The crowd inside the Hilton Columbus Downtown erupted Tuesday night after it was announced that Barack Obama won Ohio, and for good reason.
Ohio has been a good indicator of the eventual winner of the election; since 1944, the state has sided with the losing candidate only once—in 1960 when they voted for the losing Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy.
Mitt Romney’s Ohio campaign dug its trenches at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus, less than one mile south of their Obama counterpart at the Hilton. Lucas Bean, a senior broadcasting and communication major, spent the evening as an intern in the war room of Romney’s Ohio campaign office.
“I have a passion for (conservative) politics,” Bean said. “Mitt Romney was the clear candidate in my mind that could defeat Obama.”
Some of the major news sites, including nytimes.com and huffingtonpost.com, showed Obama ahead in the swing state as early as 10 p.m.
“We’re a bit nervous right now, but there is still a long way to go, and we feel there is a chance,” Bean said before the final tally was announced.
Taylor Bailey, a sophomore public relations and political science major, interned for the Obama campaign and spent his night watching the results pour in at the Hilton. He said there was a much different feel surrounding him, though.
Cheers exploded when “243” lit up the screens, Bailey said. Chants of “four more years” flooded the room, and more cheers came when it was announced that Iowa was blue as well.
“The room is very confident,” Bailey said. “When we saw the 243, there was an outburst. It’s coming down to getting the critical swing states. People are really fired up at this point. There are a lot of people here and a lot of them are drinking as well.”
As of 11:21 p.m. Obama has 275 electoral votes and therefore has won the presidency, according to the Huffington Post and Fox News. These same sources reporting Gov. Romney is ahead in the popular vote, though.
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