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United States presidential election, 2012

← 2008 November 6, 2012 2016 →
538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	~59%(voting eligible)
Nominee Barack Obama Mitt Romney Party Democratic Republican Home state Illinois Massachusetts Running mate Joe Biden Paul Ryan Electoral vote 332 206 States carried 26 + DC 24 Popular vote 65,600,425 60,861,683 Percentage 51.0% 47.3%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states/districts won by Obama/Biden and Red denotes those won by Romney/Ryan. Numbers indicate electoral votes allotted to the winner of each state.
President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

2012 U.S. presidential election
Timeline General election debates Electors Polling nationwide statewide Parties
Democratic Party
Candidates Primaries Results Nominee Convention
Republican Party
Prelude Candidates Debates and forums Primaries National polling Statewide polling Straw polls Results Nominee VP candidate selection Convention Endorsements
Minor parties
Libertarian Party candidates primaries nominee convention Green Party primaries nominee convention Constitution Party nominee convention Justice Party nominee Americans Elect All candidates
Related races
House Senate Governors Vice President Democratic Republican
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The United States presidential election of 2012 was the 57th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic nominee, President Barack Obama, and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, were elected to a second term. Their major challengers were the Republican nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Four major debates were held during the last weeks of the campaign: three presidential and one vice-presidential. Issues debated included the economy and jobs, the national deficit, healthcare, education, social policy, immigration, and foreign policy. Although most major media outlets insisted the race was too close to predict a winner in advance, analysts using statistical models, bookmakers, and betting markets had Obama as a clear favorite.

On November 6, by around 11:15 PM EST, most major television networks projected the winners would be Obama and Biden. At about 1:00 AM EST (6:00 AM GMT) on November 7, Romney conceded the election to Obama, just as the polls in Alaska were closing. By November 10, the electoral outcomes of all 50 states and the District of Columbia had been definitively projected, with final vote counts still outstanding in some states. Obama carried all the states and districts (among states that allocate electoral votes by district) that he had won in the 2008 election except North Carolina, Indiana, and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district.

Electoral college changes

The 2010 Census changed the Electoral College vote apportionment for the presidential elections from 2012 to 2020 in the states listed below.

Eight states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington) gained votes, due to reapportionment based on the 2010 Census. Similarly ten states (Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania) lost votes.

In the political climate of 2012, this gave the Democratic Party a net loss of six electoral votes in states won by Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama in the past three presidential elections, rendering the party a national total of 242. Conversely, the Republican Party achieved a net gain of six electoral votes in states won by George W. Bush and McCain in the past three presidential elections, rendering the Republican Party a national total of 180. Votes allocated to remaining states (i.e., those where the majority voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates during the last three presidential elections) remain unchanged from the national total of 115.

State changes to voter registration and electoral rules

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In 2011, several state legislatures passed new voting laws, especially pertaining to voter identification, with the stated purpose of combating voter fraud; the laws were attacked, however, by the Democratic Party as attempts to suppress voting among its supporters and to improve the Republican Party's presidential prospects. Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia's state legislatures approved measures to shorten early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all felons from voting. Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin state legislatures passed laws requiring voters to have government-issued IDs before they could cast their ballots. This meant, typically, that people without driver's licenses or passports had to gain new forms of ID. Obama, the NAACP, and the Democratic Party fought against many of the new state laws. Former President Bill Clinton denounced them, saying, "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today". He was referring to Jim Crow laws passed in southern states near the turn of the twentieth century that disfranchised most blacks from voting and excluded them from the political process for more than six decades. Clinton said the moves would effectively disfranchise core voter blocs that trend liberal, including college students, Blacks, and Latinos. Rolling Stone magazine criticized the American Legislative Exchange Council for lobbying in states to bring about these laws, to "solve" a problem that does not exist. The Obama campaign fought against the Ohio law, pushing for a petition and statewide referendum to repeal it in time for the 2012 election.

In addition, the Pennsylvania legislature proposed a plan to change its representation in the electoral college from the traditional winner-take-all model to a district-by-district model. As the governorship and both houses of its legislature were Republican-controlled, the move was viewed by some as an attempt to reduce Democratic chances.

Republicans have argued that voter ID laws are needed to curb the problem of voter fraud, but there is little evidence that voter fraud is a serious problem.

Nominations

Democratic Party

Primaries

With an incumbent president running for reelection against token opposition, the race for the Democratic nomination was largely uneventful. The nomination process consisted of primaries and caucuses, held by the 50 states, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Additionally, high-ranking party members known as superdelegates each received one vote in the convention. A few of the primary challengers surpassed the president's vote total in individual counties in several of the seven contested primaries, though none made a significant impact in the delegate count. Running unopposed everywhere else, President Obama cemented his status as the Democratic presumptive nominee on April 3, 2012 by securing the minimum number of pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

• Barack Obama, President of the United States from Illinois

Candidates

• President Barack Obama of Illinois

Republican Party

The nomination process consisted of primaries and caucuses, held by the 50 states, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The caucuses allocated delegates to the respective state delegations to the national convention, but the actual election of the delegates were many times at a later date. Delegates were elected in different ways that vary from state to state. They could be elected at local conventions, selected from slates submitted by the candidates, selected at committee meetings, or elected directly at the caucuses and primaries. Additionally, high-ranking RNC members, known as superdelegates, each received one vote in the convention.

Primaries

Candidates with considerable name recognition who entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in the early stages of the primary campaign included: Congressman and former Libertarian nominee Ron Paul, former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who co-chaired John McCain's campaign in 2008, former Governor Mitt Romney, who was widely considered the runner-up for the nomination in the 2008 cycle, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

The first debate took place on May 5, 2011 in Greenville, South Carolina, with businessman Herman Cain, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Paul, Pawlenty, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum participating. There was another about a month later, with Gingrich, Romney, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and Rep. Michele Bachmann participating and Johnson excluded. A total of thirteen debates were held before the Iowa caucuses.

The first major event of the campaign was the Ames Straw Poll, which took place in Iowa on August 13, 2011. Pawlenty withdrew from the race after doing poorly, as did Thaddeus McCotter, the only candidate among those who qualified for the ballot who was refused entrance into the debate. Bachmann won the straw poll, and this proved to be the acme of her campaign.

A segment of the conservative primary electorate found Romney to be too liberal or moderate for their tastes, and a number of potential "anti-Romney" candidates were put forward, including Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Texas Governor Rick Perry, the last of whom ultimately decided to run. He did poorly in subsequent debates, and Cain and Gingrich came into the fore.

Due to a number of scandals, Cain withdrew just before the end of the year, after getting on the ballot in several states. Johnson, who had been able to get into only one other debate, withdrew in order to seek the Libertarian Party nomination.

For the first time in modern GOP history, three different candidates won the first three primary contests. Although Romney was thought to have won in Iowa and New Hampshire, Santorum was declared the winner (by 34 votes) in Iowa a few weeks after the caucuses. Gingrich won South Carolina by a large and surprising margin.

A number of candidates dropped out at this time. Bachmann, who finished fifth in Iowa, withdrew after the caucuses. Huntsman withdrew after coming in third in New Hampshire, and Perry withdrew when polls showed him drawing low numbers in South Carolina.

Santorum, who had previously run an essentially one-state campaign in Iowa, took his campaign national and carried three more states on February 7. Romney won all other contests after South Carolina, including Florida, seen at the time as a major win over Gingrich.

The Super Tuesday primaries took place on March 6. With ten states voting and 391 delegates being allocated, it had nearly half the potential impact of its 2008 predecessor. Romney carried six states and Santorum three, while Gingrich won only in his home state of Georgia. Throughout the rest of March, 266 delegates were allocated in 12 events, including all of the territorial contests and the first local conventions that allocated delegates (Wyoming's county conventions). Santorum won Kansas and three Southern primaries, but he was unable to make any gain on Romney, who remained the frontrunner after securing more than half of the delegates allocated in March.

On April 10, Santorum surprisingly suspended his campaign due to a variety of reasons concerning delegates, Pennsylvanian polls, and his daughter's health, leaving Mitt Romney as the undisputed front-runner for the presidential nomination and Gingrich to claim he was the "last conservative" still actively campaigning for the nomination. Gingrich, however, after getting fourth place in all four April 24 primaries (behind Paul, Romney, and Santorum write-ins/votes), withdrew on May 2. On the same day as Gingrich's spokesman announced his future withdrawal (originally announced to take place on May 1, most sites announced it on May 2), the Republican National Committee (RNC) declared Romney the party's presumptive nominee. Paul officially remained in the race, but he stopped campaigning on May 14 to focus on state conventions. On May 29, Romney won the Texas 2012 Republican primaries; the subsequent accumulation of his portion (some delegates were allocated to Paul and several dropped-out candidates) of the state's 155 delegates was enough for him to clinch the party's nomination when including unpledged delegates. After June 5 Primaries in California and elsewhere, Romney had more than enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination without counting unpledged delegates, leaving the June 26 Utah Primary, the last contest, completely pointless. CNN's final delegate estimate, released on July 27, 2012, put Romney at 1,462 pledged delegates, 62 unpledged, for a total estimate of 1,524 delegates. No other candidate had unpledged delegates. Other estimates were Santorum at 261 delegates, Paul at 154, Gingrich at 142, Bachmann at 1, Jon Huntsman at 1, and all others at 0.

On August 28, 2012, delegates at the Republican National Convention officially named Romney as the party's presidential nominee. Romney formally accepted the delegates' nomination on August 30, 2012.

Brief overview

• Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
• Ron Paul, U.S. Representative from Texas (ended active campaigning on May 14, 2012; no endorsement, continued to seek delegates from earlier primaries)
• Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives from Georgia (withdrew on May 2, 2012, and endorsed Mitt Romney)
• Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania (withdrew on April 10, 2012, and endorsed Mitt Romney)
• Buddy Roemer, former governor of Louisiana (withdrew on February 22, 2012, to run for the nominations of Americans Elect and the Reform Party, then endorsed Gary Johnson)
• Rick Perry, Governor of Texas (withdrew on January 19, 2012, and endorsed Newt Gingrich, then Mitt Romney after Gingrich withdrew)
• Jon Huntsman, Jr., former U.S. ambassador to China and former governor of Utah (withdrew on January 16, 2012, and endorsed Mitt Romney)
• Michele Bachmann, U.S. Representative from Minnesota (withdrew on January 4, 2012, and endorsed Mitt Romney)
• Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico (withdrew on December 28, 2011, to run for the nomination of the Libertarian Party)
• Herman Cain, businessman from Georgia (withdrew on December 3, 2011, and endorsed Newt Gingrich, then Mitt Romney after Gingrich withdrew)
• Thaddeus McCotter, U.S. Representative from Michigan (withdrew on September 22, 2011, and endorsed Mitt Romney)
• Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota (withdrew on August 14, 2011, and endorsed Mitt Romney)

Candidates

• Former Governor
  Mitt Romney
  of Massachusetts
  (campaign)
• U.S. Representative
  Ron Paul of Texas (campaign)
• Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of Georgia (campaign)
• Former Senator
  Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (campaign)
• Former Governor
  Buddy Roemer of Louisiana (campaign)
• Governor Rick Perry of Texas (campaign)
• Former Ambassador
  Jon Huntsman of Utah (campaign)
• U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota (campaign)
• Former Governor
  Gary Johnson of New Mexico (campaign)
• Former Federal Reserve District Chairman Herman Cain of Kansas City (campaign)
• U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan (campaign)
• Former Governor
  Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (campaign)

Third parties

Four other parties nominated candidates that had ballot access or write-in access to at least 270 electoral votes, which is the minimum number of votes needed to win the presidency through a majority of the electoral college.

Write-in states that were confirmed to have full elector slates, and included in the final ballot count, appear in bold.

Libertarian Party

• Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico; vice-presidential nominee: Jim Gray, retired state court judge, from California

Candidate Ballot Access: The Johnson/Gray ticket was on all state ballots except in Michigan and Oklahoma where its ballot access has been challenged. (515 electoral votes)

Write-In Candidate Access: Michigan – (16 electoral votes)

Total: 531 possible electoral votes

Green Party

• Jill Stein, medical doctor from Massachusetts; vice-presidential nominee: Cheri Honkala, social organizer, from Pennsylvania.

Candidate Ballot Access: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin – (447 electoral votes)

Write-In Candidate Access: Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wyoming – (11 electoral votes)

Total: 458 possible electoral votes

Constitution Party

• Virgil Goode, former U.S. congressman, from Virginia; vice-presidential nominee: Jim Clymer from Pennsylvania

Candidate Ballot Access: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming – (257 electoral votes)

Write-In Candidate Access: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia – (133 electoral votes)

Total: 390 possible electoral votes

Justice Party

• Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City and founding member of the Justice Party, from Utah; vice-presidential nominee: Luis J. Rodriguez from California.

Candidate Ballot Access: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington – (145 electoral votes)

Write-In Candidate Access: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming – (160 electoral votes)

Total: 305 possible electoral votes

Americans Elect

• No candidates nominated

Ballot access: Before ending its primary process, the organization had gained ballot access in 29 states with 286 electoral votes.

Following the unsuccessful Unity08, Peter Ackerman started Americans Elect, a non-partisan non-profit organization, with the objective of having the first online nomination process in American history. Americans Elect's motto was "Pick a president, not a party". No candidates met the requirements of online support set out by the organization to enter into its online caucus, so on May 17 the primary process came to an end without a nominee and no AE candidate ran for President in 2012. The online caucus site is now inactive except for a home page with the phrase "See You in 2013".

Party conventions

• April 18–21, 2012: 2012 Constitution Party National Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee; Virgil Goode won the nomination.
• May 3–6, 2012: 2012 Libertarian National Convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada; Gary Johnson won the nomination.
• July 13–15, 2012: 2012 Green National Convention held in Baltimore, Maryland; Jill Stein won the nomination.
• August 27–30, 2012: 2012 Republican National Convention held in Tampa, Florida; Mitt Romney won the nomination.
• September 3–6, 2012: 2012 Democratic National Convention held in Charlotte, North Carolina; Barack Obama won the nomination.

Other candidates

A total of 417 people filed a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to run for President in 2012. Most did not appear on the ballot in any state in the general election on November 6.

Campaigns

Financing and advertising

The United States presidential election of 2012 broke new records in financing, fundraising and negative campaigning. Through grass-roots campaign contributions, online donations, and Super PACs, Obama and Romney raised a combined total of nearly two billion dollars. Super PACs combined nearly for one fourth of the total financing, with most of the total coming from pro-Romney PACs. Obama raised $690 million through online channels, beating his record of $500 million in 2008. 84% of the ads put out by Obama were negative, while about 80% of the ads put out by Romney were also negative.

Debates

The Commission on Presidential Debates held four debates. Candidates must appear on sufficient state-ballots to be mathematically eligible to win the presidency and achieve at least 15% support in five national polls as of the date of determination. Two third party candidates were organized by Free and Equal, and co-moderated by Christina Tobin.

• Wednesday October 3: The first presidential debate took place at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, moderated by Jim Lehrer
• Thursday October 11: The vice-presidential debate took place at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, moderated by Martha Raddatz
• Tuesday October 16: The second presidential debate took place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, moderated by Candy Crowley. It had a town-meeting format.
• Monday October 22: The third presidential debate took place at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, moderated by Bob Schieffer

An independent presidential debate featuring minor party candidates took place on Tuesday October 23, at University Club of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The debate was moderated by Larry King and organized by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation. Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green), Virgil Goode (Constitution) and Rocky Anderson (Justice) were the participants. A second debate between Stein and Johnson was announced for Monday, November 5, and took place in Washington, D.C.; it was hosted by RT, and moderated by Thom Hartmann and Christina Tobin.

Memorable expressions/phrases

• Obamacare: The name coined by Republicans for the Affordable Care Act but then embraced by the Obama campaign because "Obama cares".
• You didn't build that: Barack Obama's statement referring to businesses not having to build infrastructure that allows them to operate their business, and the Republicans using the phrase to accuse Obama of not appreciating accomplishments of businesses
• Binders full of women: a phrase Mitt Romney used to describe that he had lots of qualified female candidates to appoint when he was governor, and then ridiculed by Democrats for being insensitive
• Romnesia: a term coined by a blogger in April 2011 and late in the campaign used by Obama to describe people who do not remember Romney's past statements.

Election

Early voting in some of the states began in September or October and continued as late as November 5. The election will proceed as follows:

• November 6, 2012 – Election Day.
• December 17, 2012 – Electoral College formally elect a President and Vice President.
• January 3, 2013 – The 113th Congress is sworn in.
• January 6, 2013 – Electoral votes are formally counted before a joint session of Congress.
• January 20, 2013 – Oaths of office are taken by the President and Vice President; the new presidential term starts at noon.
• January 21, 2013 – Inauguration Day (as the 20th falls on a Sunday).

The first results available were from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, with 5 votes for Obama and 5 for Romney, and from Hart's Location, New Hampshire, with 23 votes for Obama, nine for Romney, and one for Gary Johnson. Both towns vote at midnight each election, and results are available shortly thereafter. Additional results became available after the polls closed, beginning at 7 PM Eastern Time.

There were several firsts this election. For the first time, a sitting President voted early. For the first time, candidates spent over $1 billion in advertising. Total cost in all campaigns was close to $5.8 billion, about $50/voter. Two astronauts on the International Space Station voted from space using ballots which were transmitted to them over the weekend.

For the first time, voters in New Jersey were permitted to vote using e-mail. Election officials were not prepared for the 15 minutes it took to validate each request. As a result, they extended e-mail voting until Friday, November 9.

Results

• The Empire State Building was lit blue when CNN called Ohio for Obama, projecting him the election winner; red would have been used if Romney won.
• Obamas and Bidens embrace following television announcement of result.
• Obamas and Bidens election night victory celebration at McCormick Place in Chicago
• Romney meeting with President Obama after the 2012 presidential election.

Popular vote count is preliminary until all states have certified their results.

Projected electoral votes. Electors do not cast their votes until December 17, 2012.

Analysis

Combined with the previous reelections of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Obama's victory marks the second time that three consecutive American presidents have achieved reelection (the first three being Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe).

Obama won 332 electoral votes in 2012, compared to 365 in 2008. Indiana, North Carolina, and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district are the electoral votes Obama won in the 2008 election that he did not win in 2012. The 126 vote difference in electoral votes between Obama and Romney made 2012 the 21st closest election out of the 57 presidential elections.

The election was the first in U.S. history in which both major party candidates received more than 60 million votes, and the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt's last two re-elections in 1940 and 1944 that a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of the popular vote in two consecutive elections. Andrew Jackson, Roosevelt and Obama are the only three candidates of the Democratic Party who have secured a majority of the popular vote in consecutive elections. The other non-Democrats to have done so are George Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

Obama is the third president to win re-election with a lower percentage of both the electoral vote and the popular vote, preceded by Madison in 1812 and FDR in 1940 and 1944 for his third and fourth terms. (Woodrow Wilson had received more of the popular vote but less of the electoral vote in 1916, and Andrew Jackson in 1832 and Grover Cleveland in 1892 had received more of the electoral vote and less of the popular vote.) Madison did receive more total electoral votes, as the electoral college had increased in size during his first term as a result of the admission of Louisiana and results of the 1810 census. Obama is therefore the first president to be re-elected to a second term with fewer electoral and popular votes.

Romney lost his home state of Massachusetts by more than 23% – the largest margin of any major-party candidate since the Civil War. Romney's vote share of 37.5% in his home state was the lowest of any major-party candidate since Herbert Hoover in 1932. Obama became the first Democrat to win the White House while carrying the fewest number (two) of former Confederate states.

While third-party voting had no significant impact on the outcome, Gary Johnson's 1.27 million votes set a Libertarian Party record, and his 0.99% of the popular vote is the second-best showing for a Libertarian in a presidential election, trailing only Ed Clark's 1.06% in 1980. Collectively, third-party candidates earned about 1.7% of the popular vote, the highest since receiving 3.75% in the 2000 election.

• Cartogram of the electoral vote results, with each square representing one electoral vote.
• Results on a county-wide level. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont had all counties go to Obama. Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia had all counties go to Romney.
• Presidential popular votes by county as a scale from red/Republican to blue/Democratic.
• Treemap of votes by county, state and locally predominant recipient.

Voting By Educational Attainment

President Obama won the top 16 and 18 of the top 20 states (and D.C.) ranked according to educational attainment by a significant margin in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The exceptions were Kansas, ranked 17, and Utah, ranked 20.

Mr. Romney managed only to capture only 37.6% of the vote in his home state of Massachusetts, where he recently served as governor – a state which, excluding D.C., ranks highest by most measures of educational attainment and home to two of the top ten colleges in the world.

Romney won 11 of 12 of the lowest ranking states convincingly, losing in only Nevada. Seven of the ten lowest ranked states were aligned (more or less) with the confederacy during the civil war, and two weren't yet states, leaving Indiana as the only Union representative in the states going to candidate Romney.

Votes by state

The following table records official or preliminary vote tallies for each state for the presidential candidates who had ballot access to at least 270 electoral votes. The column labeled "Margin" shows Obama's margin of victory over Romney (the margin is negative for states won by Romney). The column labeled "Final" indicates whether or not the state reports that the results are official, certified, or final. A few states did not include the total number of write-in votes cast in their official reports. An unofficial count of the number of unreported write-in votes, as recorded by "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections," was added to the official results and included in the column labeled "Others" for the following states: Arizona (7,305 votes), Idaho (4,468 votes), Florida (15,983 votes), Michigan (7,014 votes), New Jersey (7,388 votes), Pennsylvania (11,466 votes), and Utah (2,375 votes).

Maine and Nebraska each allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In the 2012 election, all four of Maine's electoral votes were won by Obama and all five of Nebraska's electoral votes were won by Romney.

Close races

Red font color denotes states (or congressional districts that contribute an electoral vote) won by Republican Mitt Romney; blue denotes those won by Democrat Barack Obama.

States where the margin of victory was under 5% (75 electoral votes):

1. Florida, 0.88%
2. North Carolina, 2.04%
3. Ohio, 2.98%
4. Virginia, 3.87%

States/districts where margin of victory was between 5% and 10% (119 electoral votes):

1. Colorado, 5.37%
2. Pennsylvania, 5.39%
3. New Hampshire, 5.58%
4. Iowa, 5.81%
5. Nevada, 6.68%
6. Wisconsin, 6.84%
7. Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, 7.16%
8. Minnesota, 7.69%
9. Georgia, 7.82%
10. Maine's 2nd Congressional District, 8.56%
11. Arizona, 9.04%
12. Missouri, 9.38%
13. Michigan, 9.48%

Romney's concession

After the networks called Ohio for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney was at first reluctant to concede the race, as many counties in Ohio were still outstanding. Once Colorado was called for the President, however, in tandem with Obama's apparent lead in Florida, Romney realized he had lost and conceded. Despite public polling suggesting Romney was behind in the swing states, his campaign said they were genuinely surprised by the loss, having believed that public polling was oversampling Democrats. One factor was a disorganization in getting voters to the polls through the Romney campaign's in-house poll aggregator, Project ORCA. The Romney campaign had already set up a transition website, and had scheduled and purchased a fireworks display to celebrate in case he won the election.

On November 30, 2012, it was revealed that shortly before the election, internal polling within Romney's campaign had shown the candidate ahead in Colorado and New Hampshire, tied in Iowa, and within a few points of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. Further polling showed the candidate within a few points of the crucial swing state Ohio. In addition, the Romney campaign assumed that they would win Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, but the demographic assumptions of their polls were incorrect. These polls convinced Romney and his campaign that they were going to win the election, and they were so confident in the numbers that Romney passed on writing a concession speech. All of those states except North Carolina went to Obama in the general election.

Reactions

Financial markets, the media and other countries' political leaderships reacted with both positive and mixed messages. Most world leaders congratulated and praised Barack Obama on his re-election victory; however, Venezuela and some other states had tempered reactions; Pakistan commented that Romney's defeat made Pakistan-United States relations more safe. Notably, international reactions came from Kenya, where Sarah Obama led the celebration. Stock markets fell noticeably after the President's re-election, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ and the S&P 500 each declining over two percent the day after the election. Reasons given for the sharp drop were the potential "fiscal cliff" looming over the United States, because of a split Congress; in addition, speculators are hedging on differences between the Executive and the House of Representatives as a result of differing political control of each institution. There are also renewed concerns about Europe's debt crisis following warnings given by the European Central Bank's President.

Footnotes

1. ^ Projected results based on popular vote. The Electoral College will vote on December 17. The results will be read before a joint session of the newly sworn-in Congress on January 6; only then will the official president-elect (and vice president-elect) be determined. The Electoral College theoretically reserves the right to act independently of the popular vote.

See also

• Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012
• Statewide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012
• United States presidential election, 2012 timeline

References

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3. "This year's voter turnout may fall short of 2008". USA Today. November 9, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
4. For example, the Financial Post (from Reuters) , Forbes , and Globe & Mail all described the election as "too close to call".
5. ElectoralVote, FiveThirtyEight, Pollster, Princeton Consortium, Votamatic
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7. Intrade, Betfair
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11. Lush, Tamara (November 10, 2012). "Obama Wins Fla., Topping Romney in Final Tally". Associated Press. Retrieved November 10, 2012.
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Further reading

• Mayer, William G.; Bernstein, Jonathan, eds. (2012). The Making of the Presidential Candidates, 2012. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-1170-4. Scholars explore nominations in the post-public-funding era, digital media and campaigns, television coverage, and the Tea Party.

External links

• 2012 Presidential Form 2 Filers at the Federal Election Commission (FEC)
• Election 2012 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions
• Template:Dmoz
• 2012 Interactive Electoral Map

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from December 2012
• United States presidential election, 2012
• Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles
• Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012
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• Paul Ryan
• History of the United States (1991–present)