President Obama beats Mitt Romney to get four more years in White House

   He struck the same note of unity two and a half hours later, when he spoke to his supporters and the nation from a boisterous rally in his hometown of Chicago.

“We are an American family and we rise and fall together as one nation and one people,” he said. “We know in our hearts that in the United States of America the best is yet to come.”

“Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. Our long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listed to you, I learned from you,” Obama said. “Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties.”

   Romney faced a glum crowd of supporters in Boston at 12:55 a.m. and offered his congratulations to Obama.

“I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters,” Romney said.

“This is a time of great challenges for America and I pray the President is successful in guiding our nation,” Romney said. “We look to Democrats and Republicans in government at all levels to put the people before politics.”

But Obama will have little time to celebrate as he returns to a gridlocked Washington after a bitter campaign that may have only hardened the partisan divide.

Both sides had settled in for a long Election Night, preparing to potentially wait days for an outcome. Instead, the night ended with surprising and decisive swiftness.

Early returns showed neck-and-neck contests in virtually every one of the nine battleground states. But they fell one after another, just as the polls predicted, almost all going for the President.

Romney lost his native Michigan and current home state of Massachusetts. Combined with his loss in Wisconsin, the birthplace of his running mate Paul Ryan, the GOP ticket became the first national ticket to lose both candidates’ home states since Democrats George McGovern and Sargent Shriver did in 1972.

Despite Obama’s decisive advantage in the Electoral College, the popular vote remained close. With 88% of the precincts reporting, at 2:49 a.m. Wednesday, Obama led Romney 50% to 49%, a margin of nearly 1.4 million votes.

The suspenseful and extraordinarily expensive election drew to a close as Americans — millions still recovering from the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Sandy — braved long lines at the polls to cast their votes.

For most, the nation’s massive debt and struggling economy remained at the forefront. Sixty percent of those questioned in exit polls called the the economy their No. 1 issue. But more said Bush was to blame for the current conditions rather than Obama.

Four years ago, Obama’s lofty oratory and this historic nature of his candidacy drew hundreds of thousands of people to rallies and inspired legions of new voters who helped capture several states that had been traditional GOP strongholds.

But Democrats’ enthusiasm was not nearly as high this time after many of the President’s promises were lost to Washington gridlock and his soaring rhetoric was weighed down by the burdens of office. He struggled to frame his major legislative accomplishments — in particular the national health care reform known as Obamacare — and his party took a beating in the 2010 midterm elections.

This time, Obama’s campaign was forced to wage a gritty, county-by-county fight. His team spent four years building an elaborate ground game that turned out a winning coalition that looked similar to the one that first carried him into office: women, young voters, African-Americans and, most especially, Latinos.

“I think that shows you how the demographic shifts in the party compositions that started in 2008 have grown bigger,” said Prof. Wendy Schiller of Brown University. “I don’t think you can be as white, male, and as conservative as the GOP was this year and still win a national election.”

The Obama campaign trotted out a team of indefatigable surrogates, including Vice President Biden and former President Bill Clinton, who criss-crossed the battlegrounds day after day. And they relentlessly promoted early voting — more than 30 million Americans cast their ballots before Election Day, including Obama himself.

The President is now the third consecutive incumbent to win a second term.

The bitterness that was evident throughout the race was clear even in the campaign’s final moments.

For more than an hour after the networks declared Obama the winner, Romney remained inside his headquarters, delaying what the math said was inevitable. Like his father before him, the failed White House bid likely ends Romney’s political career.

Ryan, however, won reelection to his House seat in Wisconsin.

The candidates, their parties and outside groups known as Super PACs spent $2.6 billion on the campaign, by far the most in history.

Confusion ran rampant at polling places in states ravaged by Superstorm Sandy and long lines of voters were reported in battlegrounds like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Both campaigns dispatched lawyers to scores of polling sites to help their supporters cast their ballots — and to gather information for potential lawsuits that could challenge the election’s outcome.

Touting his business experience, Romney pledged to jumpstart an economy that showed consistent, but small, growth during Obama’s first term.

A one-term governor from Massachusetts, Romney failed to capture the Republican nomination in 2008 but entered this year’s GOP primary sweepstakes as the early favorite. But the lengthy primary process, which at times resembled a circus sideshow featured carnival barkers like Herman Cain, Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann, was a harder slog than expected and left Romney bruised heading into a general election fight with Obama’s battle-hardened crew.

The incumbent’s team, based in Chicago rather than Washington, made the tactical decision to spend huge sums of campaign cash early to define Romney as a heartless corporate raider and flip-flopper.

Romney gained ground as a result of his strong performance in the first debate with Obama. But as Election Day neared, Romney’s momentum slowed — in part due to the superstorm.

As Sandy dominated news coverage, Obama took a break from the campaign trail to manage the federal government’s response to the storm, which allowed him to provide leadership in a time of crisis. Obama also sparked a bipartisan bromance with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who had been a top Romney surrogate.

“It was probably a little bit of a lot of things,” a senior Romney adviser told the Daily News. “And when we finally got our footing, along came Sandy.”