Iowa Goes Obama; How Did Story County Vote?

President Barack Obama took Iowa Tuesday with about 51.9 percent of the vote, according to unofficial returns from the Iowa Secretary of State's Office.

The current tally was 810,739 for Obama and 724,609 for Republican Candidate Mitt Romney. Ames resident Jerry Litzel, who petitioned to be placed on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate, mainly for fun, received about 1,000 votes for president statewide.

In Story County, Obama received 55.5 percent of the vote to Romney's 41.8 percent. The final unofficial tally was 25,940 to 19,557.

Obama was successful in Iowa even though 15 counties that voted for him in 2008 went for GOP challenger Mitt Romney this time around, an IowaWatch analysis of the informal vote totals reported Tuesday showed. The count had been 16 counties but Lee County, initially reported as favoring Romney, went for Obama, Secretary of State figures now show.IowaWatch reported.

Only one Iowa county – Woodbury – flipped from supporting the GOP candidate, John McCain, four years ago to favoring Obama, the analysis showed.

In 2008, about 64 percent of Story County's registered voters participated in the General Election, with 57 percent of voters choosing President Barack Obama and 41 percent voting for Sen. John McCain.  About 72,000 registered voters participated in the election countywide compared to about 68,200 in Tuesday's election.