Obama wins the way his campaign predicted

CHICAGO (AP) -- President Barack Obama won re-election exactly the way his campaign had predicted: by running up big margins with women and minorities, mobilizing a sophisticated registration and get-out-the-vote operation, and focusing narrowly on the battleground states that would determine the election.

It wasn't always exciting and it was hardly transformational. But it worked.

Still, there were detours along the way, most notably Obama's dismal performance in the first debate, which breathed new life into Republican challenger Mitt Romney's campaign. The deadly attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, opened up Obama to a flurry of GOP criticism of his leadership. And Superstorm Sandy upended the campaign in its closing days, though the political impact appears to have been positive for Obama.