Roller-coaster campaign concludes with Tuesday's vote
November 6, 2012 -- Updated 1036 GMT (1836 HKT)
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The dead-even race reflects the nation's deep political chasm
- President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaign non-stop to the end
- Voters will decide if Obama gets re-elected or Romney wins the White House
- The candidates blend inspirational visions for the future with sharp attacks
In a contest reflecting the nation's deep political chasm, Obama and Romney ran dead even in final polls that hinted at a result rivaling some of the closest presidential elections in history.
The first polling results of the day in New Hampshire's Dixville Notch did nothing to change that notion. It was a tie.
Obama and Romney each received five votes.
The town in the state's
northeast corner has opened its polls shortly after midnight each
election day since 1960 - but Tuesday's draw was the first in its
history.
Tuesday's outcome will
influence the direction of a government and country facing chronic
federal deficits and debt as well as sluggish economic growth in the
wake of a devastating recession and financial industry collapse that
confronted Obama when he took office as the first African-American
president in January 2009.
Voters also will
determine the makeup of a new Congress, choosing all 435 members of the
House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 senators. Analysts expect
Republicans to maintain control of the House and Democrats to keep their
narrow advantage in the Senate.
No matter who wins the
presidency, the White House and Congress will face fresh pressure to
legislate a comprehensive deficit reduction deal that has been stymied
so far by intransigence on the issue of tax reform, with Republicans
refusing to consider any kind of tax increase while Obama and Democrats
insist on at least the wealthy paying a higher income tax rate.
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Despite the building
drama toward Election Day in the campaign expected to cost $2.6 billion,
much of the outcome already was known.
Only a handful of states were considered up for grabs and both candidates and their campaigns concluded an exhausting final sprint through them over the weekend and on Monday.
The barnstorming
amounted to a montage of Americana electioneering, with Obama and Romney
shouting themselves hoarse before boisterous crowds, joined by top
surrogates and star power such as Bruce Springsteen singing for Obama
and Kid Rock for Romney.
In their final speeches,
the candidates and their respective running mates -- Vice President Joe
Biden and GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin -- blended inspirational
visions for a better future with well-honed attacks in hopes of ensuring
their committed supporters actually cast ballots while trying to coax
votes from anyone still undecided.
Obama, Romney make final pitches
Obama briefly waxed
nostalgic at his first event on Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, referring
to Springsteen when he said: "I get to fly around with him on the last
day that I will ever campaign, so that's not a bad way to end things."
He cited accomplishments
of his first term, including ending the war in Iraq, winding down the
war in Afghanistan, passing health insurance and Wall Street reforms,
and ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that banned openly gay and
lesbian personnel from the military.
"I know what real change
looks like," the president said, referring to what he characterizes as
Romney's false claim of being an agent of needed change. "You've got
cause to believe me because you've seen me fight for it and you've seen
me deliver it. You have seen the scars on me to prove it. You have seen
the gray hair on my head to show you what it means to fight for change.
And you've been there with me. And after all we've been through together
we can't give up now because we've got more change to do."
Emotion overtook the president at the end of the day.
His eyes welled with
tears as he thanked the people "who've given so much to this campaign
over the years," during a stop in Des Moines, Iowa -- a place where his
first campaign gained an early foothold in his first run for the White
House.
"You took this campaign
and made it of your own and you organized yourselves block by block,
neighborhood by neighborhood, county by county, starting a movement that
spread across the country," Obama said wiping away away tears three
times as he talked.
In North Carolina, first
lady Michelle Obama exhorted voters to endure the expected long lines
to vote on Tuesday, telling a Charlotte crowd: "Once you are in that
line, do not get out. Don't get out. And the waits could be long. We
need you to wait it out."
For his part, Romney
called Obama's record one of underachievement and failure, telling a
cheering Virginia crowd at his second stop of the day that "almost every
measure he took hurt the economy, hurt fellow Americans."
At an earlier event in
Florida, Romney asked if people wanted four more years like the last
four, raising the specter of continuing gridlock in Washington and
adding that "unless we change course, we may be looking at another
recession."
He promised to repeal
the health care and Wall Street reforms of the Obama presidency and to
"limit government rather than limiting the dreams" of Americans.
"We have known many long
days and some short nights and now we are close. The door to a brighter
future is open. It is waiting for us. I need your vote. I need your
help. Walk with me. Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow," Romney said.
Romney also planned two Election Day stops to
continue campaigning until polls close. He'll visit Ohio -- considered
the most vital swing state with 18 electoral votes -- and Pennsylvania,
where Obama leads but the Romney campaign hopes for a late surge to grab
the 20 electoral votes available.
It takes 270 of the 538 total electoral votes to win the presidency.
While both campaigns
sought to project confidence in victory, the possibility loomed that
neither candidate will get more than 50% of total votes cast. In a less
likely but mathematically possible result, a tie in the Electoral
College could occur, which would set up a congressional vote to break
the deadlock.
As the challenger,
Romney sought to frame the election as a referendum on Obama's
presidency and to capitalize on his own background as multimillionaire
businessman by depicting himself as better able to handle economic
issues identified by voters as their biggest concern. His campaign stump
speech hammered Obama over high unemployment and what he called
excessive taxes and regulations that Romney said stifled faster growth.
Obama and his team
attacked Romney's politics and his background as a venture capitalist,
saying he would back policies favoring the wealthy over the middle class
and exacerbate the already widening income and opportunity disparity in
the country. The president wanted the race to come down to competing
visions for the future and his oft-repeated goal of restoring the
promise of the American dream of equal opportunity for all.
In particular, Obama
repeatedly noted he backed a taxpayer bailout that helped restore
General Motors and Chrysler while Romney opposed it. The issue resonated
in auto industry states like Michigan and Ohio, which was considered
the most significant of the battlegrounds in the final days of the race.
Campaign chess match
Aside from the policy
differences, the election amounted to a campaign chess match targeting
specific states and demographic groups as part of plan to create a path
to 270 electoral votes. Polling portrayed a race that hinged on the
social and democratic divides in American society, with Obama supported
most strongly by women, minorities and young respondents, while Romney
did better among wealthy and middle class white men, from senior
citizens down to 30 year olds.
In response, Obama
emphasized the anti-choice positions of Romney and conservatives on
abortion, their stance against gay rights and their opposition to
providing a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.
Re-election offered
Obama, 51, the chance to secure a two-term legacy and seek further
reforms he promised in his historic campaign of 2008 but was unable to
deliver in the first four years. In particular, he has made
comprehensive immigration reform a top target, as well as a deficit
reduction plan that ends tax breaks for income over $250,000.
However, the wave of
optimism that carried to him to victory in 2008 seemed muted four years
later, with former supporters angered by the failure to achieve the kind
of change in Washington they believed Obama had promised but failed to
deliver. Particular issues of discontent included Obama's expanded use
of unmanned drones to attack terrorist targets abroad, the lack of broad
immigration reform and the continued existence of the federal Defense
of Marriage Act that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
For Romney, a
multimillionaire businessman seeking to become the nation's first Mormon
president, the election concluded a six-year quest for the presidency
to achieve the office that his father -- former Michigan Gov. George
Romney -- briefly and unsuccessfully sought in 1968.
Mitt Romney also failed
in his first bid for the Republican nomination in 2008, then spent the
next two years preparing for a second run that began in 2011 with a
grueling primary campaign featuring a record 20 debates.
A former governor of
Massachusetts, he shifted to the right for the primary race to overcome a
broad field that included former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota,
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman and
businessman Herman Cain.
Romney, 65, declared
himself "severely" conservative and adopted stances against abortion,
gay marriage and a path to legal residency for undocumented immigrants
while also opposing higher tax rates as part of a deficit reduction
plan. His support remained steady -- though well below a majority --
throughout the primary campaign while opponents dropped out one by one
until Romney emerged as the winner and claimed the nomination at the GOP
convention in late August.
However, his campaign
endured a tough September, due in part to some unforced errors. A
secretly recorded video from a May fundraiser became public, showing
Romney referring to 47% of the country as dependent on government
handouts and therefore unreachable to him as a candidate.
When U.S. diplomatic
compounds came under attack on September 11, including an assault that
killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya,
Romney quickly issued a statement that was criticized for mistaken
information and seeking to politicize a sensitive national security
issue.
Then, in the first
presidential debate on October 3, Romney began an energetic shift back
to the political center and scored a clear victory over Obama by
presenting himself as more moderate than the right-wing zealot portrayed
by the president. He acknowledged the need for government regulation,
opposed deporting undocumented immigrants and generally backed Obama's
positions on the war in Afghanistan, the conflict in Syria and other
foreign policy matters.
Obama's lackluster
showing in the first debate contributed to an overwhelming consensus
among analysts and poll results that Romney carried the night, and he
began rising in the polls to erase what had been a consistent Obama lead
since the conventions a month earlier. Stronger performances by Obama
in the second and third debates began to slow Romney's momentum, though
the Romney team claimed a surge put states like Michigan and
Pennsylvania back in play. They were previously thought safe for the
president.
With polls tightening in
the final weeks, Romney or his surrogates heightened their attacks on
key issues, including a campaign ad that implied the auto bailout led to
shifting the production of iconic Chrysler Jeeps to China. The
automaker joined the Obama campaign in complaining that the ad was
misleading, and the president said it was intended to scare workers for
political gain.
Superstorm Sandy
However, the biggest
impact on the end of the campaign was Superstorm Sandy, which blasted
the East Coast from Maryland to Connecticut just over a week before
Election Day. Obama and Romney canceled campaign events, and the
president shifted to full emergency response mode as the storm and its
devastation dominated the national focus for much of the final full week
of campaigning.
An enduring image of the
aftermath was Obama touring the storm damage with New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie, a Republican and top surrogate for Romney. The image and
Christie's praise for Obama's handling of the crisis undermined a major
Romney argument that the president valued personal gain over the good of
the nation.
Final polls indicated
Obama inching ahead nationally and in most of the battleground states,
though the race remained too close to call.
"The hurricane is what
broke Romney's momentum," Haley Barbour, the former Republican governor
of Mississippi, told CNN on Sunday.
On the ground, record
numbers of voters cast early ballots as both sides boasted of ramped-up
organizations to identify and contact supporters. At the same time,
Democrats complained that Republican-led state governments passed
tighter voter registration laws in an effort to suppress minority
turnout.
Overall, the total cost of the election for president and Congress could
top a record-breaking $6 billion, according to the nonpartisan Center
for Responsive Politics. The figure covers spending from January 2011
through whatever totals emerge after Tuesday's election.
Outside groups accounted
for the biggest boost in spending, with independent organizations
dropping more than $970 million. The increase was largely related to the
2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for super PACs to
raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they did not
coordinate with the campaigns.
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