After months of campaigning and debating, the race to the White House is over. Don’t worry if you missed last night’s nail-biting election coverage, we've got the rundown for you.

Presidency

• Big Bird can rest easy because Barack Obama remains president of the United States!
• With 50% of the popular vote and 303 electoral votes [1], Obama beat Mitt Romney, who came close with 48% of the popular vote and 206 electoral votes.
• Obama is the first U.S. president to endorse marriage equality.

     House v. Senate

• Democrats stay in control of the Senate, while Republicans maintain the majority in the House of Representatives.
  • The Republican Party leads with 232 seats, while Democrats have 192 seats [2].
• Democratic winners of the house include John Barrow, Jesse Jackson, Joseph Kennedy, John Dingell, Charles Rangel and John Conyers.
• Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann were some prominent Republicans elected to the House.
• The 113th Congress has 20 female senators [3], the highest in history.
• Republican Deb Fischer and Democrats Tammy Baldwin, Heidi Heitkamp, Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren will join the Senate. Maria Cantwell, Dianne Feinstein, Kristen Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill and Debbie Stabenow won re-election.

LGBT Community

• It was an historic night for the LGBT community. Same-sex marriage was passed in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington State. [4]
• The first openly gay Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was elected.
• In Road Island, openly gay congressman David Cicilline was re-elected.
• Sean Patrick Maloney became the first openly gay person elected to represent New York in Congress.

Marijuana Legalization

• Washington and Colorado [5] became the first U.S. states to legalize medical marijuana.
• This new bill will allow adults to have small amounts of marijuana for recreational use.

Start a political club in your school. GO [6]