Barack Obama Reelected President

Update 10:04 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7 - With all Virginia precincts finally reporting, President Barack Obama received 1,868,191 votes from Virginia voters, according to final but unofficial data from the Virginia State Board of Elections. That's 50.57 percent of the vote. 

Gov. Mitt Romney received 1,767,692 votes, or 47.85 percent. The three third-party candidates on the ballot received a combined 1.42 percent of votes, and write-in candidates the remainder.

The race was too close late Tuesday night, even hours after multiple national news outlets called the race nationally.

-------------  

Original post, Tuesday, Nov. 6 updated 2 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were re-elected Tuesday night, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney and his vice presidential running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

NBC News called the presidential election for Obama around 11:15 p.m. EST. The president sent a message on Twitter at 10:14 p.m. saying simply, "This happened because of you. Thank you."

The Obama campaign won the most expensive presidential race ever, with both parties raising about $2.6 billion. The race was filled with negative campaigning on both sides, from President Obama attacking Romney’s business experience with Bain Capital to Romney lambasting Obama’s handling of the economy.

The race tightened during the final months of the campaign, with gaffes and surges from both candidates. After a weak performance after the Republican Convention, Romney surged following Obama’s listless performance after the first presidential debate. Nevertheless, the president cemented a lead in battleground states heading into Tuesday’s election.

Virginia Leaning Heavily Toward Obama

Long after the presidential race nationally had been called by dozens of media outlets, Virginia's outcome remained uncertain.

As of 11:45 p.m. Tuesday with more than 94 percent of precincts reporting across Virginia, only about 50,000 votes separated the two with Obama leading. By 12:15 p.m., Obama's lead had grown to almost 60,000 votes in Virginia. And by 1:15 a.m. — just before Obama took the stage in Chicago for his acceptance speech — Obama's lead was more than 67,000.

In the 2008 presidential election, the state voted for the Democratic candidate, and since the 1990s has voted for the overall winner of the presidential race 3 out of 5 times.

Romney and Obama campaigned aggressively in Virginia. The state has typically been a Republican stronghold in recent presidential elections. 

The economy was a key issue for many voters in the state, as was defense and military policies.

Areas like Loudoun and Prince William Counties — outer suburbs between the Red rural areas and Blue urban centers — will be major players this year. Both presidential candidates have made several visits to those areas this year.

“Elections in Virginia are all about the outer ring suburbs,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington.

There are five candidates for president on the Virginia ballot. Obama and Romney, plus .

Throughout the night, we'll break down how each candidate fared in Patch towns and counties across Virginia.

These results are as of 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 7 and are based on final but unofficial returns from the Virginia State Board of Election. At that point, 2,528 of Virginia's 2,588 precincts had reported results. It does not include some absentee, provisional or write-in numbers.

For more information on the candidates and their visits to Virginia, click on the elections tab at the top of this page. 

Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story, we had Jill Stein's first name incorrect. We apologize for the error.