Washington: Winning four more years in the White House on the cusp of a late surge from his support base, President Barack Obama on Wednesday scored a narrow yet decisive victory over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Emerging triumphant from a long, contentious and expensive election battle that cost the two campaigns a billion dollars each, Obama celebrated his re-election in the early hours of Wednesday with a call for unity.
“We are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation,” he told supporters at his campaign headquarters in his hometown of Chicago after walking on stage with his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha to tumultuous cheers.
“While our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come,” he added.
Buoyed by a slowly but surely recovering economy and a display of cool leadership during Superstorm Sandy, Obama surpassed the decisive 270-vote threshold in the Electoral College around 11:20 a.m. with a victory in the crucial battle ground state of Ohio.
That and a later projected victory in another swing state — Virginia — gave him 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney, according to the CNN call based on unofficial returns making his path to victory look much easier than the cliffhanger than the opinion polls promised it to be.
The much smaller 50-48 percent gap in the popular vote between the two contenders reflected better the dead heat race that most polls leading up to the election had projected it to be.
In Boston, his rival Romney in a brief speech that he delivered alone too gave a similar call for unity, saying: “At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing.” Romney congratulated Obama and said his prayers would be with Obama. (Agencies)