Who Won Colorado: Obama Wins, Amendment 64 Passes, and Gary Johnson Falls Flat

Impact

President Obama has won the state of Colorado with just over 50% of the vote on election night.

Colorado seems to be swinging the same way as the other swing states, into a victory for President Barack Obama over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Despite the candidates' appearing virtually tied in Colorado leading up to election day, Obama is poised to win with about 50% of the vote, compared to Romney’s 47%. The Denver Post is projecting that this lead is substantial enough to translate into a victory.

Nor was Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, who supports marijuana legalization, able to capitalize on support for Amendment 64. The measure, which would legalize possession of marijuana for adults 21 and older, while regulating its sale and distribution, appears likely to pass with about 52% in favor and 47% opposed. However, Johnson was only able to garner about 1% of the votes in the Colorado presidential race. 

Paradoxically, Colorado voters supported President Obama, who has firmly established himself as a supporter of the Drug War. In fact, the DEA under Obama conducted more raids on medical marijuana dispensaries than it did under Bush.

PolicyMic's Election Night update: It was a difficult night for the Republicans in races across the country, as they suffered major losses in the Senate (Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Claire McCaskill were all victorious). Romney did not perform well in any of the major swing states, with the exception of North Carolina.

Here's the vote count: Romney: 203 (IN, KY, GA, SC, WV, AL, MS, OK, TN, AZ, KS, LA, NE, ND, SD, TX, WY, MT, UT, ID)

Obama: 303 (VT, CT, DE, IL, MD, MA, NJ, RI, ME, DC, MI, NY, PA, WI, NH, MN, NM, CO, CA, HI, WA, OR, OH, IA, NV, VA)

For the final election results and real-time updates on the remaining races in the election, see here.