![](\"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/mr_obama.jpg\")
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Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago, and by remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interest. <\/p>\n
Obama, the nation\u2019s first African American president, scored a\u00a0decisive victory by stringing together a series of narrow ones. Of the election\u2019s seven major battlegrounds, he won at least six.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u201cWhile our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up,\u201d Obama told a cheering crowd of supporters in his home town of Chicago early Wednesday morning. \u201cWe have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that, for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he intends to sit down with Romney in the weeks ahead to talk about how the two can work together.<\/p>\n
Obama also made an oblique reference to the hard, negative edge of his campaign, saying that even this bitter election was something to be envied in nations around the world that enjoy fewer freedoms: \u201cThese arguments we have are a mark of our liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n
His election capped a night of gains for the once beaten-down American left. Democrats Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts won Senate races, as the party kept control of that chamber. Liberal causes also won in several states: Maryland and Maine became the first to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. Colorado and Washington passed laws that legalized some marijuana use.<\/p>\n
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, had built his campaign around the single contention that the U.S. economy is battered and adrift because of Obama\u2019s failures, and that his business experience uniquely qualified him to fix it.<\/p>\n
In the end, that wasn\u2019t enough, in part because the economy undermined his argument by showing signs of improvement. Just weeks before Election Day, the national unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time since Obama took office.<\/p>\n
Voters also did not warm to Romney. Even after many months and millions of dollars put toward trying to make him look good, exit polls showed that just as many voters trusted Obama to handle the economy as
trusted Romney.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation,\u201d a slightly hoarse Romney told his supporters in Boston early Wednesday morning. He said he and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), had left \u201ceverything on the field,\u201d adding: \u201cI so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of early Wednesday, Florida was too close to call \u2014 but also irrelevant, as Obama had passed the threshold of 270 electoral votes.<\/p>\n
Romney was beaten by a different Obama than the one who defeated Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) four years ago. Back then, Obama had run as a symbol of limitless hope.<\/p>\n
This year, he ran as a symbol of hope\u2019s limitations.<\/p>\n
The president no longer pledged to sweep away Washington\u2019s old partisan politics. He had tried that and was unable to do so. Now, he was pledging to plunge into those old politics and fight \u2014 battling Republicans whom Obama said favored the rich and waged a \u201cwar on women.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}