At about 12:30PM Philippine time on Wednesday 7 November 2012, the major American broadcast networks and cable outlets like CNN, Fox and MSNBC proclaimed Barack Hussein Obama the forty-fourth president of the United States as the winner of the 2012 presidential elections. Although the electors of the Electoral College chosen by voters across the UnitedStates on 6 November 2012 are not scheduled to cast their votes until Monday 17 December 2012, and a winner proclaimed by the Vice-President of the United States until 14 January 2013, Barack Hussein Obama will be inaugurated at high noon on 20 January 2013 and become only the third incumbent Democratic president to win reelection since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to his first of three terms in 1936 (the other contemporary Democratic president to win reelection was William Jefferson Clinton in 1996). 

The 2012 US presidential election was historic and unprecedented for three reasons: (1) it was the first election where the principal contenders are members of two racial/ethnic and religious minority groups, respectively; (2) it was the first presidential election in the aftermath of the highly controversial Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010) of the United States Supreme Court which held that the federal government is prohibited from restricting the amount of money individuals, organizations and corporations could contribute to political campaigns and/or candidates; and (3) where the two major candidates offered American voters two distinct and diametrically opposed social agendas and visions for the future of the country. In spite of being badly outspent by the Republican nominee Willard M Romney and his billionaire financial backers, Barack Hussein Obama won a decisive victory in both the Electoral College vote (332 to 206 or 126 more electoral votes than he needed to win) and in the popular vote (62,611,250 or 50.6% to 59,134,475 or 47.81%).