Barack Obama has defeated the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney in an extraordinarily tight battle for the White House.
The Democrat was swept back to the White House, holding off the Republican challenger in the key states of Ohio and Iowa.In a tweet even before the result was declared, President Obama said: “This happened because of you. Thank you.”
It had been predicted to be a close race but in the end Romney’s
campaign failed to catch fire and Obama scored a comfortable win in the
battleground states.Romney was unable to penetrate the Democrat firewall put up around
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan despite spending millions of
dollars on TV ads.
Florida and Virginia have yet to declare but the Ohio forecast secured Obama his second – and final – four-year term.Voter turnout was reported to be high, with long queues at some
polling stations following the most expensive presidential battle in US
history at a cost of $2 billion.
The president had spent the day playing basketball in a gym near his
home in Chicago and told reporters he was “confident we’ve got the votes
to win”.President Obama sent another tweet thanking his supporters: “We’re
all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are.
Thank you.- BO”
The economy proved a huge drag as he fought to turn it around after
the deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s – a
downturn that was well under way when he replaced George W Bush in the
White House on January 20, 2009.
No US president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s had run for
re-election with a national jobless rate as high as it is now – 7.9%.In foreign policy, Obama ended the war in Iraq and the US intelligence and military tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden.
However, a new host of Middle East crises – especially the war in
Syria and the deadly attack on the US Consulate in Libya – overshadowed
the last months of the campaign.
Win not by accident
President Obama has told supporters his win “wasn’t fate and it wasn’t an accident”.
In an email sent to people signed up to his campaign, he said:
“Friend, I’m about to go speak to the crowd here in Chicago, but I
wanted to thank you first.“I want you to know that this wasn’t fate, and it wasn’t an accident. You made this happen.
“You organised yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this
campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn’t easy, you
pressed forward.“I will spend the rest of my presidency honouring your support, and doing what I can to finish what we started.
“But I want you to take real pride, as I do, in how we got the chance in the first place.“Today is the clearest proof yet that, against the odds, ordinary Americans can overcome powerful interests.
“There’s a lot more work to do.
“But for right now: Thank you.
Barack”
