2012 Election Day: Obama Wins Second Term

UPDATE 11:20: The networks have announced that Barack Obama will be reelected to a second term, after wrapping up the state of Ohio.

The 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will finally conclude tonight, as voters head to their local polls to choose who gets to sleep in the White House on January 20, 2013. We’ll be following all the results very closely, adding the latest news as states close their polls and announce their winners.

Watch this post for updated information—election results, Senate races, ballot measures, battleground-state news—throughout the night:

After the 11 p.m. poll closings, here’s what we know:

• Obama wins: Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, California, Washington, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Washington (D.C.), Vermont
• Romney wins: North Carolina, Missouri, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, West Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana
• Too close to call at this time: Florida, Virginia

Other news:

• Virginia Senate: Democrat Tim Kaine has defeated Republican George Allen
• Indiana Senate: Democrat Joe Donnelly has defeated Republican Richard Mourdock
• Missouri Senate: Democrat Claire McCaskill has defeated Republican Todd Akin
• Massachusetts Senate: Democrat Elizabeth Warren has defeated Republican Scott Brown
• Connecticut Senate: Democrat Chris Murphy has defeated Republican Linda McMahon
• 10 biggest Senate races to watch tonight: Indiana, Connecticut, Virginia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Arizona, Wisconsin, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada [Guardian]
• Key ballot measures up for a vote tonight [Washington Post]
• An exhaustive list of predictions by pundits [NY Mag]
• Michigan voter appears to die, comes back to life, asks, “Did I vote?” [Detroit News]
• If vote totals are particularly close in Ohio, we may not know the winner in the Buckeye State—or nationwide—for several weeks. [New York Times]
• One electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania was changing Obama votes to Romney votes. The machine has been removed from use. [TheFW]
• The top of the Empire State Building will add blue lights (Obama) and red lights (Romney) as each candidate gets closer to the required 270 electoral votes. [CNN]
• In the very first official election returns, the town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, showed a tie: five votes each for Obama and Romney. The town has correctly picked the presidential winner in each of the last three cycles. [CNN]

Polls start closing at 6 p.m. and continue to do so every half hour or so across the country. Some states are almost certain to go for one particular candidate or the other, so we’ll be more closely watching the returns on swing states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia. There’s no telling when those states will be able to declare their winner, but we’ll keep an eye on things and post the results here as soon as we can.

We will fill in the map at the bottom of this post as each state releases its final numbers or the news networks decide enough information is available to make a call either for Obama or Romney.