Turnout machine, modern coalition lifts Obama to 2nd term

THE SEQUEL is never as entertaining or surprising as the original.

And so President Obama - who dazzled the nation four years ago - earned a second term Tuesday by grinding out a solid, workmanlike victory on the ground, turning out just enough of his 21st-century coalition of black and Latino voters, young adults and educated professionals in enough key states to turn back Republican Mitt Romney.

Crowds in Obama's hometown of Chicago and in New York's Times Square erupted in a flag-waving celebration and danced to Aretha Franklin's "Respect" at roughly 11:15 p.m., when the major TV networks called the hard-fought race for the president. Fittingly, it was Ohio - the Midwestern, middle-of-the-road, microcosm state that sucked up so much of the candidate's time and money - and its 20 electoral votes that put the 44th president over the top.

"We're all in this together," Obama said on Twitter late Tuesday night. "That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you."

Obama won Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes - it was called for the president about 80 minutes after the polls closed - which cemented talk that the Keystone State is now a blue state in presidential politics. No Republican has won the commonwealth since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

At Baldi Middle School in Bustleton, one volunteer said so many voters came out in the morning that there were parking issues, and the line at one point stretched several yards outside.

Steven Rigefsky, 63, a lifelong Philadelphian, cast his vote for Obama. "I think he's the better choice," he said. "Romney is out of touch with what concerns the average working person."

Meanwhile, the state's Democratic U.S. senator, Bob Casey, won a second six-year term by turning back a big-bucks challenge from coal millionaire Tom Smith, in an election that was very much defined by inertia. Republicans who've vigorously opposed Obama kept control of the House, while Democrats held onto the Senate - a political Groundhog Day.

Tuesday's election lacked the momentous weight of the 2008 vote, when Obama not only made history by becoming the first black president but also by forging the political alliance that may rule American politics for the next generation, as the power of the white working class continues to wane. Those predictions were stood on their head when the tea-party tsunami of 2010 returned the House to GOP control - but in the end, Obama's victory Tuesday was very much a triumph of demographic change.

Here's how Obama won:

Latinos: Exit polls Tuesday showed the president was on track to win as much as two-thirds of the Hispanic vote, extending the Democrats' recent dominance with America's fastest growing demographic group while Republicans alienated many Latinos with their draconian policies on immigration issues. That success has made former battleground states like New Mexico solidly blue and allowed Obama to carry Nevada.

Ohio, Ohio, Ohio: It made sense for the Romney camp to target the Buckeye State, laden with blue-collar whites who've soured on Obama in other sectors of the nation. But the 2009 bailout of the auto industry, which saved tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ohio, made a difference. Exit polls showed that Obama won a stunning 65 percent of white union members, which put him over the top in a make-or-break state. Obama also won handily in Michigan, Romney's native state where his father had been governor in the 1960s.

Ground game: Despite reports that the GOP base went into the fall election with more enthusiasm, the Obama campaign spent millions on a massive get-out-the-vote operation that involved tens of millions of phone calls and door knocks in battleground states - and it apparently worked.

Timing is everything: The only "October Surprises" were positive moments for the president. Back-to-back positive jobs reports suggested the economy is finally on the right track for good. Network exit polls on Tuesday showed that more voters now believe the economy is getting better than getting worse, and also that more voters blame the 7.9 percent unemployment on former President George W. Bush than on Obama.

Then there was the tragic arrival of Superstorm Sandy. Voters gave Obama high marks for his handling of that crisis and for a surprising bipartisan bond with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie just two months after Christie was keynote speaker at the GOP confab in Tampa.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, failed to capitalize on voter disappointment that recovery from the 2008 economic crisis has been so slow. That may reflect the deepening divide within the GOP between its more mainstream leadership - right now epitomized by Christie - and its tea-party base that takes its cues from radio talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Romney tacked to the far right on issues such as immigration to win the nomination, but his effort to reboot in September - an "Etch-a-Sketch," one Romney aide called it - was doomed.

Republicans are left to wonder whether their future lies with a moderate like Christie or to consolidate as an angry white working-class party behind the likes of ex-Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a fiery foe of gay marriage and abortion rights.

- Daily News staff writer Morgan Zalot contributed to this report.

Contact Will Bunch at bunchw@phillynews.com or 215-854-2957. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Bunch. Read his blog at Attytood.com.