There was a sudden explosion of jubilation at Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago. President Obama tweeted a photograph of himself hugging his wife Michelle with the caption “four more years”.

Meanwhile, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has conceded defeat in the race for the White House, saying: “I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory.”

Obama defeated Romney in a series of key swing states despite a weak financial recovery and high unemployment.

The president, who made history by becoming America’s first black president in 2008 has captured at least 275 electoral votes – more than the majority of 270 required for victory in Tuesday’s quadrennial election while Romney captured 203 according to CNN.

Obama won a string of battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire, meaning that the win was all but guaranteed, though the vote-counting was far from complete.

Romney has taken 203 electoral votes from 23 states, including Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Alabama, according to Washington Post.

As soon as the results were announced by news networks, Obama posted on his official account on Twitter: “This happened because of you. Thank you,” signed with his initials “bo” to mark it as a personal message.

At least 120 million American voters were expected to cast votes in the race between the Democratic Obama and Romney after a campaign which mainly focused on how to repair the ailing U.S. economy.

As expected, television networks projected that Republicans would win the House of Representatives.

Democrats also held onto their majority in the Senate, picking up two seats in early returns with the possibility of a third.

Obama and Romney raced through several battleground states on the final day of campaigning to urge supporters to get to the polls and trying to convince the last remaining undecided voters.

Romney is set to make two campaign stops on Election Day in the battleground state of Ohio. The Obama campaign, meanwhile, had not announced any public Election Day campaign events as of Monday afternoon.

National polls of the eve of Election Day showed a neck-and-neck race. But the winner will be determined by which man gets 270 electoral votes, AFP reports.

Obama carries a slight lead in the polls nationally, according to the website RealClearPolitics, which track and averages nationwide polling data. Meanwhile, a final national NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll showed Obama getting the support of 48 percent of likely voters, with Romney receiving 47 percent. A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll had Obama at 49 and Romney at 48.

All of those results were within the polls’ margins of error.

Meanwhile, recent polls showed the majority of Arab Americans intend to vote for incumbent President Barack Obama even though some have voiced disappointment in the United States’ first black president.

A mid-September survey of 400 voters conducted by the Arab American Institute (AAI) showed that President Barack Obama leads Republican candidate Mitt Romney among Arab-Americans, 52% to 28%, with 16 percent undecided.

Numbering about 4 million, they’re heavily concentrated in several battleground states including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, according to al-monitor.

Polls will begin to close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) on Tuesday, with voting ending across the country over the next few hours.

Obama joined New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and other officials to inspect damage from the massive storm that struck the East Coast.

Across the state, the storm damaged homes, flooded communities, and left more than 2 million people without power. According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sandy killed at last 18 people in New York, while at least 64 storm-related deaths were reported nationwide to date.

“One of our challenges now is to get back to normalcy,” said Gov. Christie. “And so the things we need to do is to make sure that we get power restored as quickly as possible; make sure that people have clean drinking water, and waste water treatment plants are working; hospitals are taken care of the way they need to; and that we get kids back to school.

Christie, a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said he “can’t thank the president enough” for his concern and compassion during the storm.

President Obama outlined the steps being taken by federal emergency responders. Even before the storm hit, FEMA and other groups were able to preposition supplies like water, food, and power generators. Now more than 2,000 FEMA personnel are on the ground in the state, and the President promised that the recovery effort would continue.

“Number one, and most important, our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones,” he said. “For those like the people I just had the chance to meet on this block and throughout New Jersey and throughout the region whose lives have been upended, my second message is we are here for you, and we will not forget; we will follow up to make sure that you get all the help that you need until you’ve rebuilt.”

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney returned to the campaign trail Wednesday with three stops in Florida attempting to win a battleground state.

Obama’s campaign announced Wednesday he planned to resume campaign travel Thursday after a three-day pause with stops in Nevada, Colorado and Wisconsin.

Though no longer a hurricane according to the National Hurricane Center, “post-tropical” superstorm Sandy has left at least 12 people dead from West Virginia to North Carolina and Connecticut.

More than 5.5 million people were left without electrical power by the storm and more than one million people across a dozen states were ordered to evacuate, AFP reported.

Heavy snows threatened mountainous regions inland and fierce winds and flooding were expected along hundreds of miles of Atlantic coast

US stock markets were closed on Monday, the first time since the September 11, 2001, attacks, and will remain shut on Tuesday, according to Reuters, while the federal government in Washington was also closed, and so too were schools up and down the East Coast.

The storm interrupted the US presidential campaign with eight days to go before the election. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, both called off events, with Obama returning to Washington to monitor the storm from the White House.

President Obama, speaking after a briefing at the federal government’s storm response center in Washington discussed how federal emergency response teams are moving resources into place to ensure that potentially affected areas have the food, water, and disaster relief supplies they need to begin recovery.

“Obviously, everybody is aware at this point that this is going to be a big and powerful storm,” the President said. “And all across the Eastern seaboard, I think everybody is taking the appropriate preparations.”

He also urged residents in the path of Hurricane Sandy to heed warnings from local officials.

“The most important message that I have for the public right now is, please listen to what your state and local officials are saying,” he said from the White House Briefing Room. “When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate. Do not delay. Don’t pause; don’t question the instructions that are being given, because this is a serious storm and it could potentially have fatal consequence if people haven’t acted quickly.”

Asked about potential effect on the election, Obama said: “The election will take care of itself next week,” he said.

Romney said in the video that Palestinians have no interest in peace and are committed to the destruction of Israel. ”And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say, ‘There’s just no way.’”

“You move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem – and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it,” Romney said.

Romney, who has frequently criticized Obama for damaging relations with Israel, added: “The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world.”

In response to Romney’s remarks, the PLO’s envoy to the US Maen Areikat on Tuesday said  comments about the Palestinians showed a “complete ignorance” of the facts, according to Maan news. 

“Romney’s allegations that Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel are baseless given the fact that Palestinians have expressed support for the two-state solution, and repeatedly recognized Israel’s right to exist.”

Areikat added according to Maan news: “The best way the Republican nominee can help in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by adhering to long-standing US policy regarding an acceptable solution that will lead to the end of military occupation of Palestine, peace, and security.”

At a speech in Jerusalem in July, Romney outraged Palestinians when he hailed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.