The Daily Beacon

Page 1

Issue 52, Volume 121

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

# OBA M A 2012 #Vote2012

Twitter takes prominence in political arena

#BelieveinAmerica #RomneyRyan2012 #GOP2012

Blair Kuykendall Editor-in-Chief

#VoteObama

Emily DeLanzo Managing Editor Pleased, upset, or generally annoyed by an Obama victory, countless Americans spent last night dialed in to their Twitter feeds. This election year, Twitter played a defining role in American political dialogue for the first time in its history. A record 70 million Americans are now tuned in to Twitter, actively participating in a neverending national discourse. “(Social media) hasn’t changed many people’s opinions, but it has given people a voice,” Alex Aust, senior in environmental and soil sciences, said. Aust identifies himself as a moderate-conservative. This significant increase in Twitter users, up from three million participants in the last election, generated an arena for realtime political discussion unrivaled in American history. Over 358 million tweets were cast from users all across the nation throughout the presidential campaign. Alex Adkins, sophomore in English, identifies himself as a liberal Democrat, and is active both on Facebook and Twitter. “Social media had a really large influence,” Adkins said. “Twitter specifically had millions of tweets today alone about the election. The political activity regardless of the party affiliation helped get people out to the polls.” Over the past nine months, Americans took to Twitter to highlight the good, the bad and the wrong. Love it or hate it: Twitter has changed public perception of major elections. The website has completely redefined the way Americans and citizens of the world express their opinions, making discussion more inclusive. Voters, spectators and pundits alike turned to the website to celebrate and vent frustrations on election night. Major networks included live tweets in their coverage, focused on conveying as much information in real time as possible. The main trending topic, #Election2012, aided major news sources in up-to-date reporting on the presidential election. Names like “Obama” and “Romney” stayed on top of the United States trending chart on and off for almost 24 hours.

#ELECTED #4moreyears #forward #teamobama Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

President Barack Obama waves to people as he leaves a campaign office the morning of the 2012 election, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in Chicago.

#ivoted

Electoral map current as of 1 a.m. See SOCIAL MEDIA on Page 2

Republicans win TN supermajority David Cobb Assistant News Editor

Justin Joo Staff Writer Tuesday night, Tennessee Republicans garnered their first state senate supermajority in party history. With Republican Joe Hensley winning District 28, the GOP claimed the two necessary seats to take the 22-11 margin in the state’s upper chamber. The GOP also made a run at grabbing a supermajority in the House, where they needed to win only two seats, but came up short. For Brian Stevens, a 2014 State Senate hopeful and UT math lecturer, the local

races hold as much significance, if not more, than the Obama vs. Romney race that attracted the national spotlight. “We see the president in the media so much,” Stevens said. “When you have a national news channel, you can’t cater to it to a state. If they start going in-depth on Tennessee and start going over Tennessee issues, everyone who’s not from here is going to change the channel. So you have to cater to the masses. And there are a lot (of) federal issues that have great magnitude on us, but a lot of times these decisions … can have a large impact on our lives.” On the national level, as expected, Romney collected a majority in the Volunteer State. See LOCAL RESULTS on Page 2

Nation swings left early Obama victory in Oregon clenches presidential election after Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio go blue Beacon Staff Reports Incumbent Barack Obama held on to the presidency last night, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney in his bid for reelection. The election was called last night by various news outlets, such as NBC, Huffington Post and FOX News, at around 11:20 p.m. Obama crossed the crucial threshold of 270 electoral votes with strong performances in the battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Romney, who made a strong push late

Tuesday in several states around the northeast, carried the traditional red states of the Southern and Western area, with victories coming from Texas, Georgia, Utah and Missouri, among others. Ultimately, it was too little too late, as President Obama not only capitalized his strong support base in the northeast and Pacific coast states, but also grabbed several key swing-states in the Midwest. At the time of printing, Obama held the lead at 303 electoral votes compared to 203 for Romney, with polls in Nevada, Colorado and Virginia not yet fully counted and Florida too close to call.


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