US election: How the voting stacks up

US President Barack Obama has won a second four-year term in the White House. Obama needed 270 electoral votes to regain the presidency. So far he’s won 303 to Romney’s 206. But it’s still unclear whether the president has picked up the key battleground state of Florida. Although it won’t affect the result, Florida’s 29 electoral votes are still undecided. But if he wins the state will take him to 332. Obama won several other so-called swing states including Ohio, Virginia, and New Hampshire. Despite months of campaigning by hundreds of candidates, the balance of power in the US Congress remains unchanged with the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats still ruling the Senate. One of the most watched Senate contests was in Massachussetts between incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown and Democrat and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, which Warren won. One of the first challenges of Obama’s second term is the looming budget crisis. Around 600 billion dollars worth of automatic tax increases and spending cuts will take effect at the end of 2012 to tackle America’s deficit. Many economists think the measures need to be renegotiated before they plunge the country back into recession.