President Barack Obama has been reelected Tuesday in a hard-fought battle with Mitt Romney, after winning in key states like Ohio.
With results in from most states, America's first black president has secured the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to win the race.
Obama won in the swing states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. He also repeated his 2008 victory in Virginia and carried the heavily Democratic West Coast and Northeast, as well as Illinois, Maryland and Hawaii.
With Florida still too close to call, Obama has won 303 electoral votes to Romney's 203.
Meanwhile, Romney won North Carolina and Indiana back from Obama, who had carried those states in 2008. Romney lost the states of Massachusetts and Wisconsin making it the first major party ticket to lose their home states since Democrats George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in the 1972 Nixon landslide.
For Obama, 51, gaining a second term during a weak economic recovery proved even more difficult than his historic selection as the nation's first African American president four years ago.
Obama's re-election victory came despite lingering high employment - 7.9 percent on election day - and tepid economic growth.
