second weather front in a week's time. tomorrow the coverage continues. and really in a short time on "today," i'm brian williams, nbc news, new york. thank you so much for being with usfo ♪ >> tonight in this election, you, the american people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves off. we have fought our way back, and

we know in our hearts that for the united states of america, the best is yet to come. >> barack obama, re-elected president of the united states, battling through questions about the state of the economy to deal a solid electoral college defeat to mitt romney. >> this is a time of great challenges for america and i pray that the president will be skezful in guiding our nation. . >> great to have you with me. welcome to our continuing special coverage. election night 2012. the story of the night what was expected to be a battle for the battleground states turned out to be a one-sided affair with the president sweeping so many important states. it did come down to ohio which put the president over the magic number of 270 electoral votes.

virginia, that was a state the romney campaign was hoping would be called early for them. and just moments ago, nevada was finally called in favor of president obama. florida was another state mitt romney was counting on going his way. at this hour it is still the only state that is still too close to call. colorado went to president obama. ohio made up what was known as president obama's midwest firewall also went his way. wisconsin was an early call of the night which gave an indication of what direction we were headed. and that captured that. new hampshire, another battleground state also going in the favor of the president once again. another swing state, north carolina which voted for the president back in '08, turned to

the republicans this time around. what kind of congress will the president be dealing with? one very similar to the one he has already had over the last two years. democrats will still hold on to control in the senate and pick up a couple of seats. republicans are expected to hold on to the majority in the house. president obama will be returning this afternoon to the white house after a late night for both him and mitt romney. chris jansing is life for us in boston but we begin with nbc political analyst live at obama headquarters in chicago. it was a huge night for the president, monumental as we heard in his speech. how will history in reflection remember this very long campaign? >> well, you know, this was a validation of what the democratic party has stood for over really the last, you know, 75 years.

the skountry was at a fork in the road and if president obama has been defeated, much of what he accomplished in his first term would have been repealed and the country would have moved sharply to the right. the election defended the center. we will get to work on some problem solving, bipartisan problem solving from the center instead of having the right wing and republican party steering the course. >> did the president's speech set up what we can expect in terms of him getting back to work? did it make the broad jesttures that are needed? people getting work work back in washington d.c.? >> i think this speech did have a generosity spirit as did mitt romney's. mitch mcconnel's statement was very peptic, beyond fiesty

almost to the point of being confrontational. as said in the god father, this is the business he has chosen. president obama will have to deal with mcconnel and john boehner, he will continue to have a majority in the senate. but we will have to work across the aisle. but what this election did is it gave him some new tools, not a mandate. that's too sweeping of an idea. but leverage in a budget talks and a strong hand when it came to immigration reform. if it doesn't start to appeal to latinos, it is doomed as a prty. you can expect new corporation from republicans. >> jonathan, thanks so much. let's check in with chris jansing. she is with the romney campaign. a very graceful but short

concession speech, chris, and obviously the crowd has not been sticking around too much longer after that. >> no, you can see now this ballroom is pretty much empty. seven years at mitt romney's quest for the presidency began, it ended here with the short five-minute concession speech. it really is amazing what a difference 24 hours makes. we know from all the reports inside the campaign that mitt romney came in believing that he could and would be the next president of the united states and in fact, in spite of all the predictions that his road was so much more difficult, they kept looking at what they saw as enthusiasm in those battleground states. in the end he won only one of them, north carolina. he won 24 states overall. and at the end of what was clearly a very acrimonious campaign, mitt romney called for

unity. here he was last night. >> the nation was at a critical point. we can't risk partisan bickering and political partisanship. we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. we look to democrats and republicans in government at all levels to put the people before the politics. i believe in america. i believe in the people of america. >> although he got an ovation, people left here quickly. we saw some of them out in the lobby in tears. but i think they had quite a bit of time to prepare themselves. it became pretty clear not too late into the night the way this was going to go. mitt romney and his family decided to go a few blocks from

here. they are staying at a hotel tonight. they have a home just about ten miles away in massachusetts. one more thing, thomas. he had said if he was going to be the new president he would get a new dog. at this point we don't know whether or not he plans to do that or what mitt romney's plans are from here. >> msnbc contributor and correspondent, editor at large, contributor and president and ceo of voto latino and former national communications director for the rick santorum campaign as well as the managing editor. gang. it's great to have you here. you're all the way over there on my right.

your reaction to this? the polls gave the indication of what we were to expect going into tonight but it's more definiti definitive. >> it's over 300 electoral votes. it's a strong endorsement of barack obama when typically they fail to build any type of majority to pick up on one thing, something that republicans will be talking about for a long time to come, mitt romney did something that a lot of people didn't expect. he did worse among latinos than john mccain. we now know that mitt romney lost by 40 points. tournt was up from 8% to 10%. one out of every ten voters and growing. some of the policies we heard

from the republican party and a big question from them is how we can get back on the side of a growing voting block and not be denigrating people. >> both sides have been spinning all over the polls leading up to this. where do you think the romney campaign and their teams lost any of the traction that they received after the first debate? because there is proof that they got traction out of that. where did they go off course? >> they will be blaming hurricane sandy for a lot of things. you will hear them blame chris christie. i think sandy played a roll but not in the way that they think. i think it was because it was like one long obama commercial. we take care of our own. it sounded the theme of america coming together. government can do something. we need one another. and the president rose to the occasion. we saw in exit polls that it really mattered to people. i think it was two thirds in the

"new york times" exit polls. 70% of them went for the president. it was the icing on the cake because it also showed this is a mandate for more government. good government, strong government but more government. >> the president and his team know how tight this was, but the president in his victory speech talked about his trat tgratitud this. >> no matter what you do or where you go from here you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the lifelong appreciation of a grateful president. thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley. you lifted me up the whole way, and i will always be grateful for everything that you have

done and all the incredible work that you have put in. >> when we hear that and knowing that we point out just how close this was. there was the mandate definitively who the winner is. but the president knows what got him there is going be the fact that he reached out to latinos and women. that was a real collective in effort and surgical communities to be able to get the enthusiasm to get out the vote. >> i love that. i think it's time for america to realize welcome to the new majority. it is asians, gays, blacks, latinos. and i think single women came out in droves. we're going to see in order for the republican party to win any election they will have to have a come to jesus moment and say

how are we going diversify? how will we hit it home. >> a come to jesus moment. >> sharpening your spanish. >> you worked with rick santorum in the primary and as we have seen tonight for a lot of the republicans certainly in different races and we will talk about them a little bit more, especially the akins and the murdochs who did not win. but does the gop need to regroup and redefine itself about what it means going forward? time to try to get out of uteruses and get out of the business of gay and lesbian anti-policies and focus on what really matters to them. if it is really about smaller government, less taxes, get back on track with that. >> it's obvious. i think the fact that stood out to me the most and we have

touched on it somewhat. george h.w. bush got 60% of the white vote and got 400 electoral votes. romney got the same percent but got crushed. if republicans don't understand that we have got address the issues and problems within the party this is going to be a common occurrence for decades. i did work for santorum and i also worked for mike hukaby. i asked him how he did that. and he said to me, and this is a southern thing. if jimmy were sitting here he would approve. >> too far away. >> but he said look, no one has ever caught a fish sitting on

their couch talking about fishing. he did it all the time. he courted those groups of people. and he did things as governor to bolster those communities. that's something we didn't see in this campaign at all. i don't think the romney campaign reached out much to the latinos or any other subset. they figured the white vote would carry the day and obviously those times are long gone. >> let's go ahead and tell you what we know about this senate race. the race is going to go to senator dean heller. dean hellor is going be the winner there. we're back with much more. gep we

>> i want to thank every american who participated in this election. whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time -- by the way,

we have got to fix that. [ applause ] >> good to have you with me. we're going to talk more about what we witnessed. history being made as president obama is re-elected to a second term in this country. i want to bring back our entire panel. i want to talk more about what we're watching in florida. and still it's pretty amazing to think that florida is still too close to call basically. that we don't know what the numbers will reflect. it's unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, kind of unheard of. >> this is going be the second election psychle in a row where florida is not decisive. i think florida is maybe throwing a temper tantrum and trying to get attention back from ohio. >> you're calling florida the

january brady of modern day politics? >> ohio ho. >> ohio ohio ohio. >> it was a crisis of kpen tency. miami dade just had virtual chaos. there were stories of in the 27thnth precinct they ran out of ballots at about 11:00 this morning and the ballots didn't get there until almost 7:00 p.m. meaning that people gave up and got out of lines. you had lines snaking around buildings and endless wait times. people were still voting up to 10, 10:30. it was just insane. and a lot of it was lack of kpen t competency by election

officials. a lot of the vote that would have happened then was crammed into election day. we had time to speak on monday about this and the problems that happened on monday. >> the super visor of elections saw that there were so many people who wanted extra time to vote and opened up early absentee ballot voting. but where that office is, the main office is is in an area that is predominantly republican community. and up to 31 miles away from african-american communities. so you have a lot of people saying our voters could not get there and it is unfair. >> president obama's re-election

may have come down to key voting demographics. al alex witt is joining us. >> let's take a look just how the president won re-election. some said his challenge would be to avoid a big loss among white voters. it looks like it is exactly what he did. the president got 43% of the white vote in 2008. a lot less than his opponent but still enough to win. let's look here at 2012. you will see what happened here. not far off. 40% of the white vote. he matched performance among non-whites. however, let's look at another graphic. he benefitted from the gender gap. his edge among women? look at that. a 12 point edge.

also important was the youth vote. 60% voting for him. down a little from four years ago. >> we will talk about shortly. let's talk more about the numbers that alex was demonstrating, dig into the race issue as well and president obama being able to get the numbers that we needed. it was not the turn-out that we saw in '08 but still monumental. >> no question about it. the unfortunate truth is that president obama had multiple paths to victory yesterday evening. the reason why is that the democrats understand that quite frankly the 21st century campaign recognizes that america is getting browner and browner and browner.

that's what the republican party needs to do. the mathematicians, i'm one of those individuals and the individuals who kind of say you know what? let us be ronald reagan or barry gold water and let us speak to our conservative values and the truth will set us free. but numbers simply do not add up. you need to speak to brown people and come up with policies. that's the conversation that republicans will have starting in about five minutes from now. >> the gender gap that we saw. obviously an earlier polling there was a wider gap. it looked a lightle tighter as we got closer. women had a candidate of choice. i think that the campaign put a

lot into reaching them on many different levels. just to go back to race, the other thing that has happened here is that president obama did have that mid western firewall. and the people who really came out for them there were white working class women. he put together an economic populas message as well as a message of freedom. issues like contraception are not just lifestyle issues but also economic issues. the president's message wound up being really consistent and able to reach a lot of different groups at the same time. >> i spoke to an obama official today who didn't want to go on record discussing the racial separation issues but what they did say not for at bugs was look, this is the break down that any white incouple pant

visit wouls also face. the party goes back to lbj. having said that it is true that this share of the white vote is lower than any democratic candidate has gotten back to 2000. so the big question is do they want to continue to traffic in that and polarize that will not benefit them or back out of that? the share of young voters increased. all the talk about enthusiasm, there were more young people voting. >> a great segue. it was a huge night for marriage equality. same-sex marriage measures pazed by popular vote. >> in maine, voters created the

right to have marriage equality in that state. and in maryland it has also passed a referendum upholding marriage equality. the same is true for washington state. then there were votes to ban same-sex marriage and in doing so they would amend their constitution. we're keeping a very close eye on what's taking place on there. people across the country have struck it down 32 different times. we all remember what happened in '08, with proposition eight in california. only six other state and washington d.c. have legislated marriage equality. my panel have all turned. but we got take a quick break.

don't go anywhere. you are watching the place for politics and they all have something to say about marriage equality, as do i but i

>> i want to thank my friend and partner the last four years, america's happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, joe biden. >> welcome back, everybody. it is 3:32 here on the east coast in new york. 12:32 out west and it's great to have you with us as president obama has been re-elected. let's look at the states that brought him over the threshold, the 270 needed. as of right now president obama has a projected 303, this to

mitt romney's 206. the states and district of columbia went blue while romney took 24 states. so far the only swing state that swung for mitt romney is north carolina. we also have jo ann reed and robert. we talked about marriage equality and the big things we had seen take place this evening. we were talking about the youth vote. but that had to be make a big difference in states like maryland and maine and also in washington state where -- and just to be clear about this, those were places where people were to vote yes if they were for marriage equality. in minnesota it's a no vote if you are against having the state constitution amended to ban marriage equality.

hopefully i was explaining that correctly. >> thank you. >> this is classic late night talk. >> the insomniacs out there know what i'm talking about. it could be down to the youth vote. this is a non-issue. >> it's a non-issue. and we are in an exciting place for those of us who really believe in this progress. we're not just talking about winning skirmishes. we're talking about racial issues and equality issues is really where young people not only think that these right to fly -- which i think is a founding creed which this country has paddled over for a long time. it's not about gay marriage. it's about marriage equality and the fact that you have a right to marry.

>> that is something that barack obama spoke to tonight beautifully and in a way that i think was evoktive for a lot of people. one more data point to not just be in the clouds. the obama campaign registered over 1 million new voters this cycle. that is more than they registered in 2008. as for the zombie narrative. >> i need to ask you guys, your vote keked to rick santorum. he is anti-marriage equality, anti-gay and lesbian rights. as the gop looks to the long gain because they would like to get back into the white house

one day. and this election as we look at these numbers may prove that that's a long shot. unless they redefine the target of people. >> first of all i would object the notion that rick santorum is against gay rights because he doesn't view marriage as a right. it is a definition. >> do they have a right to serve in the military? >> from a marriage standpoint, that's his talking point. >> i made a great point. i think people in this country n now. >> we knew there would be an

under yurnt. was there going to be the push for romney that would win him some of these states? and it wasn't. it was a complete domination with the youth vote and it was not tapped into. and no one saw it coming. that's the end of it. >> and we're looking at kids showing up outside of the white house tonight. i know as you know, the latino vote was huge. but there will be expectations in the next four years from this president. certainly from congress. we will talk about that when we get back. also we will drill down more. the break down on who has control of the house. all races have been decided. but in montana, the incumbent is a small lead. and then in north dakota north dakota, heidi heitkamp and rick

berg are neck and neck. more when we come back.

>> i think that the electoral spank something profound and when you get your behinds spanked, you have to pay attention to the reasons why.

>> that was michael steel that gave the description of what happened this evening. one of the biggest stories of the night is who would win control of congress and lead the way working with or against the president. we can now project that democrats have maintained control of the senate. and our projections show that the republicans have maintained their sizable lead in the house. elizabe elizabeth warren has been declared the winner. >> and despite the odds, you elected the first woman senator to the -- >> another key senate race happened in missouri. it got a lot of national attention. senator claire mccaskill managing to fend off todd akin.

here is what she had to say. >> i will continue to be a senator that works across the aisle in a bipartisan way to find the compromises to solve problems for every missouri family, not just the families of those that voted for me. >> democrats may have maintained control in the senate but they did not keep their seat in the state of nebraska. here is fischer talking to her supporters. >> i will work hard. i will serve you with honesty and integrity. you know what? we're going to build a better america. thank you. [ applause ] >> and to cap off what was truly a big night for women who were running, tammy bald winn defeated tommy thompson.

baldwin talked about the path ahead. >> i believe in wisconsin's workers and a work ethic that i will fight for every day. but, i also believe that we can only move forward if we move forward together. >> and we bring back our entire panel joining us in this discussion. jimmy, let's talk about your observations, the big wins from tonight. what strikes you the most? >> first openly gay woman in the united states senate in the history of the country. it's a big deal. black man to the senate, a woman to the senate. this to the gay community is just as big. not because she defeated tommy thompson, but because she's openly gay. it's huge. the first black president, the first gay senator. it's big.

and it's a great thing. the democrats held on to a seat that they should have held on to. the elizabeth warren seat is a really big deal, too. he made a couple of bad votes. first one he voted against the president's nominee. he voted against a woman for the supreme court. that was a big mistake. and the second one was he voted for -- against the bank -- the dod frank bill. sorry. it's 3:00 in the morning. he took more money from wall street than any other sitting senator. that's something people in the commonwealth look at. other parts say no, i don't think that represents our values. he was defeated tonight by a handy margin. here is an interesting thing. if hillary clinton does step down as secretary of state. if barack obama nominates john

kerry, if he is confirmed by his own chamber, guess who runs for that seat? the guy that just lost to elizabeth warren. you have huge gains tonight. you have got a couple of outstanding seats as well. we will see how those play out. i think we have a couple others out there. >> we know how the balance of congress is going to be made up. we need to talk about the agenda. mitch mcconnel, i know we have a graphic of that. i could read it directly off the set. we don't have the graphic unfortunately. okay. but basically it wasn't the most resounding yes i'm going work with president obama. robert, let me ask you, with the fact that mitch mcconnel is coming out holding nothing back, basically and the vice president said that maybe the fever would

break. do we think that mitch still has a fever going forward? >> mitch has two issues going on. first he is running for re-election in 2014 in kentucky. what mitch does not want is a tea party challenge that happened with his friends. number two there could be a challenge from the right within the senate caucus. i hate to say this. if mitch mcconnel goes too far to the left what he is doing is he is making sure that his home fires keep burning and the process hopefully does not have a challenger on the far right. tonight is very, very historic for a lot of reasons and one would think that the minority leader would go in terms of rhetoric. >> thank you for saying that. but with all due respect, and i do respect you. this is what is going on here.

mitch mcconnel is worried about people to his right both in his own caucus and in his own state and he's going to come out and disrespect the president like that. >> i want to read what mcconnel had said. he started sending sincere congratulations. he said the american people did two things. they gave president obama a chance to fix the problems that he admits he efailed to solve and the voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses but simply given him more job to finish the job they asked him to do together after two years of one party control. all right. so when we come back we will dig deeper into the counties that decided this election. richard will be standing by with that. stick around. we're back with much more here on nbc.

>> whether i earned your vote or not, i have listened to you. i have learned from you. >> is that you? >> and you have made me a better president. and with your stories and your struggles, i returned to the white house more determined and more inspired than ever about the work left to do and the future that lies ahead.

>> you know that is all we have heard about and it turns out

that it did indeed come down to the crucial state of ohio. richard? >> at 11:30 p.m. last night this was the concern. a high number of uncounted ballots in ohio gave team romney and republican strategists some pause. and they were concerned about an unusually high number of provisional ballots. those are given when id is not sufficient. they are counted later if the voter is deemed to be proper. in northern parts of the state right around here. when they are looking at that, that is what concerns republicans. that is democratic territory. but when you drill down and look at the county it, look back to 2008. and that bounce, the margin that president won in the last election a 2-1 margin,

basically. tonight is pretty similar to what was happening earlier. a 2-1 margin. when they looked, 750,000, roughly, in the strong democratic areas, that's the number of votes there. and then in the areas where it was strong republican that number was about 140,000. so if you just follow these margins there, looking at those characteristics and it trended that way the president would maintain his margin and may have risen. so mathematically, at this moment, it doesn't matter because of nevada as well as virginia now going forthe president. we look at ohio. it's certainly a state where the president's field offices on the ground were three times the size of romneys and it may have paid off. >> both sides not taking chances in ohio. richard, thanks so much.

both the campaigns in the last days, and certainly in the time leading up to the last days their push was through ohio constantly. and we all know that the auto bailout played big there. but mitt romney doubling down on the remarks about the fact that they would be shipping jobs to china and jeep coming out saying your pants are on fire on this one. is that the straw that broke the camel's back where people thought i don't know if we can trust him? >> chrysler was getting calls. he really served to put fear in the hearts of people but they were able to confirm that they had jobs. and i think to see the auto leaders come out and rebuke him really did d -- all the fact checkers said our campaign is not going to be dictated to by fact checkers but when you have chrysler and gm saying you are a

liar, sir, poor piniccio. >> if anything that was testament of we're done. what's interesting with ohio, actually the youth -- there is a larger portion of latino youth in ohio than there are white youth. but owe see how they broke for obama close to 82%. you look at the latino vote in ohio, virginia, florida. it was literally almost a latino firewall in areas that it really matters. >> thomas takes such a good point. i worked as a field organizer in ohio. >> i got to hit this right. much more coming up after this. don't go away. the