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 County results Congressional district results
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The2012 United States presidential election in Nevada took place on November 6, 2012, as part of the2012 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus theDistrict of Columbia participated. State voters chose six electors to represent them in theElectoral College via a popular vote pittingincumbentDemocraticPresidentBarack Obama and his running mate,Vice PresidentJoe Biden, againstRepublican challenger and formerMassachusetts GovernorMitt Romney and his running mate,CongressmanPaul Ryan.
Nevada was won by President Barack Obama with 52.36% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 45.68%, a 6.68% margin of victory.[1] In2008, Obama won the state by 12.50%. Romney improved overJohn McCain's performance in 2008, but Obama still won the state by a comfortable margin. As of2024, Obama remains the last major party candidate to win the state by more than 5%.
Nevada has voted for the winner in every presidential election from1912 onwards, except in1976 when it voted forGerald Ford overJimmy Carter and in2016 when it voted forHillary Clinton overDonald Trump.Carson City, which voted for Obama in 2008, flipped to supporting the Republican Party this election cycle. Despite only winning two counties (Clark andWashoe), these counties consist of over 87% of Nevada's population and are home to Las Vegas and Reno, the largest and third largest cities in the state, thus allowing Obama to win by a comfortable margin.[2]
Incumbent president Barack Obama was not challenged for the Democratic candidacy, so no Democratic caucuses were held.
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 Romney: 20–30% 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 80–90% Gingrich: 30–40% Paul: 30–40% 40–50% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 2012 U.S. presidential election | |||
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| Democratic Party | |||
| Republican Party | |||
| Minor parties | |||
| Related races | |||
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The Republican caucuses were held on February 4,[3] and they are closed caucuses.[4] Mitt Romney was declared the winner.[5]
There are 400,310 registered Republicans voting for 28 delegates.[6][7]
The 2012 Nevada Republican caucuses were originally scheduled to begin on February 18, 2012,[8] much later than the date in 2008, which almost immediately followed the beginning of the year in January 2008.[9] On September 29, 2011, the entire schedule of caucuses and primaries was disrupted, however, when it was announced that theRepublican Party of Florida had decided to move up its primary to January 31, in an attempt to bring attention to its own primary contest, and attract the presidential candidates to visit the state.[10] Because of the move, theRepublican National Committee decided to strip Florida of half of its delegates.[11] Also as a result, the Nevada Republican Party, along with Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, then sought to move their caucuses back into early January.[11] All but Nevada, who agreed to follow Florida,[12] confirmed their caucus and primary dates to take place throughout January, with Nevada deciding to hold their contest on February 4, 2012.[13]
The caucuses for 1,835 precincts in 125 sites were scheduled: voting from 9 AM - 1 PM, ballots handling 9-10 AM and to conclude by 3 PM at the latest on February 4, with results for almost all counties to be announced by the party at 5 PM.
ForClark County, a special caucus was held at theAdelson Educational Campus at 7 PM, intended to accommodate those who observeSaturday Sabbath.[14] According to Philip Kantor, an Orthodox Jew, the goal of the after-work caucus was to preventelectoral fraud "It has everything to do with not being deprived of a vote, beingdisenfranchised".[15] This late caucus allowed a timely vote forSeventh-day Adventists, Orthodox Jews and other who don't vote until Sabbath is over.[16] Adelson campus caucus attendees were required to sign affidavits stating that they had not already cast their ballot in an earlier caucus, that day.[14] There was only one nationwide televised (by CNN) public vote-count.[17] That Adelson caucus count provided the following Candidate vote results: Ron Paul 183, Mitt Romney 61, Newt Gingrich 57, and Rick Santorum 16 votes.[18] The results of this special caucus were announced Feb 4.[19] Paul got second place in Clark County, but Gingrich was ahead of Paul by a larger margin in the rest of the state and therefore ended up beating Paul statewide for second place.[20]
Turnout was 8.23%. 1,800 of 1,800 precincts (100%) reporting.[21]
The voting-eligible population (400,310 registered Nevada Republicans).[6]
125 caucus sites.
Delegates were awarded to candidates who got 3.57% or more of the vote proportionally
| Nevada Republican caucuses, February 4, 2012[22] | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Projected delegate count | Actual Delegates [23][24] | |||
| AP [25] | CNN [26] | MSNBC [27] | |||||
| Mitt Romney | 16,486 | 50.02% | 14 | 14 | 14 | 20 | |
| Newt Gingrich | 6,956 | 21.10% | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0 | |
| Ron Paul | 6,175 | 18.73% | 5 | 5 | 5 | 8 | |
| Rick Santorum | 3,277 | 9.94% | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | |
| No Vote | 67 | 0.20% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Unprojected delegates: | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total: | 32,961 | 100% | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 | |
This final result was announced by Twitter and the Nevada Republican Party on Monday February 6, at 01:01 am PST (local time).[28]The actual Republican National Convention delegates from Nevada are mostly Ron Paul supporters (22 of 28), which were elected by state convention on May 6. The Nevada Republican Party's rules state that most elected delegates to the RNC are still bound to vote for Romney (in the first round of voting), because of Romney's statewide caucuses winning.
| Nevada State Convention Delegates May 6, 2012 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Supporters for this candidate who are Delegates from NV to the RNC[29][30][31][32][33][34] | ||||
| Ron Paul | 22 | ||||
| Mitt Romney | 6 | ||||
| Totals: | 28 | ||||
Allegations of voter fraud have arisen due to a recount of Clark County ballots despite there being no official contest from any of the campaigns. One reason given by the GOP was that there were more ballots cast than people "signed in" at some precincts.[35]
Throughout the race, Barack Obama tied or won every single pre-election poll except one. The final poll showed Obama leading 51% to 47%, while the average of the last 3 polls showed Obama leading Romney 50% to 47%.[36]
| Source | Ranking | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Huffington Post[37] | Lean D | November 6, 2012 |
| CNN[38] | Tossup | November 6, 2012 |
| New York Times[39] | Lean D | November 6, 2012 |
| Washington Post[40] | Tossup | November 6, 2012 |
| RealClearPolitics[41] | Tossup | November 6, 2012 |
| Sabato's Crystal Ball[42] | Likely D | November 5, 2012 |
| FiveThirtyEight[43] | Solid D | November 6, 2012 |
| 2012 United States presidential election in Nevada[44] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Running mate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | Barack Obama(incumbent) | Joe Biden(incumbent) | 531,373 | 52.36% | 6 | |
| Republican | Mitt Romney | Paul Ryan | 463,567 | 45.68% | 0 | |
| Libertarian | Gary Johnson | Jim Gray | 10,968 | 1.08% | 0 | |
| Other/None | 5,770 | 0.57% | 0 | |||
| Constitution | Virgil Goode | Jim Clymer | 3,240 | 0.32% | 0 | |
| Total | 1,014,918 | 100% | ||||
| County | Barack Obama Democratic | Mitt Romney Republican | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Carson City | 10,291 | 44.13% | 12,394 | 53.15% | 634 | 2.72% | -2,103 | -9.02% | 23,319 |
| Churchill | 2,961 | 28.85% | 7,061 | 68.79% | 243 | 2.36% | -4,100 | -39.94% | 10,265 |
| Clark | 389,936 | 56.42% | 289,053 | 41.82% | 12,201 | 1.76% | 100,883 | 14.60% | 691,190 |
| Douglas | 9,297 | 35.65% | 16,276 | 62.42% | 502 | 1.93% | -6,979 | -26.77% | 26,075 |
| Elko | 3,511 | 21.96% | 12,014 | 75.15% | 461 | 2.89% | -8,503 | -53.19% | 15,986 |
| Esmeralda | 92 | 21.15% | 317 | 72.87% | 26 | 5.98% | -225 | -51.72% | 435 |
| Eureka | 107 | 13.24% | 663 | 82.05% | 38 | 4.71% | -556 | -68.81% | 808 |
| Humboldt | 1,737 | 30.24% | 3,810 | 66.33% | 197 | 3.43% | -2,073 | -36.09% | 5,744 |
| Lander | 534 | 24.67% | 1,580 | 72.98% | 51 | 2.35% | -1,046 | -48.31% | 2,165 |
| Lincoln | 400 | 18.59% | 1,691 | 78.58% | 61 | 2.83% | -1,291 | -59.99% | 2,152 |
| Lyon | 7,380 | 34.38% | 13,520 | 62.99% | 565 | 2.63% | -6,140 | -28.61% | 21,465 |
| Mineral | 863 | 42.41% | 1,080 | 53.07% | 92 | 4.52% | -217 | -10.66% | 2,035 |
| Nye | 6,320 | 36.07% | 10,566 | 60.30% | 636 | 3.63% | -4,246 | -24.23% | 17,522 |
| Pershing | 632 | 33.55% | 1,167 | 61.94% | 85 | 4.51% | -535 | -28.39% | 1,884 |
| Storey | 920 | 39.76% | 1,321 | 57.09% | 73 | 3.15% | -401 | -17.33% | 2,314 |
| Washoe | 95,409 | 50.79% | 88,453 | 47.09% | 3,993 | 2.12% | 6,956 | 3.70% | 187,855 |
| White Pine | 983 | 26.54% | 2,601 | 70.22% | 120 | 3.24% | -1,618 | -43.68% | 3,704 |
| Totals | 531,373 | 52.36% | 463,567 | 45.68% | 19,978 | 1.97% | 67,806 | 6.68% | 1,014,918 |
| Democratic Hold | Republican Hold Gain from Democratic |
Obama won three of four congressional districts, including one that elected a Republican.[45]
| District | Obama | Romney | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 65.64% | 32.4% | Dina Titus |
| 2nd | 44.82% | 52.88% | Mark Amodei |
| 3rd | 49.53% | 48.73% | Joe Heck |
| 4th | 54.43% | 43.71% | Steven Horsford |
Nevada has historically been a swing state. It has voted for the winner of every presidential election since1912, except for1976 and2016. From1992 to2004, the margin of victory was always under five points. In2008, however, the state swung over dramatically to support Obama, who carried it by 12.49%.
In 2012, Obama held onto Nevada, though by a narrower margin of 6.68%. This was due almost entirely to Obama carrying the state's two largest counties–Clark County, home toLas Vegas andHenderson, andWashoe County, home toReno. These two counties account for 85% of Nevada's population. Romney dominated the state's rural counties, which have supported Republicans for decades. However, the only large jurisdiction he carried was the independent city ofCarson City.
As in 2008, Obama owed his victory in part to the state's Hispanic voters breaking heavily for him. According to exit polls, Hispanics made up 19% of the electorate and voted for Obama by almost three-to-one.[46]
State and district results of the2012 United States presidential election | ||
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