Presidential election results map.Blue denotes states won by Obama/Biden andred denotes those won by Romney/Ryan. Numbers indicateelectoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia.
As the incumbentpresident, Obama secured theDemocratic nomination without serious opposition. The Republicans experienced acompetitive primary. Romney was consistently competitive in the polls and won the support of many party leaders, but he faced challenges from a number of moreconservative contenders. Romney secured his party's nomination in May, defeating former senatorRick Santorum, former Speaker of the House and Georgia CongressmanNewt Gingrich, and Texas congressmanRon Paul, among other candidates.
The campaigns focused heavily on domestic issues, and debate centered largely around sound responses to theGreat Recession along with long-termfederal budget issues, the future ofsocial insurance programs, and theAffordable Care Act.Foreign policy was also discussed, including the end of theIraq War in 2011, military spending, theIranian nuclear program, and appropriate counteractions toterrorism. Romney claimed Obama's domestic policies were ineffective and financially insolvent while Obama's campaign sought to characterize Romney as aplutocratic businessman who was out of touch with the average American.[4][5] The campaign was marked by a sharp rise in fundraising, including from nominally independentSuper PACs.
As of 2025[update], this is the most recent presidential election in which the Democratic candidate wonIowa,Ohio, andFlorida, along withMaine's 2nd congressional district. This also remains the most recent election in which an incumbent president won re-election to a second consecutive term, in which the incumbent presidential party won re-election, and in which neither major party's ticket included a woman. It is also the most recent presidential election in which the party that won the presidency did not also win control of both chambers of Congress.
Background
State changes to voter registration and electoral rules
In 2011, several state legislatures passed new voting laws, especially pertaining to voter identification, with the stated purpose of combatingvoter fraud; however, the laws were attacked by the Democratic Party as attempts to suppress voting among its supporters and to improve the Republican Party's presidential prospects.Florida,Georgia,Ohio,[7]Tennessee, andWest Virginia's state legislatures approved measures to shorten early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all felons from voting.Kansas,South Carolina,[8]Tennessee,Texas,[9] andWisconsin[10] state legislatures passedlaws requiring voters to have government-issued IDs before they could cast their ballots. This meant typically that people withoutdriver's licenses orpassports had to gain new forms of ID. Former presidentBill Clinton denounced them, saying, "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of thepoll tax and all theJim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today".[11] He was referring toJim Crow laws passed in southern states near the turn of the twentieth century thatdisenfranchised most blacks from voting and excluded them from the political process for more than six decades. Clinton said the moves would effectively disenfranchise core voter blocs that trend liberal, including college students,black people, andLatinos.[12][13]
The Obama campaign fought against theOhio law, pushing for a petition and statewide referendum to repeal it in time for the 2012 election.[14] In addition, thePennsylvania 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.[15] 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.[16][17][18] Ultimately, they did not do it, leaving their winner take all format intact as of 2020.
With an incumbent president running for re-election againsttoken opposition, the race for the Democratic nomination was largely uneventful. The nomination process consisted ofprimaries and caucuses, held by the 50 states, as well asGuam,Puerto Rico,Washington, D.C.,U.S. Virgin Islands,American Samoa, andDemocrats Abroad. Additionally, high-ranking party members known assuperdelegates 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, Obama cemented his status as the Democraticpresumptive nominee on April 3, 2012, by securing the minimum number of pledged delegates needed to obtain the nomination.[19][20]
The first major event of the campaign was theAmes Straw Poll, which took place in Iowa on August 13, 2011. Michele Bachmann won the straw poll (this ultimately proved to be the acme of her campaign).[21] Pawlenty withdrew from the race after a poor showing in the straw poll, as didThaddeus McCotter, the only candidate among those who qualified for the ballot who was refused entrance into the debate.[22]
It became clear at around this point in the nomination process that while Romney was considered to be the likely nominee by the Republican establishment, a large segment of theconservative primary electorate found him to be toomoderate for their political views. As a result, a number of potential "anti-Romney" candidates were put forward,[23][24] including future presidentDonald Trump,[25] former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nomineeSarah Palin,[26] New Jersey governorChris Christie,[27] and Texas governorRick Perry,[28] the last of whom decided to run in August 2011. Perry did poorly in the debates, however, andHerman Cain and thenNewt Gingrich came to the fore in October and November.
Due to a number of scandals, Cain withdrew just before the end of the year, after having ballot placement in several states.[29] Around the same time, Johnson, who had been able to get into only one other debate, withdrew to seek theLibertarian Party nomination.[30]
For the first time in modernRepublican Party history, three different candidates won the first three state contests in January (the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and the South Carolina primary).[31] Although Romney had been expected to win in at least Iowa and New Hampshire, Rick Santorum won the non-binding poll at caucus sites in Iowa by 34 votes, as near as could be determined from the incomplete tally, earning him a declaration as winner by state party leaders, although vote totals were missing from eight precincts.[32][33] The election of county delegates at the caucuses would eventually lead to Ron Paul earning 22 of the 28 Iowa delegates to the Republican National Convention.[34]Newt Gingrich won South Carolina by a surprisingly large margin,[35] and Romney won only in New Hampshire.
A number of candidates dropped out at this point in the nomination process. Bachmann withdrew after finishing sixth in the Iowa caucuses,[36] Huntsman withdrew after coming in third in New Hampshire, and Perry withdrew when polls showed him drawing low numbers in South Carolina.[37]
Santorum, who had previously run an essentially one-state campaign in Iowa, was able to organize a national campaign after his surprising victory there. He unexpectedly carried three states in a row on February 7 and overtook Romney in nationwide opinion polls, becoming the only candidate in the race to effectively challenge the notion that Romney was the inevitable nominee.[38] However, Romney won all of the other contests between South Carolina and theSuper Tuesday primaries, and regained his first-place status in nationwide opinion polls by the end of February.
TheSuper Tuesday primaries took place on March 6. Romney carried six states, Santorum carried three, and Gingrich won only in his home state of Georgia.[39] Throughout the rest of March, 266 delegates were allocated in 12 events, including 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 substantial gain on Romney, who became a formidable frontrunner after securing more than half of the delegates allocated in March.
On April 10, Santorum suspended his campaign due to a variety of reasons, such as a low delegate count, unfavorable polls in his home state of Pennsylvania, and his daughter's health, leaving Mitt Romney as the undisputed front-runner for the presidential nomination and allowing Gingrich to claim that he was "the last conservative standing" in the campaign for the nomination.[40] After disappointing results in the April 24 primaries (finishing second in one state, third in three, and fourth in one), Gingrich dropped out on May 2 in a move that was seen as an effective end to the contest for the nomination.[41] After Gingrich's spokesman announced his upcoming withdrawal, theRepublican National Committee declared Romney the party'spresumptive nominee.[42] Ron Paul officially remained in the race, but he stopped campaigning on May 14 to focus on state conventions.
On May 29, after winning the Texas primary, Romney had received a sufficient number of delegates to clinch the party's nomination with the inclusion of unpledged delegates. After winning the June 5 primaries in California and several other states, Romney had received more than enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination without counting unpledged delegates, making the June 26 Utah Primary, the last contest of the cycle, purely symbolic. CNN's final delegate estimate, released on July 27, 2012, put Romney at 1,462 pledged delegates and 62 unpledged delegates, for a total estimate of 1,524 delegates. No other candidate had unpledged delegates. The delegate estimates for the other candidates were Santorum at 261 delegates, Paul at 154, Gingrich at 142, Bachmann at 1, Huntsman at 1, and all others at 0.[43]
On August 28, 2012, delegates at theRepublican National Convention officially named Romney the party's presidential nominee.[44] Romney formally accepted the delegates' nomination on August 30, 2012.[45]
Four other parties nominated candidates that had ballot access orwrite-in access to at least 270 electoral votes, the minimum number of votes needed in the 2012 election to win the presidency through a majority of the electoral college.
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.[79][80]
Candidates in bold were on ballots representing 270 electoral votes.
All other candidates were on the ballots of fewer than 10 states, 100 electors, and less than 20% of voters nationwide.
Financing and advertising
The United States presidential election of 2012 broke new records in financing, fundraising, andnegative campaigning. Throughgrassroots campaign contributions, online donations, andSuper PACs, Obama and Romney raised a combined total of more than $2 billion.[82] Super PACs constituted nearly one-fourth of the total financing, with most coming from pro-Romney PACs.[83] Obama raised $690 million through online channels, beating his record of $500 million in 2008.[84] Most of the advertising in the 2012 presidential campaign was decidedly negative—80% of Obama's ads and 84% of Romney's ads were negative.[85] The tax-exempt non-profitAmericans for Prosperity, a so-called "outside group", that is, a political advocacy group that is not apolitical action committee or super-PAC, ran a television advertising campaign opposing Obama described byThe Washington Post as "early and relentless".[86][87] Americans for Prosperity spent $8.4 million inswing states on television advertisements denouncing theAmerican Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 loan guarantee toSolyndra, a manufacturer of solar panels that went bankrupt,[88] an advertising campaign described byThe Wall Street Journal in November 2011 as "perhaps the biggest attack on Mr. Obama so far".[89][90]
TheCommission on Presidential Debates held four debates during the last weeks of the campaign: three presidential and one vice-presidential. The major issues debated were the economy and jobs, the federal budget deficit, taxation and spending, the future ofSocial Security,Medicare, andMedicaid,healthcare reform, education, social issues, immigration, and foreign policy.
President Obama talks withRon Klain during presidential debate preparations. SenatorJohn Kerry, at podium, played the role of Mitt Romney during the preparatory sessions.
Severely conservative – In a speech he made at theConservative Political Action Conference in February 2012, Romney claimed that he had been a "severely conservative Republican governor". Romney's description of his record as "severely conservative" was widely criticized by political commentators as both rhetorically clumsy and factually inaccurate.[104][105][106] Later, the phrase "severely conservative" was frequently brought up by Democrats to make fun of Romney's willingness to associate himself with the far-right of the Republican Party as well as his apparent lack of sincerity while doing so.[107]Conservative radio hostRush Limbaugh, who played the clip on hisradio show, said: "I have never heard anybody say, 'I'm severely conservative.' "[108]
You didn't build that – A portion of a statement that Obama made in a July 2012 campaign speech inRoanoke,Virginia. Obama said that businesses depend on government-provided infrastructure to succeed, but critics of his remarks argued that he was underplaying the work of entrepreneurs and giving the government credit for individuals' success. The Romney campaign immediately used the statement in an effort to contrast Romney's economic policies with Obama's and to appeal to small business owners/employees. A major theme of the2012 Republican National Convention was "We Built It".
47 percent – An expression Romney used at a private campaign fundraising event, which was secretly recorded and publicly released. At the private event, Romney said that 47 percent of the people would vote for Barack Obama no matter what Romney said or did because those people "...are dependent upon government... I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Ironically, Romney received almost exactly 47% of the vote.
The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back – A portion of a statement that Obama made in an October 2012 debate. In the debate, Obama was deriding an earlier Romney statement in the campaign that Russia is "without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe."[109]
Binders full of women – A phrase that Romney used in thesecond presidential debate to refer to the long list of female candidates that he considered when choosing his cabinet members as Governor of Massachusetts.
Horses and bayonets – After Romney said in thethird presidential debate that the U.S. Navy was smaller than at any time since 1917, Obama replied, "We have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed."[110]
Shovel-ready jobs – a phrase used to describe some stimulus projects promoted by the administration. During the debate on September 23, 2011, Gary Johnson quipped, "My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this president."[111]
Romnesia – A term coined by a blogger in April 2011 and used by Obama late in the campaign to describe Romney's alleged inability to take responsibility for his past statements.[112][113]
$10,000 bet – During a Republican debate, Romney facetiously bet Texas governorRick Perry $10,000 that he (Perry) was wrong about Romney's position on the individual mandate under theAffordable Healthcare Act. The statement was vilified by Democrats as exemplary of Romney being out of touch with working-class and middle-class Americans.
Elections analysts and political pundits issue probabilistic forecasts of the composition of the Electoral College. These forecasts use a variety of factors to estimate the likelihood of each candidate winning the Electoral College electors for that state. Most election predictors use the following ratings:
"tossup": no advantage
"tilt" (used by some predictors): advantage that is not quite as strong as "lean"
"lean" or "leans": slight advantage
"likely": significant, but surmountable, advantage
On the day of the election, spread betting firmSpreadex offered an Obama Electoral College Votes spread of 296–300 to Romney's 239–243.[120] In fact Obama's victory over Romney was greater, winning 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206. Obama received 51 percent of the national popular vote to Romney's 47 percent[121][122] and carried eight of the nine states considered to beelectoral battlegrounds.
Altogether, Obama won in 26 states plus theDistrict of Columbia, while Romney carried 24 states. Of the 3,154 counties/districts/independent cities making returns, Romney won the most popular votes in 2,447 (77.58%) while Obama carried 707 (22.42%).
The results of the electoral vote were certified by Congress on January 4, 2013.[123]
President Obama casts his ballot at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center inChicago.
Popular vote
Obama
51.06%
Romney
47.20%
Johnson
0.99%
Stein
0.36%
Others
0.39%
Electoral vote
Obama
61.71%
Romney
38.29%
Results by state
The table below displays the official vote tallies by each state's Electoral College voting method. The source for the results of all states, except those that amended their official results, is the official Federal Election Commission report.[2] The column labeled "Margin" shows Obama's margin of victory over Romney (the margin is negative for every state that Romney won).
Maine and Nebraska each allow for their election results votes to be split between candidates. The winner within each congressional district gets one electoral vote for the district. The winner of the statewide vote gets two additional electoral votes. 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.[128][129]
States and EV districts that flipped from Democratic to Republican
Swing from2008 to 2012 in each state. Only six states swung more Democratic in 2012: Alaska, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, and New York. The arrows to the right represent how many places up or down on the list the state moved since 2008. States are listed by (increasing) percentage of Democratic votes.
Reddenotes states (or congressional districts that contribute an electoral vote) won by Republican Mitt Romney;blue denotes those won by Democrat Barack Obama.
State where the margin of victory was under 1% (29 electoral votes):
Florida, 0.88% (74,309 votes)
States where the margin of victory was under 5% (46 electoral votes):
North Carolina, 2.04% (92,004 votes)
Ohio, 2.98% (166,272 votes)
Virginia, 3.88% (149,298 votes)
States/districts where the margin of victory was between 5% and 10% (120 electoral votes):
Colorado, 5.36% (137,858 votes) (tipping point state)
Obama takes a phone call from Romney conceding the election early Wednesday morning in Chicago.
After the networks called Ohio (the state that was arguably the most critical for Romney, as no Republican had ever won the presidency without carrying it) for Obama at around 11:15 pmEST on Election Day, Romney was ready to concede the race, but hesitated whenKarl Rove strenuously objected on Fox News to the network's decision to make that call.[131][132] However, after Colorado and Nevada were called for the President (giving Obama enough electoral votes to win even if Ohio were to leave his column), in tandem with Obama's apparent lead in Florida and Virginia (both were eventually called for Obama), Romney acknowledged that he had lost and conceded at around 1:00 amEST on November 7.
Despite public polling showing Romney behind Obama in the swing states of Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Hampshire, tied with Obama in Virginia, and just barely ahead of Obama in Florida, the Romney campaign said they were genuinely surprised by the loss, having believed that public polling was oversampling Democrats.[133] 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.[134][135]
On November 30, 2012, it was revealed that shortly before the election, internal polling done by the Romney campaign had shown Romney ahead in Colorado and New Hampshire, tied in Iowa, and within a few points of Obama in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Ohio.[136] In addition, the Romney campaign had assumed that they would win Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.[137] The polls had made Romney and his campaign team so confident of their victory that Romney did not write aconcession speech until Obama's victory was announced.[138][139]
Reactions
Foreign leaders reacted with both positive and mixed messages. Most world leaders congratulated and praised Obama on his re-election victory. However, Venezuela and some other states had tempered reactions. Pakistan commented that Romney's defeat had madePakistan-United States relations safer. Stock markets fell noticeably after Obama's re-election, with theDow Jones Industrial Average,NASDAQ, and theS&P 500 each declining over two percent the day after the election.[140]
All 50 states had a petition on the White House websiteWe The People calling for their state tosecede from the union. These petitions were created by individual people, with some gaining thousands of signatures.[141]
Voter demographics
2012 presidential election by demographic subgroup
The United States has a population of 50 millionHispanic and Latino Americans, 27 million of whom are citizens eligible to vote (13% of total eligible voters). Traditionally, only half of eligible Hispanic voters vote (around 7% of voters); of them, 71% voted for Barack Obama (increasing hispercentage of the vote by 5%); therefore, the Hispanic vote was an important factor in Obama's re-election, since the vote difference between the two main parties was only 3.9%[142][143][144][145]
Combined with the re-election victories of his two immediate predecessors,Bill Clinton (1996) andGeorge W. Bush (2004), Obama's victory in the 2012 election marked only the second time in American history that three consecutive presidents were each elected to two full terms after the consecutive two-term presidencies ofThomas Jefferson,James Madison, andJames Monroe ending in 1820, which is the only other timeany two-term president succeeded another.[149] This was also the first election since1928 in which neither of the major candidates had any military experience.[150] The election was arguably decided by three counties:Miami-Dade County (Florida);Cuyahoga County (Ohio) andPhiladelphia (Pennsylvania). If these three counties had cast zero votes, Obama would have lost all three states and the election.[151]
The 2012 election marked the first time sinceFranklin D. Roosevelt's last two re-elections in1940 and1944 that the Democrats won a majority of the popular vote in two consecutive elections.[152] Obama was also the first president of either party to secure a majority of the popular vote in two elections sinceRonald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.[153] Obama is the third Democratic president to secure at least 51% of the vote twice, afterAndrew Jackson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.[154] Romney won the popular vote in 226 congressional districts making this the first time since 1960 that the winner of the election did not win the popular vote in a majority of the congressional districts.[155] This is the last time that the Democrats won a majority of states in a presidential election.
Romney lost his home state ofMassachusetts, becoming the first major party presidential candidate to lose his home state since DemocratAl Gore lost his home state ofTennessee to Republican George W. Bush in the2000 election.[156] Romney lost his home state by more than 23%, the worst losing margin for a major party candidate sinceJohn Frémont in1856.[157] Even worse than Frémont, Romney failed to win a single county in his home state, something last seen by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.[158][159] In addition, since Obama carried Ryan's home state ofWisconsin, the Romney–Ryan ticket was the first major party ticket since the1972 election to have both of its nominees lose their home states.[160] Romney won the popular vote in everycounty of three states: Utah, Oklahoma, and West Virginia; Obama did so in four states: Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Hawaii.[161]
Romney's loss prompted theRepublican National Committee to try to appeal to the American Latino population by concentrating on different approaches to immigration. These were short-lived due to activity and anger from the Republican base and may have contributed to the selection ofDonald Trump as their presidential candidate four years later.[162]
Gary Johnson's popular vote total set aLibertarian Party record, and his popular vote percentage was the second-best showing for a Libertarian in a presidential election, trailing onlyEd Clark's in1980.[163] Johnson would go on to beat this record in the2016 presidential election, winning the most votes for the Libertarian ticket in history. At the time,Green Party candidateJill Stein's popular vote total made her themost successful female presidential candidate in a general election in United States history.[164][165] This was later surpassed by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Obama became only the fifth Democratic president in history to win a second consecutive term afterAndrew Jackson,Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, andBill Clinton. This presidential election was the most recent in which no state split its electoral votes, and the most recent in which a candidate received over 60% of the Electoral College vote. This is the most recent election in which two major party nominees would go on to become president (namely, Obama and Biden).
Obama's vote total was the fourth most votes received (behind Obama's 2008 victory and both major candidates in 2020) and the most ever for a reelected president prior to 2024. The 2012 election marked the first time since1988 in which no state was won by a candidate with aplurality of the state's popular vote. Furthermore, it is the only post-World War II presidential election in which no states were won by margins smaller than 30,000 votes. Obama's narrowest victories were inNew Hampshire by 39,643 votes, followed byFlorida by 74,309 votes. Every other presidential election in modern history has seen states narrowly won by several thousand votes. As of 2025, this is also the most recent election in which both all of Maine and Nebraska's electoral votes were won by one candidate.
So far, this is the only presidential election in history where both the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates are practicing Roman Catholics. It is also the only presidential election where there are no white Protestants on a major party ticket. This is the most recent election where any party won consecutive elections.
Obama was the first Democrat sinceFranklin D. Roosevelt to win a majority of the popular vote more than once. While Obama was the first president sinceDwight Eisenhower in1952 and1956 to receive more than 51% of the popular vote twice,[166] he was also the first president since Franklin Roosevelt in1936,1940, and1944 to win consecutive presidential elections with declining percentages of the popular vote.[167][b]
All four major candidates for president and vice president went on to hold significant public office after this election. Obama and Biden served their second terms as president and vice president, respectively. Biden initially retired from politics after leaving office, but later ran againstDonald Trump in2020 and won the election to serve one term. Romney moved toUtah in 2014 and was elected to the Senate there in2018, succeedingOrrin Hatch, and served one term. Ryan served three more terms in the House and eventually served asSpeaker from2015 until his retirement from politics in 2019.
Maps
Results by state, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote
Results by state and the District of Columbia, scaled by number of electors per state
Cartogram of the electoral vote results, with each square representing one electoral vote
Results by county.[c] Blue denotes counties that went to Obama; red denotes counties that went to Romney. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont had all counties go to Obama. Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia had all counties go to Romney.
Results by county,[c] shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote
Results by county flips from 2008 to the 2012 presidential election[c]
Popular vote by county shaded on a scale from red/Republican to blue/Democratic
Cartogram of popular vote by county shaded on a scale from red/Republican to blue/Democratic where each county has been rescaled in proportion to its population
Results by congressional district
Results by state withpie charts for the electoral college and popular vote.
Treemap of the popular vote by county, state, and locally predominant recipient
Gallery
TheEmpire State Building inNew York City was lit blue when CNN called Ohio for Obama, projecting him the winner of the election. Likewise, red would have been used if Romney won.[170]
The Obamas and the Bidens embrace following the television announcement of their victory.
The Obamas and the Bidens walk on stage at the election night victory celebration atMcCormick Place in Chicago.
Former governor Mitt Romney meets with President Barack Obama at the White House after the 2012 presidential election.
^abcde"Federal Elections 2012"(PDF).Federal Election Commission. Washington, D.C. 2013.Archived(PDF) from the original on December 2, 2019. RetrievedJanuary 20, 2021.
^"Obama: Romney is out of touch". The Christian Science Monitor. September 20, 2012.Archived from the original on December 11, 2022. RetrievedDecember 11, 2022.
^Zeleny, Jeff; Shear, Michael D. (January 19, 2012)."Perry to End Bid for Presidency".The New York Times.Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. RetrievedJuly 10, 2012.
^Hunt, Albert (October 14, 2012)."Barrage of Negative Ads May Haunt President-Elect".Bloomberg News.Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. RetrievedDecember 9, 2012.The hundreds of thousands of television commercials broadcast by the presidential candidates are lopsidedly negative; this is the case with 80 percent of those put out by President Barack Obama and 84 percent of those for Mitt Romney.
^Gold, Matea (January 5, 2014)."The players in the Koch-backed $400 million political donor network".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on May 9, 2015. RetrievedMay 9, 2015.Americans for Prosperity, the Virginia-based nonprofit that finances grass-roots activities across the country and ran an early and relentless television ad assault against President Obama during the 2012 campaign.
^Collins, Lauren (September 18, 2012)."Romneyshambles, Part II".The New Yorker.Archived from the original on September 25, 2020. RetrievedJuly 1, 2015.
Balz, Dan (2013).Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America. New York: Viking Press.ISBN978-0670025947.
Gardner, Liz, et al. "Press Coverage of the 2012 US Presidential Election: A Multinational, Cross-Language Comparison". inDie US-Präsidentschaftswahl 2012 (Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2016). pp 241–267.
Hansen, Wendy L., Michael S. Rocca, and Brittany Leigh Ortiz. "The effects of Citizens United on corporate spending in the 2012 presidential election".Journal of Politics 77.2 (2015): 535–545.in JSTORArchived November 7, 2020, at theWayback Machine
Masket, Seth,John Sides, andLynn Vavreck. "The Ground Game in the 2012 Presidential Election".Political Communication (2015) 33#2 pp: 1–19.
Mayer, William G.; Bernstein, Jonathan, eds. (2012).The Making of the Presidential Candidates, 2012. Rowman & Littlefield.ISBN978-1-4422-1170-4. Scholars explore nominations in the post-public-funding era, digital media and campaigns, television coverage, andthe Tea Party.
Miller, William J., ed.The 2012 Nomination and the Future of the Republican Party: The Internal Battle (Lexington Books; 2013) 265 pages; essays by experts on Romney and each of his main rivals
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![Results by county.[c] Blue denotes counties that went to Obama; red denotes counties that went to Romney. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont had all counties go to Obama. Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia had all counties go to Romney.](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3a2012_Presidential_Election_by_County.svg)
![Results by county,[c] shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3a2012_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg)
![Results by county flips from 2008 to the 2012 presidential election[c]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3a2012_Presidential_Election_by_County_Flips.svg)
![County swing from 2008 to 2012[c]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aPresidential_Elections_2008-2012_Swing_in_County_Margins.svg)
![The Empire State Building in New York City was lit blue when CNN called Ohio for Obama, projecting him the winner of the election. Likewise, red would have been used if Romney won.[170]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aEmpire_State_Building_Blue_Obama_Election.JPG)
