President Obama secured a second term last night after an emotional and hard-fought campaign that enabled him to sweep nearly all of the swing states, including Virginia and Ohio. Obama thanked Romney for a passionate battle, and returned to the tenets of his campaign, hope, and progress.
Mitt Romney admitted defeat last night from his headquarters in Boston, after months of campaigning and over a billion dollars spent. Despite his loss, Romney insisted that the principles of his campaign endure.
Jared Bowen, reporter at WGBH, was at Romney Headquarters last night, and Todd Zwillich, our Washington correspondent, was there for the win at President Obama’s headquarters in Chicago.
Obama is confirmed to have won 303 electoral votes to Romney’s 206. President Obama has pulled slightly ahead in the popular vote as well, leaving America much in the same state it was in before the election.
Of course, it didn’t help the morale of the Romney campaign that their headquarters were situated in the heart of a blue state where Romney once served as governor. A sense of isolation pervaded the headquarters, where blocks away Obama supporters could be heard cheering.
“You just had this sense that things from shifted from the afternoon, in which Mitt Romney had said that they had played their best game, they had taken everything out of the locker room, they had thrown it all out onto the field, to last night when they suddenly realized that it may have all not worked,” says Bowen.
Todd Zwillich spent the night in Chicago where there was a much different atmosphere at headquarters. In a crowd of over 10,000 in downtown Chicago, the narrative seemed to be reaffirmation. The coalition of Obama supporters behind this election has further proven that Republicans will no longer be able to rely on an election platform of white males. Latinos overwhelming supported Obama, as Republicans continued to leave Latinos out in a concept of the middle class in the GOP.
On learning that Obama was set to win the presidency for a second term, the floor of the convention center erupted with cheers.
“This crowd of thousands in Chicago, as you can hear, has just learned that Barack Obama is projected to be re-elected as President of the United States,” said Zwillich. “They are jubilant, people are waving their hands in the air, staring up at the big screen in this hall in Chicago.”