The Democratic crowd inside the Hilton Hotel Columbus Downtown erupted Tuesday night after it was announced that Barack Obama won Ohio.
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 it voted for the losing Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy.
A little before midnight, when this newspaper went to press, Obama was a clear winner in electoral votes, according to
major news outlets such as Fox News and The New York Times. Most of these news outlets, however, were reporting that Romney was still ahead in the popular vote, a situation that hasn’t happened since Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to former President George W. Bush in 2000.
Mitt Romney’s Ohio campaign dug its trenches at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus, less than one mile south of its Obama counterpart at the Hilton. Lucas Bean, a senior broadcasting and communication major at Otterbein, 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 swing states as early as 10 p.m.
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.
“It was such an amazing atmosphere, and to know so early was amazing to watch,” Bailey said.
At 11:55 p.m., only Alaska had not reported votes, but President Barack Obama had already surpassed the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency.
“I am sad, and I am praying for this country,” Bean said.
**A previous version of this article was published on Otterbein360.com at 11:23 p.m. on Tuesday Nov. 6.
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