Even though President Barack Obama handily won re-election via the Electoral College on Election Night, the margin of his popular vote victory was still unsettled.
Some conservatives, like Donald Trump, even tried to entertain the notion that Republican Mitt Romney might emerge with more raw popular votes than the president.
However, in the weeks since the November 6 election Obama’s initial 50 to 48 percent popular vote margin has only grown larger.
With more votes from western blue states and provisional ballots (which overwhelmingly favored the president) being counted, Obama now leads Romney 51 to 47 percent.
The 47 percent number will likely haunt Romney for years, since it was the Republican nominee’s candid remarks about 47 percent of Americans being unwilling to “take responsibility” for their lives that may have irrevocably damaged his campaign.
Obama has seen his leads increase in crucial swing states as well.
NBC News reports that “the president’s lead has grown to close to 3 points in Ohio, 4 points in Virginia and 6 points in Colorado. One doesn’t win Colorado by six points without winning swing voters; there isn’t a big-enough Democratic base to make that argument.”
According to NBC, Obama’s 2012 victory was a “bigger (and more decisive) margin that Bush’s victory over John Kerry in 2004 (which was Bush 50.7 percent and Kerry 48.2 percent).”
President Obama now ranks ninth all time among candidates for president in electoral-vote averages since 1896. However, he has received the two highest vote totals of any presidential candidate ever.