So Ohio, while highly competitive, wasn’t exactly the nail-biter it seemed to be early on Election Day. An unofficial count Nov. 6 had Obama up over Republican Mitt Romney by 2 points and 106,414 votes.

Obama’s 3-point win in Ohio, by 50.7 percent to 47.7 percent, exceeded George W. Bush’s margin of 2.1 points over John Kerry in Ohio in 2004, when the state clinched a second term for Bush. Obama won Ohio in 2008 by 4.6 points and 262,224 votes.

While Obama’s percentage fell by 0.8 points from 51.5 percent in 2008, he received a larger share of the vote in key population centers including Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and suburbs, and Franklin County, which takes in the state capital of Columbus and Ohio State University.

In Cuyahoga, the biggest county in the state, Obama rose to 69.4 percent of the vote from 68.9 percent in 2008. In Franklin, Ohio’s second-biggest county, Obama rose to 60.7 percent from 59.7 percent. More than one in five Franklin County residents is black.

Obama improved on his 2008 showing in Mahoning and Trumbull Counties, part of northeastern Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, where the unemployment rate fell to 7.9 percent in August from 13.3 percent in March 2010, Bloomberg News reported in late October.

In Hamilton County in and around Cincinnati, Obama won 52.5 percent of the vote compared with 53 percent in 2008.

Ohio was the third-closest state in the Nov. 6 election in terms of percentage-point margin of victory. Florida backed the president by less than 1 point and North Carolina went for Romney by 2 points.

Ohio’s vote to re-elect Obama marked the 13^th consecutive election in which the state sided with the White House winner, the longest streak in the nation.

Original post is Ohio Official: Obama by 3 Points, 166,214 Votes — 13-Election Streak by Political Capital.

The total is 24 electoral votes below the majority of 270 needed to win the White House.

These states include California, with the most electoral votes, 55, and New York, with 29 electoral votes. Both states backed President Barack Obama by more than 20 percentage points in the past two elections.

The list also includes New Hampshire (four electoral votes) and Wisconsin (10), which were two of the nine so-called swing states where Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney spent most of their time and money. Republicans also made a late stab at Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, though that state also voted Democratic on Nov. 6, the sixth straight election in which it has done so.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 246 by Political Capital.

Four days after the election in the biggest of all swing states, Florida has finished counting ballots.

President Barack Obama carried 50 percent of the vote.

Republican Mitt Romney won 49.1 percent.

With almost 8.5 million votes cast,  it came down to a difference of 73,858.

There’s little daylight between Obama, 4,236,032, and Romney, 4,162,174, in the Sunshine State.

Of course, the election was over days ago. The Florida victory — Obama’s second there — boosted the president’s electoral vote count to 332, compared with Romney’s 206. A total of 270 was needed to win the White House.

Florida also notes that no recount is needed, as the margin is outside 0.5 percent.

Which is a good thing, considering how long that might take.

Original post is Florida, Four Days Later: Obama by Political Capital.

Photograph by Edward Linsmier/Getty Images

President Barack Obama supporter and volunteer Helen Briley on Nov. 6, 2012 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Updated at 11 pm EST

With about eight million votes counted  in Florida — almost all the vote at 11 pm EST — President Barack Obama held about a half-percentage point edge over Republican Mitt Romney.

If it held, the president would repeat his 2008 victory in the biggest of all swing states.

Obama was winning in all the right places:

–Obama was leading Romney by more than 70,000 votes in Orlando’s Orange County — the president won it by nearly 90,000 in 2008.

– Obama was leading Romney by more than 30,000 votes in Tampa’s Hillsborough County — Obama won it by nearly 40,000 in 2008.

These are bellwether counties in the Sunshine State. Hillsborough has voted the way Florida has since the 1960s. Orange once voted Republican, but had leaned Democratic only  narrowly until Obama’s strong win there in 2008.

And in the biggest of Democratic-leaning counties, Miami-Dade County, which is more than 65 percent Hispanic, Obama’s 62.2 percent share of the vote was the best showing by a Democrat since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Obama won the state by 2.8 percent in 2008.

If the president were to carry it again tonight, the margin would be much thinner.

The same would hold true for Romney.

And can you spell recount?

Florida election law demands  a recount when the margin of victory is less than 0.5 percent.

Original post is Florida in Play: Razor-Thin Margin Favoring a Repeat for Obama by Political Capital.

Photograph by William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images

"We’re going to have clarity tonight,” says David Plouffe, Obama's chief election strategist.

“Our sense is, we’re going to have clarity tonight,” says David Plouffe, President Barack Obama’s chief election strategist.Plouffe, architect of the president’s first election campaign and a senior adviser in the re-election effort, predicts a fairly even break of the few undecided voters today. He also expects that independent voters will break Obama’s way, though not in the percentages won in 2008.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” today, Plouffe maintained that the president is holding leads in the key swing states of Ohio, Florida and Iowa, and that by sometime around midnight tonight the outcome of the 2012 presidential election should be clear.

Asked how the president refers to “the architect” of his first campaign these days, the author of “The Audacity to Win” replied: That will depend on the outcome of the vote tonight.

Original post is Obama’s Plouffe: `Clarity Tonight’ by Political Capital.

Neither slipped below 46 percent in four months of a campaign that has coursed through two nominating conventions, three nationally televised debates and one million TV ads.

On Election Day, the only poll that counts will be taken.

Watch it here, at Political Capital, where we’re tracking the final — one hopes — day of a contest that has cost $2 billion, counting the investments of the president and his Republican rival and the super-PACs backing their campaigns.

Romney has added two leave-no-stones-unturned campaign stops on Election Day — one in Cleveland, in the state that has been a must-win for any Republican claiming  the White House, the second in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t voted Republican since 1988 but which Romney hopes might help him expand his electoral map in a contest virtually tied in national polling.

After 10 days of a statistical tie in the ABC/Post track, with Obama and R0mney either dead-even among likely voters surveyed or running within one statistically insignificant point of each other, the poll broke 50 percent Obama, 47 percent Romney today.

“The difference between the candidates in the final weekend tally is right at the 2.5 percentage margin of sampling error for the final four-night sample of 2,345 likely voters,” the Washington Post’s Jennifer Lee writes. “This makes Obama’s being at plus three points over Romney an edge only by the slimmest of margins, well below conventional measures of statistical significance.”

That also is a measure of the potential popular vote.

Yet it is in a relatively few swing states that will determine the balance of votes in the Electoral College — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina — where the final poll will be cast.

Political Capital has brought a menu of data and perspective to the contests in these states, and the race nationally, since Spring.

Political Capital also is home to “Bloomberg by the Numbers. ”

Check in on Election Day, and election night, for the Number of the Year.

Original post is Obama-Romney: Breaking the Tie by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Goldman/AP Photo

Supporters spell out "Ohio" as they cheer for Mitt Romney on Nov. 2, 2012, in West Chester, Ohio.

Just when you thought the campaign was over, it’s not.

Republican  Mitt Romney, campaigning across five states today on the eve of the Nov. 6 presidential election, is adding two Election Day stops to his itinerary.

Romney plans another lap in Cleveland, Ohio, the state which has been essential to any Republican’s hopes of winning the White House.

And he will travel to Pittsburgh, in a state that has long been considered an easy win for President Barack Obama — no Republican has carried the heavily Democratic Pennsylvania since 1988. Romney is attempting to broaden his electoral base, with polls portraying a narrowing race in Pennsylvania. A surprise victory there could help offset a win for Obama in Ohio.

The former Massachusetts governor had planned to head home to Boston tonight to await the election results. The added Election Day appearances are a measure of leaving no stones un-turned in a race which national polls portray as a statistical tie.

Original post is Romney: One More Ohio Lap, Pennsylvania Push, on Election Day by Political Capital.

If Election Day promises the longest day of the 2012 campaign season, today offers a strong rival.

Republican Mitt Romney opened the final day of his pitch for the presidency with a morning campaign rally in Sanford, Florida, and four stops and four states later he will close with a rally near midnight in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“We need every vote,” Romney said in Sanford, a state in which the better independent polls have portrayed as a toss-up in the closing days of the campaign. “Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow.”

Obama closed Ohio last night with Stevie Wonder, and closed Virginia Saturday night with the Dave Matthews Band. This morning he was bringing Bruce Springsteen to Madison, Wisconsin — a defensive last stop in a state he has counted on winning — before taking “The Boss” along to rallies in Columbus, Ohio, this afternoon and Des Moines this evening.

Romney is closing with Kid Rock in Manchester tonight.

The get-out-the vote machinery is in full swing.

For Facebook followers who have asked to follow the campaigns, a message from Obama for America arrived this morning with instructions for finding one’s polling place.

It came with the photograph shwon above, which looks more like the president and first lady heading to a salsa dance than going to the polls — probably because they’ve already early-voted, like nearly 30 percent of all Americans surveyed.

 Lisa Lerer and Margaret Talev contributed.

Original post is Election Eve: Second Longest Day by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Voters cast their ballots as they participate in early voting on Nov. 2, 2012 at the Silver Spring Civic Building in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“Tight as a tick” — President Barack Obama’s words for how close the vote is in some of the battleground states that matter most.

The latest national polling portrays a virtual tie among likely voters divided between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney — 50 percent Obama, 47 percent Romney in the Pew Poll; 48 Obama, 47 Romney, at NBC News and the Wall Street Journal; 48 Obama, 47 Romney, at CBS and the New York Times; 48-48 in the daily tracking poll at ABC News and the Washington Post; 46-46 at Fox News.

Yet it is those relative few swing states that will deliver the Electoral College victory of 270 votes. And, on the eve of Election Day 2012, there are more ticks than butterflies in the swing state surveys (and it’s worth noting that these are all states that Obama won in 2008):

OHIO: A must-win for any Republican who has ever won the White House. Without it, Romney would have to cobble another path to victory. It’s Obama 50, Romney 48, in the Columbus Dispatch poll run through Sunday. It was Obama 51, Romney 45, in the last NBC, Wall Street Journal poll through Nov. 1.

FLORIDA: One of the states Romney must win to make an Electoral College majority a reality, not so essential for Obama, who won it in 2008 by 2.8 percentage points. The NBC, Wall Street Journal survey run through Nov. 1 showed Obama at 49 percent, Romney 47. A Mason-Dixon poll run for the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald over the same time period: Romney 51, Obama 45.

VIRGINIA: Another state that Romney needs to overcome the Electoral College advantage Obama has in most pre-election surveys. It is 48 Obama percent, 47 Romney, in the NBC, Wall Street Journal poll out this morning, run through Nov. 2.

IOWA: Another state that Romney has hoped to capture. It is Obama 47 percent, 42 Romney, in the Des Moines Register poll released Saturday night. This is one of the most accurate state polls in the nation.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: This is where Romney’s roll begins on election night, if he rolls. The WMUR, University of New Hampshire poll showed Obama at 51 percent, Romney 48, in a survey run through Sunday. NBC and the Wall Street Journal, working with Marist College, found 49 for Obama, 47 Romney, through Oct. 29.

COLORADO: Another cornerstone of Romney’s formula for unseating Obama, particularly if the president holds Ohio. The Denver Post reports it’s Obama 47 percent, Romney 45, in a survey run through Halloween. CNN Opinion Research found Obama 50, Romney 48, through the same time frame.

If accurate, it all adds up to a potentially long election night.

Original post is `Tight’ Swing States, Long Night? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jeff Roberson/AP Photo

Sen. Claire McCaskill steps off her campaign bus to speak to the media outside Bayless Elementary School, on Oct. 31, 2012, in St. Louis County, Mo.

With Greg Giroux and Emma Fidel

President Barack Obama put it succinctly in 2010: the Democrats suffered a “shellacking” in the mid-terms, and he took the blame.

Republicans won a net gain of 63 seats in the House, their biggest since 1938. The Republican Party is expected to keep control of the House this cycle, with analysts predicting Democrats will end up short of a majority by at least a dozen seats (they would need a net gain of 25 seats to reach a 218-seat majority).

But what about the Senate?

Republicans picked up a net gain of six seats in 2010′s smack-down, which led to great optimism about their chances to take back control of the chamber in this cycle. After all, on Nov. 6 Democrats have to defend 23 of the 33 seats up for grabs. But then 2012 happened. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine said she’d had enough. Sen. Dick Lugar lost in his primary to Indiana’s Richard Mourdock. Then Mourdock joined Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri by jumping head first into controversy with his comments about rape. Just a few of the simple reminders that you don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.

Democrats now control 53 seats. Republicans need a net gain of four to take control of the Senate if Obama wins re-election, three if Republican Mitt Romney is elected – since his vice president would break any ties. Take a look at the key Senate races to watch on Tuesday – and just how close several of them are – and decide for yourself who is likely to control the Senate after Nov. 6.

1. Arizona, Carmona v. Flake

Republican Jeff Flake, a six-term congressman and reformer from the 6th district, is facing Democrat Richard Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General under President George W. Bush and a decorated Vietnam War vet. The increasingly bitter race – with numerous ads each side has dismissed as false – is over the open seat of retiring Republican Sen. Jon Kyl. One recent poll has shown Flake leading, while others show Carmona in the lead, resulting in pundits predicting it may be the closest Senate race the state has seen in decades. Even support from heavy-hitters – Romney and Sens .John McCain and Kyl for Flake, and Bill Clinton and Robert Redford for Carmona – hasn’t translated into a definitive lead for either candidate. Throw in a possible spoiler, Libertarian Marc Victor, and the race remains too close to call.

2. Connecticut, McMahon v. Murphy

Connecticut hasn’t chosen a Republican senator in more than 30 years, and has never had a female senator. With former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon inching closer to Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy in the polls, the battle for Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s seat has become another race to watch. As if that weren’t dramatic enough, Murphy is hitting McMahon by painting her as someone who “demeaned women” at WWE and sides “with the most extreme Republicans to deny women health care.” McMahon, who lost her first Senate bid in 2010, has called Murphy’s accusations “totally false” and “pretty desperate,” and defended WWE’s health policies. The state recently moved into the “tossup” column from “leans blue” on Cook Political Report.

3. Indiana, Donnelly v. Mourdock

Indiana is a Republican-leaning state where the unexpectedly close Senate race is giving party strategists some heartburn. Sen. Richard Lugar would have been a near-prohibitive favorite over Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, who was given the gift of a Lugar loss to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the spring primary. Then during an Oct. 23 televised debate, Mourdock created a controversy as well as an unexpected opening for Donnelly, saying a pregnancy as a result of rape is “something God intended.” Days before, Romney had cut a television ad for Mourdock; he has stood by his support for the candidate. With Obama likely to lose Indiana, Democrats are arguing Mourdock’s views are out of step with the state while Republicans are doing everything they can to tie Donnelly to the administration.

4. Maine, Dill v. King v. Summers

Republican Olympia Snowe’s unexpected retirement announcement in February spawned a competitive race with three candidates. The favorite is Angus King, the state’s independent governor from 1995 to 2003, who bemoans partisan strife in today’s Senate. Republican groups backing Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers have attacked King, a sign that they expect him to caucus with Senate Democrats if he wins. A Republican super-PAC has even run ads praising the Democratic nominee, state Sen. Cynthia Dill, who’s running a distant third in polls that show most Democrats backing King. Republicans want enough Democrats to shift to Dill from King to allow Summers to win with a plurality. According to Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average, King is maintaining a comfortable lead in polls.

5. Massachusetts, Brown v. Warren

Character attacks and race-fueled controversies are defining this closely-followed and unusually expensive Massachusetts race. Republican incumbent Scott Brown is up against Democrat Elizabeth Warren for the late Sen.Ted Kennedy’s seat. Brown, a former state lawmaker, has questioned Warren’s claims of Native American heritage and consumer advocacy, saying she was a “hired gun” for corporations. Warren, a Harvard Law professor, has defended her background and fired back at Brown, arguing that his record does not support his claims of bipartisanism. While Brown led in polls through the summer, the state is now leaning toward Warren by a few points in most polls.

6. Missouri, Akin v. McCaskill

Two words effectively scuttled Akin’s campaign to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill, who had been one of the most vulnerable senators seeking re-election this year. Akin told a Missouri television interviewer in August that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy, igniting a storm of criticism and making him a pariah to high-profile party leaders, as well as national Republican groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups, which then declined to spend any money on his behalf. However, the source of a several hundred thousand dollar, last-minute ad buy in the state benefitting Akin hasn’t been disclosed. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has called on the NRSC to disclose if they funded the ads.

Akin may keep it close, given Missouri’s Republican lean in presidential elections, though it’s hard to see a path to victory for him with McCaskill now favored to keep the seat. But her campaign isn’t taking any chances, airing television ads and releasing statements attacking Akin for some of his more controversial votes.

7. Montana, Rehberg v. Tester

Jon Tester is the most vulnerable Democratic senator, partly because he’s sharing a ballot in a year when Obama is likely to lose Montana. Tester also has an experienced and determined Republican opponent in Denny Rehberg, who’s represented Montana’s at-large district for a dozen years and was lieutenant governor and a Senate candidate before that. Rehberg has regularly attacked Tester for siding too frequently with Obama administration initiatives, including on the 2010 health-care law. Tester says Rehberg backs a “voucher” system to overhaul Medicare. The candidates and outside groups have aired ads tens of thousands of times in Montana, where it isn’t prohibitively expensive to campaign. RCP polling average has the two men virtually tied.

8. Nevada, Berkley v. Heller

In one of the most contentious races this year, Dean Heller and allied Republican groups have attacked Shelly Berkley’s ethical behavior and her vote for the 2010 health-care overhaul, while the congresswoman has been critical of the senator’s votes for a budget blueprint proposed by Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan that would overhaul Medicare. Heller and Berkley, who served together in the House, are competing for the attention of voters bombarded from messages from Obama and Romney, who are campaigning full-bore in the this swing state. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who’s built up a formidable political network in Nevada over the past few decades, has an interest in helping Berkley win that is both parochial and political, as the outcome will help determine whether he keeps his title as the top-ranking senator.

9. North Dakota, Berg v. Heitkamp

That Democrats have a 50-50 shot of keeping retiring Democrat Kent Conrad’s seat in North Dakota, a state likely to vote Republican for president for the 12th straight election, is testimony to how candidate quality matters. Even Republican strategists acknowledge that Heidi Heitkamp, the state’s former Attorney General and a breast cancer survivor, is a popular figure in North Dakota, and she’s currently leading in polls by a few points. She’s run ads emphasizing her independence, saying she breaks with Obama to support a balanced-budget amendment and the Keystone XL oil pipeline and to oppose a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions. The Republican nominee, one-term at-large Representative Rick Berg, is trying to link her to Obama and his 2010 health-care overhaul.

10. Ohio, Brown v. Mandel

Ohio is once again in the national spotlight as a swing state, and probable decider in the presidential race – and is inundated with television ads by as many as 89 outside groups, including many that hide the identities of their donors. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is the overwhelming target, being accused in many of those ads of joining Obama in waging a “war on coal.” This spending has helped to give a boost to Brown’s opponent, State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who has raised $14.5 million to Brown’s $20.5 million, but outside spending has favored Mandel about 4 to 1. Most polls, though, show an edge for Brown in the race.

11. Virginia, Allen v. Kaine

In this battle between former governors, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen are running an unusual race. The two Virginians both left office with high approval ratings, both have messages on the economy and government that are almost identical to their parties’ presidential candidates’ and both had polled at about 46 percent – that is, until Kaine jumped up to 53 percent last month, according to a Washington Post poll. However, like the presidential race, the polls have tightened recently to within a point, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average. The Virginia Senate seat may be decided by a small percentage of independent voters and by Republicans’ ability to win over female voters, again mirroring the presidential race in the state.

12. Wisconsin, Baldwin v. Thompson

A generation separates Tommy Thompson, who turns 71 on Nov. 19, from Rep. Tammy Baldwin, 50. Thompson is one of Wisconsin’s most enduring politicians, with political service dating to the mid-1960s and including a 14-year run as governor. Yet he hasn’t appeared on a Wisconsin ballot since 1998, when Baldwin was first elected to Congress, and he made a short-lived bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Democrats have attacked Thompson’s work as a lobbyist since leaving political life. Republicans say Baldwin’s voting record is too party-line even for Wisconsin. Polls have Baldwin up by a few points, and if she wins, she would become the first lesbian ever elected to the Senate.

Original post is Senate Races to Watch Tuesday by Political Capital.