November 8, 2012

Barack Obama was reelected president of the United States on November 6, winning at least 303 Electoral College votes, compared with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 206 votes. In defeating Romney, the president carried the swing states of Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. He also took Michigan and Minnesota, where Republican super PAC’s (political action committees) spent millions trying to influence voters. Romney won North Carolina and Indiana, which the president carried four years ago. The president holds a narrow advantage in Florida, where the counting of ballots continues.  Obama is the first president to win reelection with unemployment above 7.2 percent since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.

Barack Obama won reelection with at least 303 votes in the Electoral College. (The White House)

Republicans remain firmly in control of the House of Representatives. Democrats retained their majority in the U.S. Senate, taking over highly contested Republican seats in Indiana and Massachusetts while holding on to most of those they already had, including in Virginia and Missouri.

Six of the newly elected senators are women, raising the total in the chamber to 20, the most ever. One new member, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, will become the Senate’s first openly gay member. Voters in both Maryland and Maine approved referenda allowing same-sex couples to marry–the first time same-sex marriage has been approved by a popular vote in the United States.  Minnesotans rejected a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in that state. In Washington state and Colorado, citizens voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana.

Additional World Book articles:

• Joe Biden
• Election campaign
• Electoral College
• Paul Ryan
• Election 1936 (a Back in Time article)
• 2008 Elections: A Pivotal Choice (a special report)
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)