Barack Obama's victory means his economic vision is still alive. The legacy of his first term is safe and enshrined to history.

He will not have to worry that his landmark healthcare law will be repealed, his Wall Street reforms shredded, or that his name will be consigned to the list of one-term presidents who were fired before they could finish.

Obama will now push for higher taxes on the wealthy as a way to shrink a choking debt and to steer money toward the programmes he wants.

He will try to land a massive financial deficit-cutting deal with Congress in the coming months and then move on to an immigration overhaul, tax reform and other bipartisan dreams.

Today’s results confirm that the Democrats keep control of the Senate, while the Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives.

Those Republicans, bruised by Mitt Romney’s defeat and already looking to the midterms in 2014, will not buckle easily

And if Obama cannot end political gridlock in Washington, his second term will be reduced to veto threats, empty promises, attempts to bypass Congress and legacy-sealing forays into foreign lands.

Voters decided to put back in place all the political players who have made Washington dysfunctional to the point of nearly sending the US into default for the first time ever.

The president will be dealing again with a Republican-run House, whose leader, Speaker John Boehner, declared on election night that his party is the one with the mandate: no higher taxes.

Obama will still have his firewall in the Senate, but his Democrats don't have enough seats to keep Republicans from bottling up any major legislation with delaying tactics.

So the burden falls on the president to find compromise, not just demand it from the other side.

For now, he can revel in knowing what he pulled off. Obama won despite an economy that sucked away much of the nation's spirit. He won with the highest unemployment rate - at 7.9% - for any incumbent since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

He won even though voters said they thought Romney would be the better choice to end stalemate in Washington, and a huge majority of voters said they were not better off than they were four years ago - a massive test of survival for a president.

The suspense was over early because Obama won all over the map of battleground states, and most crucially in Ohio. That is where he rode his bailout support for the car industry to a victory that crushed Romney's chances.

The reason is that voters wanted the president they knew. They believed convincingly that Obama, not Romney, understood their woes of college costs and insurance bills and sleepless nights.

Exit polls showed that voters viewed Obama as the voice of the poor and the middle class, and Romney as tilting toward the rich.

Formidable and seasoned by life, Romney had in his pocket corporate success and a Massachusetts governor's term and the lessons of a first failed presidential bid.

But he never broke through as the man who would secure people's security and their dreams. He was close the whole time.

The election was never enthralling, and it was fought for far too long in the shallow moments of negative ads and silly comments.

It seemed like the whole country endured it until the end, when the crowds grew and the candidates reached for their most inspiring words.

"Americans don't settle. We build, we aspire, we listen to that voice inside that says 'We can do better," Romney pleaded toward that end.

Americans agreed. They just wanted Obama to take them there.

Incumbents get no transition, so Obama will be tested immediately.

A "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and automatic budget cuts looms on January 1.

If they kick in, economists warn the economy will tank, again. Obama, at least, won the right to fight the fight on his terms.

"If I've won, then I believe that's a mandate for doing it in a balanced way," he said before the election - that is, fixing the budget problem by raising taxes on people instead of just cutting spending.

He had not even been declared the winner before Boehner offered a warning that the House was still in Republican hands.

"With this vote," Boehner said, "the American people have also made clear that there is no mandate for raising tax rates."

America's economic dominance is also under threat from emerging titans such as China and India, while many of her traditional trading partners - such as Europe and particularly the eurozone - have major troubles of their own.

Many of these problems require long-term structural solutions, and action by other countries - but the president is still likely to take the hit from his public if there is no quick improvement.

The foreign affairs picture is hardly brighter. Managing the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by 2014 is a delicate task, and when they depart there is a real danger the nation could slide into civil war.

Not only would that mark the 13-year military intervention as a failure, but Pakistan could be further destabilised, setting back efforts to root out extremists.

The stand-off between Iran and the West over its nuclear ambitions has been simmering for years, but there is a sense that the crisis point is approaching.

It is still possible that Tehran could back down rather than risk social unrest as sanctions effectively collapse the economy.

But the regime may step up development of nuclear weapons, viewing that as the best deterrent to foreign intervention.

Some speculate that Iran could fuel conflicts in Gaza or Lebanon, or carry out her threat to block the key Strait of Hormuz oil route.

The new US leader will have to weigh up whether and when to take direct action against the rogue state - or alternatively endorse Israeli strikes.

The fallout from the Arab Spring is set to loom large over the coming years, with concerns about the burgeoning influence of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East and beyond. Deft diplomacy will be needed to maintain America's influence in countries such as Egypt and Syria, and prevent potential tensions with Israel getting out of hand.

Underlying many of the US's foreign policy objectives is the terrorist threat. The danger from al Qaida may have receded, and Osama bin Laden been killed, but with political, social and economic change engulfing so much of the globe violent extremism will not go away.

Closer to home, Mexico's escalating war between drugs cartels and the government - estimated by some to have claimed 50,000 lives - has been showing signs of leaking north across the border.

Obama, never one to lack from inner confidence, will be buoyed by today’s win. But the next four years are just beginning.