The 2012 Presidential Election was an important one to my husband and I. We were very hopeful that our candidate would win. Being aware that the polls would close in some states earlier than our own state of Illinois and some even later I didn’t really start paying that much attention for the first half hour or so, but my husband was listening to the radio in his car, and called me every time there was a new development.
Around 6:30 PM I turned on one of the local television shows to find out what they were saying. Most of what they were saying was either projected results or opinion. Not a lot of facts were on the television yet so I turned to the internet for constant up to the minute information. The site I used was www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/
Once in a while we would flip around the television at the local news station, but the web site above pretty much constantly updated every moment something happened. It had a map of united states and as each state finished counting and had their results that state would either turn red or blue depending on who won that state. You could even click on each state and see the percentage that each of the candidates had so you could have some sort of idea how that state was leaning. It also told you what percentage was done being counted, so it was really up to the minute.
The North Eastern states were pretty much the first states to start lighting up, they turned blue which meant they were going to Obama. Soon after the majority of the center states started to turn red, and Romney took the lead. I glanced back at the web site every 15 minutes or so until around 9:00 PM; at that point Romney still had the lead. Right around 9:30 things really started to change and the numbers were starting to tighten up. Once Obama took California it was the beginning of the Obama numbers climbing. I kept my eyes peeled to the screen, clicking on the states that had not yet turned Red or Blue. Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin were all pretty close. Romney really needed those states to have a chance. I kept my eyes glued to the screen until around 11:00 PM and it was pretty clear by that point that there was no way that Romney could win based on the electoral votes that were left. Florida was still undecided at that point but there was no longer a need to stay awake and watch.
I woke up to the local DJ’s playing on my alarm clock talking about Obama’s win therefore confirming what I already knew.
