2012 United States Presidential Election

Key figures: Barack Obama (Democratic incumbent), Mitt Romney (Republican challenger), Joe Biden (Democratic vice president candidate), Paul Ryan (Republican vice president candidate)

Summary

The 2012 United States presidential election took place on November 6, 2012. Incumbent President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, running as the Democratic ticket, defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan. Obama won decisively with 332 electoral votes and 51.1% of the popular vote (65,915,795 votes), compared to Romney’s 206 electoral votes and 47.2% (60,933,504 votes). The election was held during the economic recovery from the Great Recession and centered on debates over healthcare reform (the Affordable Care Act), federal spending, social safety net programs, and foreign policy.

Obama’s campaign successfully maintained the Democratic “blue wall” of states in the Northeast and West Coast while flipping critical swing states including Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and Nevada—all crucial for the electoral college mathematics. Romney achieved Republican victories in Indiana, North Carolina, and Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, which had voted Democratic in 2008, but these gains were insufficient to overcome Obama’s coalition strength.

The election reflected significant demographic shifts in American electoral politics. Obama won 93% of African American voters, 71% of Latino voters, 73% of Asian American voters, but only 39% of white voters. This multiracial, multiethnic coalition represented an emerging voting pattern that would shape Democratic electoral strategy for years to come. Voter turnout reached 58.6%, a decline of 3 percentage points from 2008.

Presidential Debates

Four nationally televised debates shaped the general election campaign:

• October 3, 2012 — First presidential debate, University of Denver, Colorado. Moderated by Jim Lehrer (PBS); focused on domestic policy. Romney was widely judged to have outperformed Obama, narrowing polling gaps in the weeks following.
• October 11, 2012 — Vice presidential debate, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. Moderated by Martha Raddatz (ABC News). Biden and Ryan clashed on foreign policy and Medicare, with Biden delivering an animated defense of the administration’s record.
• October 16, 2012 — Second presidential debate, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. Town-hall format moderated by Candy Crowley (CNN). Obama recovered momentum; the exchange over the Benghazi consulate attack drew wide attention.
• October 22, 2012 — Third presidential debate, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida. Moderated by Bob Schieffer (CBS News); focused on foreign policy. A memorable exchange occurred when Obama told Romney, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” in reference to Romney’s description of Russia as the United States’ chief geopolitical adversary.

Campaign Finance and Super PACs

The 2012 election was the first presidential cycle to take place after the Supreme Court’s January 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which struck down limits on corporate and union independent political expenditures. The result was an unprecedented surge in outside spending.

Obama’s campaign raised approximately $715 million; Romney’s raised $446 million. Combined with party committees and super PACs, total spending in the 2012 presidential race exceeded $2 billion. The pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future spent roughly $142 million, while the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action spent approximately $65 million. Sheldon Adelson and his family contributed an estimated $100 million across Republican candidates and committees during the cycle.

Key Battleground States

Several states required close attention given their electoral vote significance:

Ohio was considered the single most critical battleground state; no Republican has won the presidency without carrying Ohio, and Obama’s decisive margin there effectively ended Romney’s path to 270 electoral votes.

Significance

The 2012 election represented a mandate for Obama’s first-term policies, particularly the Affordable Care Act, which had been a central campaign issue. The result meant continued implementation of healthcare reform and demonstrated public support for a more expansive federal role in social programs than Republicans advocated.

Demographically, Obama’s victory signaled a fundamental shift in American electoral coalitions. The declining white voter percentage in the electorate and the increased participation of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters indicated long-term demographic changes that would continue to reshape presidential politics. The strong performance among younger voters and women voters also reinforced evolving alignments in American political behavior.

The election occurred in the context of divided government: while Obama won the presidency, Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives, and Democrats retained control of the Senate. This meant that contentious policy issues—from economic policy to environmental regulation—remained unresolved by the electoral outcome, setting the stage for continued partisan conflict throughout Obama’s second term.

From a historical perspective, Obama became the third consecutive sitting president (after Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) to win a second full term, and the first since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win multiple presidential elections with a popular vote majority and majority of electoral votes.

See Also

• Barack Obama — 2012 Re-election Victory — a closer focus on the victor’s campaign organization, demographic coalition, and second-term mandate
• Vladimir Putin — 2012 Return to Presidency — the Russian leader whose policy was a flashpoint in the third presidential debate
• 2012 London Summer Olympics — the other defining global event of 2012, held months before the U.S. election
• European Debt Crisis — 2012 Escalation — the global economic backdrop that shaped the campaign’s debate over jobs and recovery
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — the year’s major arts-and-culture blockbuster, released the month after the election
• Occupy Wall Street — 2012 Momentum — the protest movement whose inequality critique colored the campaign’s economic debate
• Hurricane Sandy — 2012 Atlantic Disaster — the storm whose response, eight days before the vote, shaped the campaign’s closing week
• Instagram Facebook Acquisition 2012 — part of the same year’s rise of the social-media platforms that reshaped political campaigning
• Windows 8 Release — the mobile and social computing shift the campaign’s digital operations exemplified
• KONY 2012 Campaign — a contemporaneous demonstration of social media’s power and limits in political mobilization
• Mitt Romney 2012 Presidential Campaign — the losing Republican campaign, its primary fight, the “47 percent” video, and the ORCA Election-Day failure
• South Korea 2012 Presidential Election — the other major democratic contest of late 2012, decided weeks later on December 19
• 2012 US Fiscal Cliff and Congressional Negotiations — the year-end budget confrontation the election’s outcome immediately shaped, Obama’s win read as a mandate for higher taxes on top earners
• NFIB v. Sebelius: Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act — the June 28 ruling that preserved Obama’s signature healthcare law and set the terms of the campaign’s healthcare debate

Sources

• 2012 United States presidential election - Wikipedia
• The 2012 Election: What Happened, What Changed, What it Means - Brookings Institution
• The 2012 US Elections: Features, Causes, and Implications for the American Welfare State - The British Academy
• 2012 Presidential Campaign Finance - FEC.gov
• 2012 Presidential Debates - Commission on Presidential Debates