Popular Vote 2012: Obama Ahead By 2.6 Million Votes

Once official voting results began pouring in in Tuesday night, it didn't take the major networks very long to declare that President Barack Obama had won four more years in the White House.

Obama was easily dominant on the Electoral College map, with the incumbent trouncing his Republican challenger Mitt Romney by nearly 100 electoral votes. With all states other than Florida reporting enough results to make a call, Obama stands at 303 electoral votes, while Romney lags far behind with 206 electoral votes.

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But even as the Electoral College provided decisive results, some Americans looked to the popular vote and noticed a disparity.

Even after all the major news networks called the race for Obama, Romney still led the president in the popular vote, leading his supporters to begin questioning the legitimacy of Obama's victory and the efficiency of the Electoral College.

But now that more precincts have reported their results and most of the vote has been tallied, Obama is ahead in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, securing his victory for a second term as the 44th president of the United States.

According to CNN's tally, which is still changing as the final round of votes continue to be reported, Obama is ahead of Romney in the popular vote by about 2.6 million votes as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. The president garnered a total of about 59.7 million votes, while Romney took in approximately 57.1 million.

Even as some naysayers were still watching the popular vote with doubt late Tuesday night, New York Times political columnist Nate Silver predicted around 2:30 a.m. that Obama was on track to take charge of the popular vote once all results were included.

"Mr. Obama is also likely to win the popular vote, perhaps by two to three percentage points, once votes from California, Oregon and Washington are fully counted," Silver wrote.