4 MORE YEARS: Obama wins re-elections, tweets his thanks

US President Barack Obama swept to re-election on Tuesday, creating history again by defying the undertow of a slow economic recovery and high unemployment to beat Republican foe Mitt Romney.This happened because of you. Thank you," Obama tweeted to his 22 million followers on Twitter as a flurry of states, including Iowa, which nurtured his unlikely White House dreams suddenly tipped into his column. Microblogs: Yashwant Raj | Pramit Pal Chaudhuri | Anirudh Bhattacharyya

Buttons with portraits of US President Barack Obama lie in a glass bowl during the election night at the representation of the Bertelsmann media cooperation in Berlin. Reuters