President of the United States

After a protracted primary battle, Romney won enough delegates to secure the nomination with a May 29 primary victory in Texas. Romney is the son of George Romney, an auto executive who became Michigan’s governor and made an unsuccessful White House run in 1968. The younger Romney says he is committed to seeing someone in the 2012 race “who understands the economy.” Romney has worked in the private sector for much of his career.

He served a single term as governor of Massachusetts, during which he worked with a Democratic legislature. He passed a statewide health insurance overhaul that President Barack Obama has called a model for his own national health care plan.

He has proven to be a fundraising powerhouse who survived a strong initial challenge from Rick Perry, then a surging Newt Gingrich, then a persistent Rick Santorum, only to watch his rivals flame out while he steadily won state contests.

Romney has already made one run for the White House, losing the 2008 GOP nomination to Sen. John McCain.

He has changed his views on issues vital to many conservatives, including abortion rights, gay rights and embryonic stem-cell research. Conservatives following the presidential race have still not settled on Romney, expressing preferences for candidates they see as being farther to the right.

He has been married for more than 40 years and has has five sons and 16 grandchildren.

The 44th president of the United States had no primary challenger, but his toughest opponent may be an economy that hasn’t budged much since he took office in 2009.

Obama was swept into office on a platform of hope and change, but he found jump-starting the economy to be a difficult proposition. An $814 billion stimulus did not drop the unemployment rate, though the White House argued that things would have been much worse without the aid to state workers, tax cuts and infrastructure project funding the stimulus provided.

He fought a bruising battle to overhaul America’s heath care system, only to watch his party lose control of the House of Representatives and trim its majority in the Senate.

On Obama’s watch, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down. But he is pilloried by the right for being soft on Iran, and by the left for keeping detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

He let the Bush-era tax cuts stand, outraging liberals who want the wealthy to pay more. But his attempts to raise taxes on the rich get tarred as “class warfare” by conservatives.

He and his wife, Michelle Obama, have two children. Her served in the U.S. Senate and in the Illinois legislature prior to that. Obama is a lawyer by profession.