http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/after-grueling-campaign-polls-open-for-election-day-2012/2012/11/06/d1c24c98-2802-11e2-b4e0-346287b7e56c_story.html
Obama wins a second term as U.S. president
A sharply divided America awarded President Barack Obama a second term Tuesday, choosing him over Republican Mitt Romney to lead the repair of an economy that by far remains the country’s biggest concern, the Washington Post projects.
The president was poised to narrowly win several tight races in a handful of battleground states. It was the culmination of a staggeringly expensive, extremely close and sometimes bitter contest far removed from Obama’s 2008 message of hope and change.
Democrats also held onto their majority in the Senate, picking up two seats in early returns with the possibility of a third.
In early results, Obama won his home state of Illinois as well as Massachusetts, where Romney was governor and the place he still calls home. Maryland and the District of Columbia were put in Obama’s column as soon as polls there closed.
After more than $2 billion in campaign spending, unprecedented hours of television ads and a record number of voters who cast their ballots before Tuesday, Election Day 2012 was told in timeless tableaus of lines outside schools, volunteers waving signs and Americans emerging with “I Voted” stickers attached to their jackets.
