Barack Obama is the first president in more than five decades to win at least 51 percent of the national popular vote twice, according to a revised vote count in New York eight weeks after the Nov. 6 election.
State election officials submitted a final tally Dec. 31 that added about 400,000 votes, most of them from provisional ballots in the Democratic-stronghold of New York City that were counted late in part because of complications caused by Hurricane Sandy.
President Barack Obama is the first president to achieve the 51 percent mark in two elections since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, who did it in 1952 and 1956, and the first Democrat to do so since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four consecutive White House races. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama speaks to supporters in Chicago about his victory over Mitt Romney, the shared goals of Americans and the need for Republicans and Democrats to work together. (Source: Bloomberg)
The president nationally won 65.9 million votes -- or 51.1 percent -- against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who took 60.9 million votes and 47.2 percent of the total cast, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Obama is the first president to achieve the 51 percent mark in two elections since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, who did it in 1952 and 1956, and the first Democrat to do so sinceFranklin D. Roosevelt, who won four consecutive White House races. Roosevelt received 53.4 percent of the vote -- his lowest -- in his last race in 1944.
Obama, 51, benefited from political factors that included a lack of serious opposition for his party’s nomination or from well-known third-party challengers, and an absence of social unrest, scandal or foreign-policy disasters during his first term, Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University inWashington, said in an interview.
“Under the big picture, this was an entirely predictable election outcome,” Lichtman said.
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