[h=3]By NEIL KING JR., CAROL E. LEE and COLLEEN MCCAIN NELSON[/h]
The Bakersfield Californian/Zuma PressVoters in Bakersfield, Calif., cast their ballots Tuesday. Exit polls suggested fears over the economy and unemployment were voters' main focus.
President Barack Obama secured a second term Tuesday by assembling a set of discrete voting blocs into an electoral majority, nurturing support among Hispanics and African Americans, women and young people, while holding his own among working-class voters in the pivotal state of Ohio.
From the outset, the Obama team knew it couldn't count on the euphoric wave that propelled the president to victory four years earlier. Winning in 2012 would depend, as his top aides put it, on a state-by-state "blocking and tackling" effort to preserve what they could of his 2008 coalition.
With the economy still feeble and unemployment high, Mr. Obama faced eroding support from independents and many of the suburban, middle-class voters who had backed him four years earlier.
So, the goal was to expand his base wherever possible, particularly among minority groups, while fighting to preserve his margins among women.
On that, he succeeded.
Defying expectations of a sharp drop-off, the share of ballots cast by young voters grew from 2008, while Mr. Obama preserved much of his support among women and expanded his base among Hispanics and Asians, according to exit polls of voters.
He won despite a strong sense of unease among voters over the economy and unemployment. More than half of voters said the country was "seriously off on the wrong track," while a third said their family's finances were worse than four years ago.
And yet, even against that backdrop, Mitt Romney was unable to convince voters that he was the man to fix what ails the country, surveys of voters at polling places showed.
[h=3]Casting Ballots in 2012[/h]
[h=3]Decision Day in America[/h]Voters headed to the polls Tuesday in a presidential contest defined by its intensity and razor-thin margins.
Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesCitizens voted at Carleton Middle School in Sterling Heights, Mich.
[h=3]Readers' Election Photos[/h]View Election Day through the lenses of Journal readers, and share your photos with us on Twitter and Instagram with #WSJvote.
[h=3]More Photos[/h]
Voters gave Mr. Romney little advantage on a core plank of his bid for the White House—which candidate would be better to fix the economy—while giving Mr. Obama high marks for having a better feel for the middle class and for dealing with Medicare.
More than half of voters blamed President George W. Bush for the country's continuing economic troubles, while four in 10 said it was Mr. Obama's fault.
The results also showed how the Obama efforts to undermine his rival's credentials as a leader stuck with many voters. More than half of voters who went to the polls said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Romney.
The voter impressions were recorded in a survey taken at polling places across the country, conducted on behalf of media organizations. The sample included voters who cast ballots before Election Day and who were interviewed by phone.
Much of Mr. Obama's success in maintaining his coalition stemmed from policy moves that he announced this year, and which his campaign then highlighted in a barrage of targeted ads.
The policy announcements catered to critical Democratic constituencies—women, Hispanics, gays and young people—as well as voters in the Midwest, which would become Mr. Obama's Electoral College firewall.
The administration issued a ruling on a provision of Mr. Obama's health-care law that required most insurance plans to provide coverage for contraception. The decision sparked a backlash from the Catholic hierarchy and stirred anger on the right, but it also energized women voters.
Mr. Obama used his State of the Union address to unveil a new task force to police trade infractions against the U.S. that was largely aimed at China. The task force filed a number of trade actions against Beijing this year, and the White House coordinated the announcements with the Obama re-election campaign.
That gave them maximum exposure in Ohio, a state where the president remained surprisingly resilient thanks in part to goodwill left over from the federal bailout of the auto industry.
One policy decision that gave the White House one of its biggest electoral jolts was Mr. Obama's June announcement of an executive action that would halt the deportation of many young illegal immigrants.
The Obama campaign also devoted extensive time and money to wooing Latino voters, an important constituency in the battlegrounds of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and several other states. In May, the campaign began airing six weeks of ads featuring local organizers talking about why Latinos should support Mr. Obama. Obama officials recruited Cristina Saralegui, a popular Latino TV personality, to anchor ads, and Mr. Obama narrated one in Spanish.
Mr. Obama ended up getting 69% of the Hispanic vote, topping his 2008 mark, and Hispanics accounted for a larger share of the total vote. That fact alone will give the Republicans a chill as they look to regroup after Tuesday's defeat.
The Obama team invested heavily in its party's long-standing advantage among women, who have outvoted men for years and backed Mr. Obama in 2008 by 13 percentage points over Sen. John McCain. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama won among women by a 12-point margin.
Mr. Obama's top advisers went back and forth on whether to attack Mr. Romney as a flip-flopper or a conservative out of the mainstream.
As Mr. Romney began to take positions on issues such as immigration, taxes and women's health concerns, they decided to criticize him as a flip-flopper during the primary, when they thought the label would do him the most damage, and as too conservative in the general election, which they believed would turn off independent voters.
The president's team was caught off guard by Mr. Romney's late pivot to the center, which came just a month before the election during the first presidential debate. One sign of the tactic's success: Mr. Romney carried independent voters on Election Day.
"That's the one surprise of the campaign," a senior Obama official said. "We always thought he would flip and then flop back. And he didn't."
Write to Neil King Jr. at [email protected]
A version of this article appeared November 7, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Obama Fine-Tuned 2008's Winning Formula.
The Bakersfield Californian/Zuma PressVoters in Bakersfield, Calif., cast their ballots Tuesday. Exit polls suggested fears over the economy and unemployment were voters' main focus.
President Barack Obama secured a second term Tuesday by assembling a set of discrete voting blocs into an electoral majority, nurturing support among Hispanics and African Americans, women and young people, while holding his own among working-class voters in the pivotal state of Ohio.
From the outset, the Obama team knew it couldn't count on the euphoric wave that propelled the president to victory four years earlier. Winning in 2012 would depend, as his top aides put it, on a state-by-state "blocking and tackling" effort to preserve what they could of his 2008 coalition.
With the economy still feeble and unemployment high, Mr. Obama faced eroding support from independents and many of the suburban, middle-class voters who had backed him four years earlier.
So, the goal was to expand his base wherever possible, particularly among minority groups, while fighting to preserve his margins among women.
On that, he succeeded.
Defying expectations of a sharp drop-off, the share of ballots cast by young voters grew from 2008, while Mr. Obama preserved much of his support among women and expanded his base among Hispanics and Asians, according to exit polls of voters.
He won despite a strong sense of unease among voters over the economy and unemployment. More than half of voters said the country was "seriously off on the wrong track," while a third said their family's finances were worse than four years ago.
And yet, even against that backdrop, Mitt Romney was unable to convince voters that he was the man to fix what ails the country, surveys of voters at polling places showed.
[h=3]Casting Ballots in 2012[/h]
[h=3]Decision Day in America[/h]Voters headed to the polls Tuesday in a presidential contest defined by its intensity and razor-thin margins.
Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesCitizens voted at Carleton Middle School in Sterling Heights, Mich.
[h=3]Readers' Election Photos[/h]View Election Day through the lenses of Journal readers, and share your photos with us on Twitter and Instagram with #WSJvote.
[h=3]More Photos[/h]
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Voters gave Mr. Romney little advantage on a core plank of his bid for the White House—which candidate would be better to fix the economy—while giving Mr. Obama high marks for having a better feel for the middle class and for dealing with Medicare.
More than half of voters blamed President George W. Bush for the country's continuing economic troubles, while four in 10 said it was Mr. Obama's fault.
The results also showed how the Obama efforts to undermine his rival's credentials as a leader stuck with many voters. More than half of voters who went to the polls said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Romney.
The voter impressions were recorded in a survey taken at polling places across the country, conducted on behalf of media organizations. The sample included voters who cast ballots before Election Day and who were interviewed by phone.
Much of Mr. Obama's success in maintaining his coalition stemmed from policy moves that he announced this year, and which his campaign then highlighted in a barrage of targeted ads.
The policy announcements catered to critical Democratic constituencies—women, Hispanics, gays and young people—as well as voters in the Midwest, which would become Mr. Obama's Electoral College firewall.
The administration issued a ruling on a provision of Mr. Obama's health-care law that required most insurance plans to provide coverage for contraception. The decision sparked a backlash from the Catholic hierarchy and stirred anger on the right, but it also energized women voters.
Mr. Obama used his State of the Union address to unveil a new task force to police trade infractions against the U.S. that was largely aimed at China. The task force filed a number of trade actions against Beijing this year, and the White House coordinated the announcements with the Obama re-election campaign.
That gave them maximum exposure in Ohio, a state where the president remained surprisingly resilient thanks in part to goodwill left over from the federal bailout of the auto industry.
One policy decision that gave the White House one of its biggest electoral jolts was Mr. Obama's June announcement of an executive action that would halt the deportation of many young illegal immigrants.
The Obama campaign also devoted extensive time and money to wooing Latino voters, an important constituency in the battlegrounds of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and several other states. In May, the campaign began airing six weeks of ads featuring local organizers talking about why Latinos should support Mr. Obama. Obama officials recruited Cristina Saralegui, a popular Latino TV personality, to anchor ads, and Mr. Obama narrated one in Spanish.
Mr. Obama ended up getting 69% of the Hispanic vote, topping his 2008 mark, and Hispanics accounted for a larger share of the total vote. That fact alone will give the Republicans a chill as they look to regroup after Tuesday's defeat.
The Obama team invested heavily in its party's long-standing advantage among women, who have outvoted men for years and backed Mr. Obama in 2008 by 13 percentage points over Sen. John McCain. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama won among women by a 12-point margin.
Mr. Obama's top advisers went back and forth on whether to attack Mr. Romney as a flip-flopper or a conservative out of the mainstream.
As Mr. Romney began to take positions on issues such as immigration, taxes and women's health concerns, they decided to criticize him as a flip-flopper during the primary, when they thought the label would do him the most damage, and as too conservative in the general election, which they believed would turn off independent voters.
The president's team was caught off guard by Mr. Romney's late pivot to the center, which came just a month before the election during the first presidential debate. One sign of the tactic's success: Mr. Romney carried independent voters on Election Day.
"That's the one surprise of the campaign," a senior Obama official said. "We always thought he would flip and then flop back. And he didn't."
Write to Neil King Jr. at [email protected]
A version of this article appeared November 7, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Obama Fine-Tuned 2008's Winning Formula.