Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Race tight as election night count goes to wire

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney smiles as he speaks to a U.S. Secret Service agent before boarding his plane in Bedford Mass., for Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney smiles as he speaks to a U.S. Secret Service agent before boarding his plane in Bedford Mass., for Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama calls out to people outside a campaign office in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, after a visit with volunteers on the morning of the 2012 election. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A long line of people waiting to vote winds through the Great Hall of the Purdue University Memorial Union Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, on campus in West Lafayette, Ind. After a grinding presidential campaign, Americans are heading into polling places across the country. (AP Photo/Journal & Courier, John Terhune)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and wife Ann Romney vote in Belmont, Mass., Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama visits with people outside a campaign office the morning of the 2012 election, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama won the reliably Democratic Northeast, and Republican Mitt Romney secured his Republican conservative base Tuesday night in a tense duel for the White House shadowed by a weak economy and high unemployment.

The critical battlegrounds with the key to victory were unsettled ? Virginia, Ohio and Florida among them ? with long lines in many locations after poll-close time.

Romney led in the national popular vote with 13 million votes, or 51 percent, to 12 million or 47 percent for Obama, with 10 percent of the precincts tallied.

Romney also held an early electoral vote advantage, 147-123, with 270 needed for victory, although he lost both his home state of Michigan and Massachusetts, where he served one term as governor.

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 bears responsibility for current circumstances than Obama does after nearly four years in office.

About 4 in 10 said the economy is on the mend, but more than that said it was stagnant or getting worse more than four years after the near-collapse of 2008. The survey was conducted for The Associated Press and a group of television networks.

Polls were still open in much of the country as the two rivals began claiming the spoils of a brawl of an election in a year in which the struggling economy put a crimp in the middle class dreams of millions.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-11-06-US-Election-Rdp/id-33079047943241ee8a75fa0b5cdbbf41

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