Americans elected another Obama administration Tuesday. The president claimed both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
As of time of print, Obama had 303 of the 538 Electoral College votes to Romneys 206. Electoral votes from Florida were not yet allocated.
Obamas success in winning battleground states led to his electoral lead.
He won Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada, seven of the nine battlegrounds. The Romney-Ryan campaign and their supporters poured nearly $1 billion into these states with dueling television commercials.
Romney failed to win the State of Massachusetts where he served as governor from 2003 to 2007. Of the battleground states, Romney won North Carolina.
Justin Carpenter, senior political science major and program director for Aggie Democrats, said he watched results come in to the local precinct office.
I and another girl were involved with the Judy LeUnes for Texas House District 14 campaign running against John Raney, Carpenter said. I was texting results back to Judy from the precinct office. Then we had a watch party at Wolfies to watch the national results come in.
As far as students are concerned, Carpenter said he thinks Obamas policies are good overall.
His policies are giving more student aid and promote making a stronger work force, Carpenter said. We have made a lot of progress in the last four years. Now this will guarantee the progress isnt going backwards.
Carpenter said he feels like Obamas reform of the student loan system was a very important policy that he put through that doesnt really get a lot of attention.
The economy was rated the top issue by about 60 percent of voters surveyed as they left their polling places. But more said former President George W. Bush bore responsibility for current circumstances than Obama did after nearly four years in office.
Unemployment stood at 7.9 percent on election day, higher than when Obama took office.
Other than the battlegrounds, big states were virtually ignored in the final months of the campaign. Romney wrote off New York, Illinois and California, while Obama made no attempt to carry Texas, much of the South or the Rocky Mountain region other than Colorado.
In a campaign that traversed contested Republican primaries last winter and spring, a pair of political conventions this summer and three presidential debates, Obama, Romney, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan spoke at hundreds of rallies, were serenaded by Bruce Springstein and Meat Loaf and washed down hamburgers, pizza, barbecue and burrito bowls.
Obama was elected the first black president in 2008, and four years later, Romney became the first Mormon to appear on a general election ballot. Yet one man’s race and the other’s religion were never major factors in this year’s campaign for the White House, a race dominated from the outset by the economy.
Carpenter thinks that another Obama administration will give Aggie Democrats energy for the next four years.
Andrew Bobo, second year master of public service and administration student at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, said he is not surprised by the outcome.
I followed [the election results] on CNN, Bobo said. It looked like the precincts reporting later were more heavily Democratic. It is disappointing, you wish you could hang out and wait, but I think it was the right time to call it.
In the wake of Superstorm Sandy and the allowance late voting in New York and New Jersey, Bobo said he does not think that accounting for later votes would have made a difference in the outcomes.
In regards to four more years of Obama-led policy decisions, Bobo said he thinks a lot of the policies were back-loaded and he doesnt foresee much change apart from legislation that has already passed.
A lot of the provisions of Obamacare wont take effect until his second term. And the fiscal cliff wont be resolved by then, Bobo said. We are basically at the same place we were when we started. I expect more of the same.