The 12 | Tumbling the 2012 campaign

The 12 is a group Tumblr of The Washington Post and student journalists in 12 battleground states documenting the 2012 presidential election and capturing perspectives of young voters.

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That's a wrap for The 12

The presidential election is over, which means residents of the battlegrounds we have covered for the past several months can join the rest of the states in enjoying attack-ad free commercial breaks and keeping their phones plugged in without risking constant pollster or campaign calls. 

It also means the end of our posts here on The 12. 

Thank you for following our student journalists' coverage from the swing states across the country. We'll see you in 2016. 

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Exit polls reveal auto industry bailout helped Obama secure Ohio

Click here for the full visual on state and county results from the presidential election, and here for additional exit polling data.

President Obama's bailout of the auto industry was both praised and criticized throughout the election season. Now, exit polling data shows the decision so many thought might cost him the votes of those concerned with the economy was actually one that helped the President secure Ohio, which was nearly tied until the end.

Data from the Associated Press revealed most Ohio voters stood behind the president's decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler. Ohioans were evenly split on who they believed would be best to fix the economy, but the fact that one in eight jobs in Ohio is tied to the auto industry gave Obama an edge as the middle class cast their ballots.

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Romney concedes, but Florida votes still not counted

Three days after the election, while most of the country has moved on with their lives, Florida remains technically in voter limbo. 

Mitt Romney's campaign officials here conceded on Thursday and the Obama campaign has claimed victory. 

The state's counties -- overwhelmed by the amount of absentee and early voting ballots -- still have not finished counting votes. Although the presidential race results will not be affected if Florida decides to lean blue or red, voters are curious to see who won the swing state. 

The Tampa Bay Times reports that President Obama has the lead over Governor Romney, 49.9 percent to his 49.2 percent. 

The country will have to wait one more day for the announcement of the official winner of Florida. The deadline for Florida's counties to have their results in is Saturday at noon. 

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Politics PA grades the polls:  

Pollsters' predictions of the 2012 campaigns in Pennsylvania showed conflicting results. Democratic and independent polls showed the Democrats held healthy leads, while Republican polls predicted much closer races. Republicans repeatedly claimed that Democrats were being oversampled, but in the end, their polls proved less accurate.

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Jane Meagher makes last-minute campaign calls at the Republican headquarters and Romney field office in Longmont, Colo., at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday - 90 minutes before the polls closed in Colorado.

A Coloradan and Mitt Romney supporter, Jane Meagher volunteered for the Romney campaign until the last minutes of the 2012 election amidst uncertainty over the state's outcome.

"I’m really not sure how Colorado will go," Meagher said at the Longmont Republicans headquarters Tuesday around 6:00 p.m., four hours before AP would project that Colorado’s majority supported Barack Obama.

"All you can do is just hope that it’s going to go our way."

Meagher attested to being one of the millions that crossed their 2008 party decision and voted for Romney.

"I have to tell you, I voted for Obama last time. I lived in Chicago, there was such a groundswell for Obama in Chicago. I believed in the hope and change."

The Longmont resident had never volunteered for a campaign before September, when she began talking to people about Romney and switching allegiance.

"I think that helped me, knocking on doors, to be able to say, 'I voted for Obama last time.' I don’t want to say that too loudly in here," she said in the snug headquarters. "I think people maybe trusted me that it’s not all in one camp always. I could say 'I understand your indecision, because I was once an Obama fan.'"

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Mitt Romney won 51 percent of the vote in North Carolina on Tuesday, but lost other key swing states to Barack Obama. 

While counties like Mecklenburg and Wilkes were blowouts for Obama and Romney respectively, many of the state’s counties saw much closer races. For example Romney won Dare County by only 26 votes.

Click here to explore an interactive that shows how North Carolina’s 100 counties voted.

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Video by the multimedia staff of The Daily Tar Heel

At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, College Republicans and Young Democrats gathered at local restaurants to watch the results of the 2012 presidential election.

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Mayor Dave Bing (D) talks to The 12 about voter turnout in Detroit and the problems caused by having 18 proposals on the Michigan ballot. 

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Sights from the Senate race: Brown beats Mandel in Ohio

Tuesday night saw voters on the edge of their seats as the nation waited, wondering whether the Buckeye State would turn blue or red.

But while Americans had their eyes glued to maps and poll numbers waiting to see who would be the new President of the United States, a race just as heated stole its share of the lime light in Ohio.

In the highly contested battleground state, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel waged war on each other competing for Brown’s spot representing Ohio in the Senate.

The Daily Kent Stater sent photographers to cover both campaigns’ watch parties in Columbus, Ohio, where supporters of both sides reacted to Brown’s victory.

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Two years ago, Republicans swept Democrats into a minority in the state Senate and House of Representatives.  On Tuesday, voters propelled Democrats back into the majority in the House.

It's worth listening to this NPR podcast from last week on the divided politics in the state. 

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“I told them, ‘Thank Rick Scott for the line today,’”

Former state Senator Dan Gelber D-Miami Beach told the The Tampa Bay Times. Sen. Gelber worked the long lines during early voting up until Election Day and reminded voters that Gov. Scott and Florida’s primarily Republican Legislature cut the early voting period short. (via floridaelects)

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Barry Petersen of CBS explains that Obama won Colorado because of his campaign's strong ground game, and the Hispanic vote, which comprises 11 percent of the state's electorate.

Obama won Colorado's nine electoral votes by a margin of 4.7 percent. See full results for each state here. 

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"It's about your future. It's about access to college and whether or not we're going to make sure we've got great jobs for you." 

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) wins her third term and talks about the importance of the youth vote to her successful campaign. 

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President Obama's re-election and the return of the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate have solidified Obamacare as law. After months of holding out for Obama's defeat, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and other state officials have seven days to decide how to hand Affordable Health Care Act before the federal deadline, Nov. 16.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports what this decision means for Wisconsin, here.

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The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.

Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) after Amendment 64, which allows recreational use of marijuana in the state of Colorado, passed on Tuesday.

The law states that adults 21 and older will be able to possess up to an ounce of marijuana for private use and grow up to six marijuana plants.

The law also calls for regulation of the new industry, which John Ingold at The Denver Post reports is less straightforward than the legalization. Matt Cook, the man who wrote Colorado's medical marijuana business regulations and former Revenue Department enforcement director, says that regulation will be possible fairly quickly.

"The concept of regulating an industry is fairly easy if you're given the resources needed to do it," Cook says in Ingold's article.

Like Gov. Hickenlooper, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican, has also promised to help implement the legislation. Both warn against a federal intervention.

A similar law, Initiative 502, passed in Washington on Tuesday. 502 decriminalizes marijuana possession, essentially legalizing it. In Oregon, a weed-legalizing ballot initiative, Measure 80, failed.

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Here's one (presumably temporary) tattoo Obama supporter Krystle Collins of Michigan probably doesn't regret the next day. 

This guy, on the other hand... 

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All photos by Amber-Lynn Taber for the Commonwealth Times

Even though Virginia wasn't called in favor of President Barack Obama until after national media outlets began calling the election around midnight, students at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. took to the streets to celebrate Obama's second term.

The crowd marched in a small circle in the center of VCU's campus with the cooperation of Richmond police, who blocked off traffic to allow the crowd to move safely. 

Richmond and its surrounding counties (like Henrico, which The Post called one of the seven most important counties in the country to win) went to Obama, although Republican stronghold Chesterfield County went for Mitt Romney.

Richmond city went overwhelmingly for Obama: the Virginia State Board of Elections reports that 77.03 percent of the vote there went for Obama while the remaining 21.4 percent went for Romney.