Two crucial swing states took their time in reporting their voting results Tuesday night as the national waited anxiously to find out the winner of the presidential election race between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Virginia and Florida each had incredible voter turnouts, causing results to take a relatively long time to come out.
In Florida, the race between Obama and Romney was so close that the state's 29 electoral votes were not granted to either candidate. With a 100 percent of the votes counted, Florida leaned left giving Obama 49.9 percent of the votes and Romney 49.3 percent of the votes. The Florida popular vote was also closely divided, with Obama taking 4,143,362 popular votes and Romney taking 4,096,346 votes.
Republicans in Florida also lost the state's Senate race, with Senate candidate Connie Mack losing to Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, 42.3 percent to 55.1 percent. Republicans fared slightly better in Florida's House of Representatives race, taking 17 out of the 27 seats available.
The candidates faced another tight race in the southern state of Virginia, although Obama ultimately took the commonwealth's 13 electoral votes. With 99.9 percent of the votes counted, Virginia went blue giving Obama 50.8 percent of the votes and Romney 47.8 percent of the votes. Like Florida, the popular vote in Virginia was closely divided, with Obama claiming 1,885,188 votes and Romney claiming 1,772,304 votes.
Democrats also fared well in Virginia's Senate race. Tim Kaine defeated Republican Senate candidate George F. Allen, 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent. However, Democrats did not fare well in the commonwealth's House of Representatives race, taking only three of the eleven seats available.
Despite the long wait for the results of Florida and Virginia, President Barack Obama was able to pull off an outstanding win over Mitt Romney by taking 303 electoral votes to Romney's 206.
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