President Barack Obama will have four more years as President of the United States.  Obama crushed Republican rival Mitt Romney by a score of 303 electoral votes to 206.

President Obama reached the magic number of 270 electoral votes, the number a candidate needs to guarantee victory, relatively early in the night.  Obama’s campaigning in the “swing states” seems to have been very effective, considering he won the all of them other than North Carolina, which was still surprisingly close.  

Democrats also added to their seat lead in the Senate.  Prior to election day, they already had 53 Senate seats, two more than the 51 needed for a majority.  The Democrats now lead the Republicans by 12 seats in the Senate.  The Senate contains 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans.  The House of Representatives however remains firmly in Republican control.  It will be interesting in the coming months to see how Obama continues to deal with a congress who is controlled by two different parties.

—–Benjamin E. Tryon