Obama Wins Re-Election, Defeating Mitt Romney

Barack Obama has been elected to a second four-year term as president of the United States.

The Democrat from Illinois, and the nation’s first African-American president, pulled out a victory over Mitt Romney, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts.

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The race was predictably tight, and though Obama lost several of the swing states that he won in the last election, he held on to the vital electoral votes of Colorado, Ohio and Iowa, which put him over the 270 required to win another term, before Virginia and Florida were even called. NBC News and Fox News called the election, followed minutes later by CNN.

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The election returns a very different Obama to the White House compared to the one that first entered in January 2009.

After riding a wave of enthusiasm that crested during tough economic times in 2008, Obama has spent a difficult four years in office, overcoming Republican opposition to pass his signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and losing his Democratic majority in Congress to the Republican-affiliated Tea Party in the 2010 midterm elections.

President Barack Obama’s full victory speech below.