President Barack Obama won a second term Tuesday by sweeping the key swing states, including Ohio, though it took some late-night drama before the race was finally called.

Though news outlets originally had Ohio putting Obama over the top at around 11:10 p.m., some news outlets backed off after Republicans argued the contest wasn’t complete, with some GOP strongholds yet to be counted.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney conceded shortly before 1 a.m. Here are reactions to the election from across the Internet.

“This is a time of great challenges for America,” he said to supporters in Boston. “I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.”

He ended by saying “God bless America.”

After months of attention — and money — heaped on Ohio, Obama would have won even without the state. In the end, Obama won a cluster of other swing states — Virginia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Iowa — all ended up in the president’s column.

With a huge crowd on hand at his headquarters in Chicago, Obama tweeted his first response to the country: “This happened because of you,” he wrote. “Thank you.”

The presidential race capped a strong night for Democrats, who also appeared to pick up two seats in the U.S. Senate. But Republicans maintained the majority of the House of Representatives, meaning little has changed as the president and Congress confront problems such as the so-called fiscal cliff.

“It will look a lot like the status quo,” said Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. “I don’t know that it changes any political dynamics in Washington.”

The marathon contest included a brutal primary season for Romney, a surprise victory for Obama on his health care law from the U.S. Supreme Court, an agonizingly slow economic recovery, a remarkable first debate and a super storm that battered the eastern seaboard in the closing days. The campaign saw record spending that hit nearly $2 billion, including outside group money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“It has been a hard fought, intense, highly negative contest here in Ohio and in other battleground states,” said Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck. “Over $200 million spent on presidential ads here — 20 percent of all nationwide spending.”

The contest played out predominately in the swing states, with Ohio at center stage once again, just as it was in 2004 and 2008. At the end of the race this year, however, it seemed as if Ohio was the only state that mattered.

“Ohio looks like America,” Smith said. “It’s got similar demographics, similar racial composition, similar socioeconomics. What works in Ohio also works across the country.”

Ohioans paid the price of this fame: they couldn’t eat dinner without receiving a political call, couldn’t watch “Dancing with the Stars” without seeing a TV ad blasting either candidate, couldn’t pick up the mail without receiving political fliers. And often, they couldn’t commute home without running into a motorcade-induced traffic snarl as candidates blanketed Ohio.

During the last weekend alone, Romney visited Etna, West Chester and Cleveland, Obama visited Lima, Hilliard, Springfield, Mentor and Cincinnati, Ryan visited West Chester, Marietta and Mansfield, and Biden visited Lakewood, Fremont and Lancaster. And their wives hit the Ohio campaign trail, too.

If you didn’t want to stand in line in a rally, you could catch the candidates on TV: Since June 1, the two candidates, their party committees and interest groups have sponsored more than 1 million ads nationwide — a 39 percent increase over 2008 and a 41 percent increase over 2004, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.

Of the TV markets that saw the most advertising between Oct. 22 and Oct. 29, four — Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton — were in the top 20. Dayton saw 2,206 ads during that period — 666 from Obama, 316 from Romney, 238 from Democratic-leaning groups and 737 from Republican-leaning groups.

The auto bailout turned out to be a deciding factor for those who backed Obama. Exit polls indicated that 59 percent of Ohioans approved of the auto bailout and 36 percent disapproved. Of those who said they backed Obama, 75 percent said they approved of the auto bailout.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said Romney’s own words — Let Detroit Go Bankrupt — crippled him in Ohio and other industrial states. “Those four words will go down as among the most important reasons why he failed to capture Ohio and frankly Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan,” he said.

Ohio Republican Party Chair Bob Bennett conceded the bailout was “a difficult issue” for Republicans.

“Even if there are fewer jobs in Ohio connected to the auto industry than four years ago, it’s still a very difficult issue to explain to voters, particularly in areas where the UAW was strong,” he said.

Bennett also said Ohio’s economic recovery — which has occurred slightly faster than the national recovery — was also difficult to explain. He attributed the recovery to Gov. John Kasich, but admitted it was hard for some voters to differentiate state leadership from federal leadership.

“As the governor said, it was the head winds from Washington that are still hurting us,” he said.

The final days of the campaign helped Obama with people like Mandy Johnson, 32, of Springboro, who said she didn’t make up her mind until last weekend.

“I guess what helped me decide was asking myself who would I pick to do the best things to make sure my kids have the best future possible,” she said. “I think both would do good things for the country, but I think (Obama) is in the best position to do more with a second term.”

The closeness of the vote in Ohio, however, suggests a mandate in the second term is less than secure.

“I voted for Obama last time, and I expected more,” said Rick Knaier, 55, of Huber Heights, who cast his vote for Romney. “It just seems that everything is more spending, more taxes. No one is willing to step forward and lead and say quit spending.”

[View the story "Reactions: President Barack Obama re-elected" on Storify]