Presidential elections are decided on Electoral College votes, not popular votes. Nevertheless, people are curious who won the popular vote in the 2012 election and reports are noting that President Barack Obama has a large lead over Mitt Romney.

As of 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Obama has widened his popular vote lead: 60,193,076 or 50.4 percent to Romney's 57,468,587 or 48.1 percent with nearly all precincts reporting, according to The Huffington Post. The report added that population centers in California and other western states have boosted Obama's number of popular votes significantly. 

At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Policymic revealed similar popular vote numbers to those from the Post. They reported that Obama won 50 percent of the votes (58,779,121 votes) while Romney received 48 percent (56,518,209). They also added that at least 49 percent of young Americans, ages 18-29, voted in Tuesday's  election.  

In 2008, Obama/Joe Biden topped John McCain/Sarah Palin in the popular vote 69 million to 59 million. Nate Silver of The New York Times predicted on Tuesday that Obama is "likely" to win the popular vote by two to three percentage points. 

Obama won the election with 303 Electoral votes, while Romney received a total of 206. Most of the swing-states, which are said to decide the fate of the election, leaned in support of Obama. The democrat ruled in Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and even in Pennsylvania, where Romney campaigned on Election Day in a last minute effort to win over their support. Romney was successful in capturing the votes from North Carolina, which leaned toward Obama four years ago. 

Silver predicted in his report that Obama's 303 votes were made up 45 percent by racial minorities, with him gaining much support from Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

Tags: popular vote Barack Obama mitt romney