Obama Wins Portsmouth

Portsmouth has always been known as a Democratic stronghold in New Hampshire and this proved to be the case when President Barack Obama easily beat Mitt Romney by a 2 to 1 margin.

According to unofficial Portsmouth election results, Obama garnered 8.753 votes to Romney's 4,043 votes. Obama won all five city wards and it was never a contest in any of them.

President Obama went to win a second term in the White House by winning 283 electoral college votes to Romney's 203 electoral votes. The key battleground state that put President Obama over the top was Ohio.

This was not the first time Portsmouth voters supported President Obama.

For example, results compiled by the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office in Concord show that in 2008 Portsmouth voters overwhelmingly supported then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. over U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by a nearly two-thirds margin. The final tally in the city was 9,147 for Obama and 3,729 for McCain.

That trend also held true in 2004 when Portsmouth voters overwhelmingly supported U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., over President George W. Bush by a nearly 2-1 margin. The final tally in the city was 8,436 for Kerry and 4,185 for Bush.

In 2000, Portsmouth voters strongly supported Vice President Al Gore over then Texas Gov. George W. Bush by a 2-1 margin. If Republicans are to gain any ground in the city, it may be in the city's six New Hampshire House races that now include two floterial districts. Before this year, the city's elected its six state legislators at-large.