Obama Tuesday won a second term in the White House, scoring a clear victory over Romney.

Obama told ecstatic supporters that he looked forward to solving the country's problems with Republicans.

The president also said he wanted to meet Romney to discuss ways to "move this country forward."

Photo taken on Oct. 5, 2012 shows that U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia, the United States. Barack Obama wins U.S. presidential elections. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

President Barack Obama Tuesday won a second term in the White House, scoring a clear victory over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a tight race focused on how to repair the ailing U.S. economy.

In his victory speech delivered at his Chicago campaign headquarters early Wednesday morning, Obama told ecstatic supporters that he looked forward to solving the country's problems with Republicans.

Obama, 51, said he was returning to the White House more determined and inspired, promising to work with leaders of both parties to reduce deficit, fix tax code and work on immigration reform.

Obama, America's first black president, also said he wanted to meet Romney to discuss ways to "move this country forward."

Romney, a 65-year-old former private equity executive, conceded defeat at his Boston campaign headquarters.

Romney said Republicans and Democrats should work together to avoid "partisan bickering and political posturing" and that leaders should reach across the aisles to solve the nation's myriad of problems.

"We look to Democrats and Republicans in government at all levels to put the people before the politics," said Romney.

The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about 50 percent against Romney's 49 percent after a closely fought race in which the candidates and their party allies spent a combined 2 billion U.S. dollars.

Obama garnered more than 270 electoral votes needed in the state-by-state system used to choose U.S. presidents, rolling up wins in Democratic strongholds and carrying swing states of Nevada, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio and Virginia.

Obama's narrow win in the all-important state of Ohio marked a major step in his battle to win the White House. Though it still wasn't clear early on Wednesday whether the president won the key battleground state of Florida, Obama had already scooped up 303 electoral votes against 206 for Romney.

Obama easily grabbed a host of "deep blue" states including California, Illinois and New Jersey, while Romney prevailed in "deep red" states of Texas, Kentucky and Georgia. North Carolina was the only swing state captured by Romney.

Though Obama confounded political logic by triumphing over a sluggish economy, the same problems that dogged Obama in his first term are to haunt him again.

In addition to the massive task of tackling 1 trillion-dollar annual deficits and reducing a 16 trillion-dollar national debt, Obama will have to deal with a divided U.S. Congress that is likely to maintain the same partisan makeup in his second term in the White House.

TV projections showed that American voters on Tuesday chose to leave the U.S. Congress as it is, with Democrats retaining control of the Senate and the Republicans holding onto the House of Representatives.

The immediate focus for the president and Congress will be to confront the "fiscal cliff," a mix of tax increases and spending cuts due to extract some 600 billion dollars from the economy.

Obama and Romney headed into the polling day after a long and bitter trail which focused on the lagging economic recovery and persistent high unemployment, with both men seeking to convince voters they had a plan to usher in faster growth and job creation.

The race also pits the two candidates on issues of healthcare, national security and immigration, but they were overshadowed by the all-important economic concerns.

Election Day began with midnight voting in a pair of small towns in New Hampshire, and expanded across the nation after 5 a.m. (1000 GMT). Voters lined up from New York to Florida to cast their ballots.

Although final figures haven't come in, U.S. media outlets are reporting heavy turnout in the election. Early exit polls showed 73 percent of voters were white, 13 percent were African American, 10 percent Latino and 3 percent Asian.

In preliminary results from early voters in a national NBC News exit poll, 52 percent said America was on the wrong track while 46 percent said the nation was "generally going in the right direction."

Not surprisingly three out of five voters Tuesday said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, but poll respondents were divided as to what specific economic challenge loomed largest.

In picking the biggest economic problem facing people, 39 percent chose unemployment, 36 percent said rising prices, while 14 percent said taxes were the biggest problem and 7 percent said housing.