US Election 2012: President Obama's Victory By Numbers

President Obama's Election Victory By Numbers

Barack Obama has won re-election after he secured the 270 votes necessary to win the electoral college. Here are some other numbers that characterised election night 2012.

  • President Obama's victory was called by NBC News 12 minutes later than it was four years ago - the network called it at 11pm in 2008 and at 11:12pm in 2012.
  • Number of states Mitt Romney won that John McCain failed to win in 2008 (before Florida was called) - two.
  • Number of extra puppies Malia and Sasha will be getting now that their dad has won another presidential election - zero.
  • The first openly gay senator has been elected. Tammy Baldwin beat Republican Tommy Thompson for Wisconsin's open U.S. Senate.
  • The number of states HuffPost Pollster and the New York Times' Nate Silver correctly predicted - 50 out of 50.
  • President Obama campaigned for 582 days in total.
  • In total the campaigns spent £1.3 billion on the race for the White House.
  • The two candidates, their party committees and supporting interest groups ran 1,015,615 television ads from June 1 to Oct. 29.
  • Between them, Obama and Romney campaigned in Ohio 82 times, including one visit each to the capital Columbus on the final day of the campaign.
  • The number of times Barack Obama said "one nation" in his victory speech, once. The number of times Ed Mliband said "one nation" in his Labour conference speech: 42. Try harder Barack.
  • The amount of traffic The Huffington Post would have lost if Michelle Bachmann had lost her congressional seat - all of it. (h/t Ryan Grim)
  • 2016. What everyone will now start immediately talking about.

Are there more election by numbers we have missed? Let us know below.

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