Hume: U.S. 'more liberal than many may have thought'

As President Barack Obama was being re-elected on Tuesday, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said he had discovered that the United States was "more liberal than many may have thought."

"Many of us have believed -- and I still basically do -- that that this is a center-right country," Hume explained. "And a lot of conservatives have taken the view that liberals are really on the wane. If you look at tonight's exit polling that we've seen so far, those that self-identified as liberals are about 24 percent, self-identified conservatives 35 percent, moderates 40 percent. Now, this apparent outcome tells you one thing about those moderates, that there are in that category an awful lot of them who are actually liberals."

"Now, liberal became kind of dirty word, that's when the word progressive came into use," he continued. "But I think that -- but I don't think -- you take the conservative number, 35 percent, it's certainly a share of those moderates that are moderate to conservative, you've still got a center-right country, but it's more liberal than many may have thought looking at those numbers. It's got to be."

On the Sunday before the 2012 presidential election, the senior political analyst said that it was “puzzling” that national polls indicated GOP hopeful Mitt Romney was tied with Obama while swing state polls suggested that Democrats were going to win enough electoral votes for to keep the White House.

Watch this video from Fox News, broadcast Nov. 6, 2012.