Ten days after the election and votes are still being tallied in California and other states. The morning after the election AP said President won by 1.3 million votes nationally, about a two percent margin. The electoral vote was then 303-206 with Florida still undeclared.
We know the electoral college ended up a cushy 332-206, a 126 vote margin. Now we have an idea what the scope of the popular vote margin will be. After updates this afternoon, the race stands and at:
Obama 50.7%
Romney 47.7%
It's a 3% margin and still growing. What about raw votes? Right now:
Obama 63.2 million
Romney 59.5 million
The margin is 3.7 million and could expand to nearly 4 before it's over. Now, I've heard some Republicans say the 2012 race was closer than 2004. Silly, but math is not always their strong suit. Here are the 2004 margins for George Bush over John Kerry :
Bush + 2.4%
Bush +3 million votes
Bush +35 electoral college
And, of course, Bush had only Ohio as his margin of victory. Obama carried every contested state except NC (and the fact Republicans spent $43 million to hold NC tells you something as well).
Historically speaking, this will not be regarded as a particularly close race. Then again, if the media goes on and on for months saying "tie" then people might still think so a week after the election:
Ha, ha. Whatever.