Obama wins Minnesota
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President Barack Obama won Minnesota and its 10 electoral votes on his way to re-election to a second term.
With just over 97 percent of the Minnesota precincts reporting, Obama had 53.1 percent of the vote to challenger Mitt Romney's 44.9 percent.
At the Democratic Party election headquarters, the room erupted when Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak announced that Obama had won the state.
"It's going to be a good night all over the country," he said.
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Obama's Minnesota campaign manager, Jeff Blodgett, said, "I'm so proud to be able to part of a campaign where we deliver this state for our president, and give him another four years to keep moving our country forward."
He added, "This was a campaign — more than any other I've ever worked on — where it was about people vs. money. It was about grassroots organizing vs. the super PACs. And guess who won? We won. That's right. We won."
The room later erupted in the chant, "Four more years."
Considering Minnesota's long history of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, the campaign of Romney and Paul Ryan had not campaigned much at all in the state. Its presence in Minnesota was almost nonexistent until about two weeks ago.
Romney and Ryan initially made brief appearances at small fundraisers, but held no large rallies to draw supporting crowds and potential voters.
Final campaign finance reports show that both Democratic and Republican candidates have raised millions in Minnesota but have spent relatively little of that money here.
After polling numbers suggested a tighter-than-expected race, however, the campaign made a last-minute push.
