Obama wins race for US presidency

He faces a difficult task of tackling deficits, reducing the national debt, overhauling expensive social programmes and dealing with a grid-locked Congress

President Barack Obama has rolled to re-election and a second term in the White House, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney and overcoming deep doubts about his handling of the U.S. economy.

Obama defeated Romney in a series of key swing states despite a weak economic recovery and persistently high unemployment as U.S. voters decided to stick with the first black president rather than go with the wealthy Republican.

Obama's victory in the hotly contested swing state of Ohio - as projected by TV networks - put him over the top in the fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the White House and ended Romney's hopes of pulling off a string of swing-state upsets.

Obama scored narrow wins in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire - all states that Romney had contested - while the only swing state captured by Romney was North Carolina, according to network projections.

The same problems that dogged Obama in his first term are still there to confront him again.
He faces a difficult task of tackling $1 trillion annual deficits, reducing a $16 trillion national debt, overhauling expensive social programmes and dealing with a gridlocked U.S. Congress that kept the same partisan makeup.

Obama's projected victory will set the country's course for the next four years on spending, taxes, healthcare, the role of government and foreign policy challenges such as the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Each man offered different policies to cure what ails America's weak economy, with Obama pledging to raise taxes on the wealthy and Romney offering across-the-board tax cuts as a way to ignite strong economic growth.