampled Democrats compared to Republicans.
The Romney adviser said: “The samples that they’re using are geared towards 2008 results. So you get Democrats plus four on Pew, you’ve got Democrats plus eight on PPP.
“It’s going to be a Republican plus one or Republicans plus two election. It’s not 2008, it’s not 2004, it’s not 2000. It’s a new election. It’s 2012 and a completely different dynamic. Every election we re-write history on turnout.
“Gallup looked at it a week ago and decided it was going to be a more Republican electorate and they had it right.”
The closer you get to an election, the more likely undecideds are to break against the incumbent. Mitt Romney will also have voter enthusiasm on his side. Whether that’s enough, remains an open question but the Romney campaign thinks so.
“What’s going on here is when you have intensity and momentum,” said the Romney adviser.
“You ask voters who they’re voting for and they say 48, 47 points Obama. And then you look at the people who are eight, nine,10 on the intensity scale, Republicans have a high single digits to low double digits advantage.
“That’s what you see in the early voting. We keep narrowing the gap of the early vote advantage in some of these states. That trend line goes right into election day when you just don’t want to get in the way of a Republican heading into the polls.”
Certainly, in Florida, North Carolina and Colorado, the early voting evidence is encouraging for Mitt Romney supporters. In Ohio, the picture is more mixed. The Romney adviser predicted a win in Ohio by as little at 20,000 votes. In 2004, George W. Bush won it by 119,00 votes and in 2008 Barack Obama won it by 262,000.
It appears that Mitt Romney was damaged by Hurricane Sandy – he was virtually absent from the television screens for four days, the discussion turned away from jobs and the economy and Barack Obama’s double act with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey burnished his bipartisan credentials.
But the Romney adviser said that this has been turned around.
“Sandy didn’t flip us with independents but it narrowed. Then on Friday we got back in business with the <<revenge>> ad. Finally, we got back into business.
“Then Mitt just hit it in speech after speech and it got people back, particularly independents. Again saw Obama as divisive, petty, the negative partisan guy that they’d been seeing since the November 2nd debate.”
Can the Romney campaign envisage Barack Obama winning? The adviser responded: “I don’t see it. But his easiest path to that would be Ohio.
“He takes Ohio because Democratic men, hardworking lower middle class men, we don’t get the margin we think we’re getting. He somehow ekes it out. He gets Nevada, he gets Colorado, he gets New Hampshire. That’s probably the scenario.”
The Obama campaign believes that is indeed the scenario that will deliver them the White House. On Tuesday, we will know which of the two very different versions – almost parallel universes – of this race presented by the two campaign worlds will be the one that represents reality.
Rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are approaching the final day of their election battle in a frantic fight for swing state votes.
Each of them spent Sunday addressing crowds across the country, with Mitt Romney speaking in Pennsylvania, a state his aides insist he can now win on Tuesday.
Barack Obama held rallies in New Hampshire and Florida and carried on to Ohio and Colorado in the evening.
Analysts say the election will come down to a handful of swing states.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, but polls of many key battlegrounds show Obama narrowly ahead.
However, neither camp is exuding absolute confidence.
The campaign has been most intense in Ohio, which no Republican has ever lost and still made it to the White House.
On Monday morning, Barack Obama is scheduled to appear in Madison, Wisconsin, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, before going on to Iowa and Ohio.
Mitt Romney is due in Florida – where polls suggest he is ahead – in Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.
A final poll published on Sunday by Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch gave Barack Obama a 2% lead – 50% to 48% – over his rival, within the margin of error.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are approaching the final day of their election battle in a frantic fight for swing state votes
Both candidates visited the Buckeye State on Sunday, with Mitt Romney telling crowds in Cleveland that Barack Obama has failed in his pledge to be a “post-partisan” president and criticizing his record.
“He’s been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing and – by the way – it’s not only Republicans that he refused to listen to, he also refused to listen to independent voices.”
Later on Sunday he spoke in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, his first visit there in the final stages of the campaign. Democrats say the Romney team’s last-minute decision to campaign in the state is a sign of desperation, but polls do show a tightening race.
“The people of America understand we’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania,” Mitt Romney told the crowd in Morrisville.
Barack Obama made another appearance in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Stevie Wonder opened a huge evening rally.
Earlier in the day at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, Barack Obama said: “We have come too far to turn back now.”
He said he would work across party lines to break the political gridlock in Washington, but would not compromise on priorities such as healthcare and college financial aid.
Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.
In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Barack Obama.
An opinion poll on Sunday for ABC News and the Washington Post put the two candidates at 48%, with even voters who term themselves independents split evenly on 46%.
Mitt Romney remains favored among whites, seniors and evangelical Christians; Barack Obama among women, non-whites and young adults.
The president also remains slightly ahead in most of the nine-or-so swing states that will determine the election.
Opinion polls published on Saturday showed him well-placed in Iowa, Nevada and Ohio, but most remain within the polls’ own margins of error.
The election is run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.
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Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are heading into the final two days of campaigning with the outcome still too close to call.
Republican Mitt Romney will campaign in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, while Barack Obama heads for New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio and Colorado.
Both candidates addressed large rallies on Saturday in key swing states.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post survey suggests the pair are level with 48% of support.
Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are showing signs of exhaustion as they continue their daily, multiple-state visits to attract any undecided voters in the marginal battleground states that will determine the winner.
Former President Bill Clinton was also suffering as he joined Barack Obama in Virginia, addressing the rally in hoarse tones, saying he had “given my voice in the service of my president”.
Barack Obama told the 24,000 people in Bristow, Virginia, that the planning and organization of his campaign now no longer mattered.
“The power is not with us anymore, the planning, everything we do, it doesn’t matter. It’s all up to you, it’s up to the volunteers… you have got the power. That’s how democracy is supposed to be.”
At Barack Obama’s rally in Milwaukee, pop star Katy Perry, wearing a dress emblazoned with the Democratic slogan “Forward”, helped warm up a 20,000 crowd.
Barack Obama told them not to allow Mitt Romney to return the US to a time when Wall St had “free rein to do whatever” it liked.
Campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday, Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for saying that voting would be their “best revenge” on the Republicans.
“Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place.”
The latest ABC News-Washington Post survey suggests Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both level with 48 percent of support
Later, in Colorado Springs, the Republican challenger told supporters that Tuesday’s election would be “a moment to look into the future, and imagine what we can do to put the past four years behind us”.
“We’re that close right now,” he said.
“The door to a brighter future is there.”
The campaigning there has been at its fiercest. No Republican has ever been elected president without first winning Ohio.
But when there has been so much pressure on people to vote early and when all but a tiny fraction of likely voters have made up their mind, how much difference will all this frantic last-minute campaigning have?
An opinion poll on Sunday for ABC News and the Washington Post put the two candidates at 48%, with even voters who term themselves independents split evenly on 46%.
Mitt Romney remains favored in the whites, seniors and evangelical groups; Barack Obama in women, non-whites and young adults.
Barack Obama remains slightly ahead in most of the nine-or-so swing states that will determine the election.
Opinion polls published on Saturday showed him well-placed in Iowa, Nevada and Ohio, but most remain within the polls’ own margins of error.
The election is run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was Mitt Romney’s first choice as a running mate before he had a sudden change of heart and dumped him for Paul Ryan.
Chris Christie was miffed by Mitt Romney’s decision, particularly because he was led to believe in the weeks leading up to Paul Ryan’s introduction that he would be joining Romney on the Republican presidential ticket, Politico reported, citing conversations with “campaign insiders”.
Now Republican party bosses suspect Chris Christie’s momentary embrace of Barack Obama during the President’s tour of devastated New Jersey this week was a deliberate snub to Mitt Romney.
Chris Christie was vetted so hard by the Romney campaign in July that even some of Mitt Romney’s top advisers believed the New Jersey governor was the final choice as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
But Mitt Romney changed his mind over the course of two weeks this summer, advisers told Politico, and instead offered the job to Paul Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin.
Mitt Romney was attracted to Chris Christie for his unfiltered style that has helped turn him into rising star – albeit a controversial one – within the Republican Party.
Chris Christie has a propensity toward swearing, making him a bit of a liability for Mitt Romney, but he also has a knack for appealing to middle class voters, with whom Romney has had a hard time connecting.
Republican party bosses suspect Chris Christie’s momentary embrace of Barack Obama during the President’s tour of devastated New Jersey this week was a deliberate snub to Mitt Romney
At a campaign event for Mitt Romney in Iowa last December, Chris Christie bullied “Occupy” protestors out of a rally, leading Romney supporters to start chanting Christie’s name as they cheered with approval.
“You know what, we’re used to dealing with jokers like this in New Jersey all the time,” Chris Christie shouted at the protesters as they were led out of the rally by Mitt Romney staffers.
“So you guys go all out and chant and do what it is that you want to do.You are so angry, aren’t ya?” Chris Christie badgered.
“It’s so terrible… Oh work it out. Work it all out for yourselves. Work it all out for yourselves.”
In the end, it wasn’t Chris Christie’s bombast that drove Mitt Romney away: It was his disregard for Romney as the man at the top of ticket.
Chris Christie would consistently arrive late at campaign events that he was attending on behalf of Mitt Romney and he would spend the majority of his speaking time on himself, not the Republican presidential candidate.
Mitt Romney advisers began to think that Chris Christie wouldn’t know how to be a “number two” and they suddenly stopped vetting him without explanation just before Romney’s trip to Europe over the summer.
When Mitt Romney returned, he offered the job to Paul Ryan and waited another week to let Chris Christie know, just shortly before announcing his pick publicly.
Chris Christie has since been quietly retaliating against the Romney campaign for his sudden fall from favor, political analysts say.
He made news for his scarce mentions of Mitt Romney during his speech at the Republican National Convention.
“His view was, <<They saw the speech before I gave it. They vetted it. They said it was fine>>,” a Mitt Romney adviser told Politico.
“And the campaign’s view was, <<We told him that we thought there were more opportunities for him to put in stuff about Mitt, and he didn’t take the hint>>. There was a lot of agitation that led to a lot of sarcasm and the kind of comments that people don’t mean, but they kind of do.”
Chris Christie heaped praise on Barack Obama after he was invited onto Air Force One to tour the wreckage left behind by the storm.
“This was as comfortable and relaxed an interaction as I’ve had with the president since I’ve known him,” Chris Christie said.
“And I think it’s ’cause we’re both doing what we wanted to do, which is to get things done.”
Chris Christie said he expected to be criticized for complimenting the president.
“But you know what, I speak the truth,” he said.
“That’s what I always do. Sometimes you guys like it, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes politicians like it, sometimes they don’t. But I say what I feel and what I believe.
“And I’m just doing the same thing with the president of the United States. So, I do pinch myself every day. You know, like when I got on Marine One? I’m pinching myself, believe me.”
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