Surf Wiki
Save to docs
politics

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

2012 United States presidential election in Florida

none

none

FieldValue
election_name2012 United States presidential election in Florida
countryFlorida
typepresidential
ongoingno
previous_election2008 United States presidential election in Florida
previous_year2008
election_dateNovember 6, 2012
next_election2016 United States presidential election in Florida
next_year2016
turnout72%
image_sizex200px
image1President Barack Obama, 2012 portrait crop.jpg
nominee1**Barack Obama**
party1Democratic Party (United States)
home_state1Illinois
running_mate1**Joe Biden**
electoral_vote1**29**
popular_vote1**4,237,756**
percentage1**50.01%**
image2Mitt_Romney_by_Gage_Skidmore_6_cropped.jpg
nominee2Mitt Romney
party2Republican Party (United States)
home_state2Massachusetts
running_mate2Paul Ryan
electoral_vote20
popular_vote24,163,447
percentage249.13%
map_image
titlePresident
before_electionBarack Obama
before_partyDemocratic Party (United States)
after_electionBarack Obama
after_partyDemocratic Party (United States)

Main article: 2012 United States presidential election

Obama Romney The 2012 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 6, as part of the 2012 U.S. presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Florida voters chose 29 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, against Republican challenger and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan.

By November 8, the vote counting had still not concluded. However, with much of the remaining vote still coming in was from heavily Democratic areas, Romney's Florida campaign acknowledged that he had lost the state to Obama. In order to certify the election in Florida, the ballots continued to be counted. Both Miami-Dade and Broward County completed their ballot counts on November 8, leaving Palm Beach and Duval counties as the only two that did not have a final count at the end of the day.

Florida required all counties to finish counting by noon Saturday but would not announce an official winner until the votes were certified on November 20. A recount is not done unless the difference is less than 0.5%. At 11 PM EST on November 9, the margin for Obama was 0.86%, with all but one county finished with their counting. On November 10, most major news sources projected Obama to be the winner of Florida's 29 electoral votes. It was the last state to be called in the 2012 presidential election and also the closest.

Despite Tampa having been the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention, Obama ultimately carried Florida with 50.01% of the vote, to Romney's 49.13%, a margin of 0.88%. Having also won the state in 2008, Obama's 2012 victory made him the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 to carry Florida in two consecutive elections, and also marked the first time since 1948 that the state voted Democratic in consecutive elections.

Nonetheless, Obama's margin of victory decreased from 2.81% in 2008. He also lost Flagler and Volusia Counties, which he had won in 2008; he thus became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying the counties since Harry S. Truman in 1948 and the first to do so without carrying the latter since John F. Kennedy in 1960. Florida is also one of only three states that backed Obama twice that would go on to vote against his vice president Joe Biden in 2020, the other two being Iowa and Ohio.

As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last time that a Democratic presidential nominee has carried Florida, or the counties of Jefferson, St. Lucie, and Monroe. This remains the second closest presidential result in the state ever, behind only the 2000 election. This was also the last time a Democrat won a federal statewide election in Florida, with the last statewide win coming in 2018.

Primary elections

Democratic primary

Republican primary

The Republican primary was held on January 31, 2012. Fifty delegates were at stake, none of them RNC (or super) delegates; it is unclear whether these delegates will be allocated proportionally or winner-take-all. Originally awarded 99 delegates, the Republican National Committee removed half of Florida's delegates because the state committee moved its Republican primary before March 6; the Republican National Committee rules also set the delegate allocation to be proportional because the contest was held before April 1. It is a closed primary. There were 4,063,853 registered Republican voters as of January 3, 2012.

Florida is spread over two time zones, so voting wasn't completed until 7 pm CST/8pm EST.

Significance

In an effort to increase the political importance of their state's primary and receive added media exposure often directed to the early contests, Florida decided to plan its primary ahead of the early contests, a move that violated Republican Party rules and forced early states to move up their contests. Florida announced that their primary would occur on January 31 instead of the expected March; Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina were expected to have their primaries in February but were forced to push their primaries into January, thereby shortening the overall amount of time that each person could campaign. Florida made this move in 2008.

As a result of this calendar violation, Florida was stripped of half of its delegates, awarding only 50 delegates instead of the original 100 delegates.

Dean Cannon, the Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives: "My goal all along is for Florida to preserve her place as the fifth spot on the nominating calendar and not to move ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire."

Controversy

According to a Gingrich campaign memo, he planned to challenge the results based on an interpretation of the Republican National Committee's rules that state that no contest can be winner-take-all prior to April 1, 2012. Gingrich would have requested that delegates be divided proportionally, corresponding to the percentage of votes each candidate received. It is not known what result a successful challenge might have had.

General election

Predictions

SourceRankingAs of
Huffington PostNovember 6, 2012
CNNNovember 6, 2012
*The New York Times*November 6, 2012
*The Washington Post*November 6, 2012
RealClearPoliticsNovember 6, 2012
Sabato's Crystal BallNovember 5, 2012
FiveThirtyEightNovember 6, 2012

Results

Obama Romney ]] The final vote count was unknown at noon Friday, November 9, 2012. The delay in the final count was caused by a combination of an extremely long ballot (with eleven state amendment questions) and a high number of absentee ballots. There were 240,000 absentee ballots in Miami-Dade County, Florida alone, with 54,000 of these cast on election day. Four urban counties, Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Duval, all experienced problems with counting their large number of absentee ballots. Each ballot had to be hand certified page by page, and then the pages had to be hand fed into the counting machine one by one. At noon Friday, Dade and Broward had finished counting, but Palm Beach and Duval were still counting.

2012 United States presidential election in FloridaPartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
**Democratic****Barack Obama (incumbent)****4,237,756****50.01%****29**
RepublicanMitt Romney4,163,44749.13%0
LibertarianGary Johnson44,7260.53%0
GreenJill Stein8,9470.11%0
Peace and Freedom PartyRoseanne Barr8,1540.10%0
Objectivist PartyTom Stevens3,8560.05%0
Justice PartyRocky Anderson1,7540.02%0
America's PartyTom Hoefling9460.01%0
ReformAndre Barnett8200.01%0
SocialistStewart Alexander7990.01%0
Socialism and LiberationPeta Lindsay3220.00%0
Write-insWrite-ins2,6520.03%0
**Totals****8,474,179****100.00%****29**
Voter turnout (eligible voters)72.00%

By county

CountyBarack Obama
DemocraticMitt Romney
RepublicanVarious candidates
Other partiesMarginTotal votes cast#%#%#%#%Totals4,237,75649.90%4,163,44749.03%90,9721.07%74,3090.87%8,492,175
Alachua69,69957.71%48,79740.40%2,2771.89%20,90217.31%120,773
Baker2,31120.29%8,97578.80%1040.91%-6,664-58.51%11,390
Bay22,05127.53%56,87671.01%1,1741.46%-34,825-43.48%80,101
Bradford3,32528.51%8,21970.46%1201.03%-4,894-41.95%11,664
Brevard122,99342.94%159,30055.62%4,1351.44%-36,307-12.68%286,428
Broward508,31267.12%244,10132.23%4,9410.65%264,21134.89%757,354
Calhoun1,66426.91%4,36670.61%1532.48%-2,702-43.70%6,183
Charlotte35,90642.28%47,99656.52%1,0211.20%-12,090-14.24%84,923
Citrus28,46038.37%44,66260.22%1,0471.41%-16,202-21.85%74,169
Clay25,75926.61%70,02272.33%1,0241.06%-44,263-45.72%96,805
Collier51,69834.62%96,52064.64%1,1060.74%-44,822-30.02%149,324
Columbia8,46231.08%18,42967.69%3361.23%-9,967-36.61%27,227
DeSoto4,17442.22%5,58756.51%1261.27%-1,413-14.29%9,887
Dixie1,79825.84%5,05272.60%1091.56%-3,254-46.76%6,959
Duval196,73747.67%211,61551.27%4,3811.06%-14,878-3.60%412,733
Escambia58,18539.06%88,71159.55%2,0711.39%-30,526-20.49%148,967
Flagler23,20745.77%26,96953.19%5311.04%-3,762-7.42%50,707
Franklin1,84533.58%3,57064.98%791.44%-1,725-31.40%5,494
Gadsden15,77070.01%6,63029.43%1250.56%9,14040.58%22,525
Gilchrist1,88523.75%5,91774.55%1351.70%-4,032-50.80%7,937
Glades1,60340.03%2,34458.54%571.43%-741-18.51%4,004
Gulf2,01428.26%4,99570.10%1171.64%-2,981-41.84%7,126
Hamilton2,22841.11%3,13857.90%541.00%-910-16.79%5,420
Hardee2,46334.00%4,69664.83%851.17%-2,233-30.83%7,244
Hendry4,75146.51%5,35552.42%1091.07%-604-5.91%10,215
Hernando37,83045.07%44,93853.54%1,1601.39%-7,108-8.47%83,928
Highlands16,14837.96%25,91560.92%4781.12%-9,767-22.96%42,541
Hillsborough286,46752.71%250,18646.04%6,7761.25%36,2816.67%543,429
Holmes1,26415.25%6,91983.46%1071.29%-5,655-68.21%8,290
Indian River27,49238.41%43,45060.70%6380.89%-15,958-22.29%71,580
Jackson7,34235.02%13,41864.00%2070.98%-6,076-28.98%20,967
Jefferson3,94550.45%3,80848.70%670.85%1371.75%7,820
Lafayette68720.17%2,66878.33%511.50%-1,981-58.16%3,406
Lake61,79940.89%87,64357.99%1,7021.02%-25,844-17.10%151,144
Lee110,15741.32%154,16357.83%2,2780.85%-44,006-16.51%266,598
Leon90,88161.13%55,80537.54%1,9851.33%35,07623.59%148,671
Levy6,11933.15%12,05465.31%2841.54%-5,935-32.16%18,457
Liberty94228.64%2,30169.96%461.40%-1,359-41.32%3,289
Madison4,17647.85%4,47451.27%770.88%-298-3.42%8,727
Manatee66,50343.22%85,62755.65%1,7361.13%-19,124-12.43%153,866
Marion66,83141.32%93,04357.53%1,8641.15%-26,212-16.21%161,738
Martin30,10738.09%48,18360.96%7470.95%-18,076-22.87%79,037
Miami-Dade541,44061.58%332,98137.87%4,7580.55%208,45923.71%879,179
Monroe19,40449.56%19,23449.12%5161.32%1700.44%39,154
Nassau10,25125.23%29,92973.67%4451.10%-19,678-48.44%40,625
Okaloosa23,42124.63%70,16873.80%1,4861.57%-46,747-49.17%95,075
Okeechobee4,85639.27%7,32859.25%1831.48%-2,472-19.98%12,367
Orange273,66558.56%188,58940.36%5,0491.08%85,07618.20%467,303
Osceola67,23961.73%40,59237.27%1,0911.00%26,64724.46%108,922
Palm Beach349,65158.14%247,39841.13%4,3900.73%102,25317.01%601,439
Pasco98,26345.86%112,42752.48%3,5581.66%-14,164-6.62%214,248
Pinellas239,10452.08%213,25846.45%6,7501.47%25,8465.63%459,112
Polk114,62245.95%131,57752.75%3,2431.30%-16,955-6.80%249,442
Putnam11,66737.13%19,32661.50%4311.37%-7,659-24.37%31,424
St. Johns35,19030.59%78,51368.25%1,3321.16%-43,323-37.66%115,035
St. Lucie65,86953.42%56,20245.58%1,2301.00%9,6677.84%123,301
Santa Rosa17,76823.06%58,18675.51%1,1061.43%-40,418-52.45%77,060
Sarasota95,11945.74%110,50453.14%2,3381.12%-15,385-7.40%207,961
Seminole96,44546.12%109,94352.57%2,7321.31%-13,498-6.45%209,120
Sumter19,52432.25%40,64667.13%3760.62%-21,122-34.88%60,546
Suwannee4,75126.85%12,67271.63%2691.52%-7,921-44.78%17,692
Taylor2,76430.24%6,24968.37%1271.39%-3,485-38.13%9,140
Union1,33924.76%3,98073.59%891.65%-2,641-48.83%5,408
Volusia114,74848.78%117,49049.94%3,0161.28%-2,742-1.16%235,254
Wakulla5,17535.21%9,29063.21%2321.58%-4,115-28.00%14,697
Walton6,67123.34%21,49075.19%4211.47%-14,819-51.85%28,582
Washington2,82025.54%8,03872.79%1841.67%-5,218-47.25%11,042
County Flips: {{col-begin}}

Democratic Republican ]]

;Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

  • Flagler (largest city: Palm Coast)
  • Volusia (largest city: Deltona)

By congressional district

Despite losing the state, Romney won 16 of 27 congressional districts including one held by a Democrat, while Obama won 11, including two held by Republicans.

DistrictRomneyObamaRepresentative
**68.66%**30.18%Jeff Miller
**52.38%**46.52%Steve Southerland
**61.5%**37.5%Ted Yoho
**63.62%**35.45%Ander Crenshaw
28.05%**71.23%**Corrine Brown
**57.7%**41.4%Ron DeSantis
**51.81%**47.1%John Mica
**56.76%**42.18%Bill Posey
37.21%**61.94%**Alan Grayson
**53.35%**45.72%Daniel Webster
**58.85%**40.23%Rich Nugent
**54.04%**44.77%Gus Bilirakis
48.65%**50.12%**Bill Young
33.96%**65.05%**Kathy Castor
**53.33%**45.58%Dennis Ross
**54.22%**44.9%Vern Buchanan
**57.88%**41.2%Tom Rooney
**51.72%**47.56%Patrick Murphy
**60.6%**38.76%Trey Radel
16.98%**82.16%**Alcee Hastings
38.85%**60.6%**Ted Deutch
44.93%**54.38%**Lois Frankel
37.9%**61.5%**Debbie Wasserman Schultz
12.17%**87.52%**Frederica Wilson
**50.8%**48.7%Mario Díaz-Balart
46.35%**53.1%**Joe Garcia
46.45%**53.05%**Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Analysis

Obama won the state and its 29 electoral votes on Election Day by a margin of 0.88%, down from the 2.82% margin in 2008. Florida was the closest race in the country at the presidential level. Throughout the night, Obama and Romney exchanged the lead, but the networks avoided calling the state for Obama until November 10 because long lines in the larger urban areas of the state meant that the vote count was delayed.

According to exit polling, Obama won 95% of the African-American vote (13% of voters), 60% of Latino voters (up 3 points from 2008 and 17% of all voters), and 50% among Independents (who accounted for 33% of all voters). Mitt Romney won white voters by 24 percent. In addition, both Democratic and Republican strategists agreed that the President's ground game and early voting leads played a huge role in such a tight race. Despite laws that curbed early voting, more than 4 million Floridians cast a ballot before Election Day (almost 50% of all voters), and reports showed that Obama was leading by about 104,000 among those voters.

The political geography of Florida is largely divided in thirds: South Florida (around the Miami metropolitan area) is heavily Democratic, North Florida (the Florida Panhandle, and the Jacksonville metropolitan area) is heavily Republican outside of Tallahassee and Gainesville, while Central Florida is a "swing" area of the state, where Democrats have made inroads in recent years.

Mirroring the results of the 2008 presidential election in Florida, Obama dominated South Florida, winning Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties by comfortable margins, and actually increased his vote share in Miami -Dade and Broward counties from 2008. However, Romney's performance in Palm Beach County was notable considering he is the first Republican presidential candidate in over a decade to receive over 40% of the county's vote. Obama's gains in South Florida have been attributed to increasing his vote share among Cuban Americans, a large demographic in and around Miami who have reliably voted Republican, from 35% in 2008 to 48% against Romney's 52% in 2012. Combined with his large margins of victory among non-Cuban Hispanics in the state, Arian Campo-Flores at The Wall Street Journal claimed that, "Together, both trends are accelerating a realignment of the state's Latino vote, from once solidly Republican to now reliably Democratic." Twelve years later, in 2024, Republican Donald Trump won Miami-Dade County and a majority of Hispanics in Florida, while winning the state by 13%.

Although Obama lost large swaths of North Florida, he was able to keep the margins relatively close along the Eastern Seaboard. He lost to Romney in Duval County, anchored by Florida's largest city, Jacksonville, by only 3%, and Volusia County, home to Daytona Beach, by less than 2%. Where the state tipped into the Obama column was in Central Florida, the site of enormous growth in the last two decades. Obama was able to deliver big wins in the Orlando and Tampa Bay areas, where George W. Bush won in 2004. In the former, Obama carried Orange County (which includes Orlando) by 19 points and Osceola County near Orlando by a 24-point margin (Bush won it in 2004 52%-47%). In both counties, he was able to tap into a growing Puerto Rican community, which overwhelmingly broke his way.

In the Tampa Bay region, Obama once again carried Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, by a 6-point margin, receiving over 13,000 more votes than he won in 2008. Obama also won Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, by a 52%-46.5% margin. Bush had narrowly carried the county by about 0.1% in 2004. In all, Obama won the three largest counties in Central Florida – Hillsborough, Orange, and Pinellas – while keeping his losing margins low in other populous counties – Polk, Seminole, and Manatee County.

Contrary to the 2010 elections where Democrats lost four seats from Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats picked up four seats from Florida this time around, as the state's congressional delegation increased by 2 members. Patrick Murphy defeated incumbent Republican Allen West in Florida's 18th congressional district and Joe Garcia defeated incumbent Republican David Rivera in Florida's 26th congressional district. Democrat Alan Grayson won a new seat in Florida's 9th congressional district while former West Palm Beach mayor, Lois Frankel, won the newly created seat in Florida's 22nd congressional district for the Democrats. At the state level, Democrats picked up two seats in the Florida State Senate and five seats in the Florida House of Representatives as well.

References

References

  1. (2021). "Voter Turnout".
  2. "2 Days After Election Florida Still Counting Votes".
  3. [http://www.rtl.nl/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/2012/11_november/09/buitenland/obama_wint_ook_in_florida.xml 'Obama wint ook in Florida'] (in Dutch)
  4. (November 9, 2012). "Barack Obama closes in on Florida vote victory". BBC News.
  5. Caputo, Marc. (November 8, 2012). "Obama to win Florida; becomes emotional during thank you speech". The Miami Herald.
  6. (November 8, 2012). "Broward joins Miami -Dade in completing election count". The Miami Herald.
  7. "Florida May Have Election Results By Noon Saturday".
  8. (November 10, 2012). "It's official: Obama wins Florida". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  9. "Obama wins Florida, topping Romney in final tally".
  10. (November 10, 2012). "Obama's final win in Florida gives him 332 electoral votes".
  11. "Florida". The New York Times.
  12. Richard E. Berg-Andersson. (December 28, 2011). "Florida Republican primary". The Green Papers.
  13. (October 25, 2011). "GOP chairman: Florida will be penalized, and 2012 race was set | Iowa Caucuses". Caucuses.desmoinesregister.com.
  14. "Gingrich memo on Florida delegate allocation".
  15. (January 15, 2012). "County Voter Registration By Party as of Jan. 3, 2012". Florida Division of Elections.
  16. "Florida Department of State – Election Results". Florida Department of State: Division of Elections.
  17. Astor, Maggie. (September 28, 2011). "Florida Primary: January Date Violates Republican Rules, Complicates Race". International Business Times.
  18. O'Conner, Patrick. (September 29, 2011). "Early Florida Primary Would Scramble 2012 Calendar". The Wall Street Journal.
  19. "Florida primary 2012: Delegate dispute could drag on". Politico.com.
  20. (February 2012). "Gingrich to Challenge Florida's Winner-Take-All Primary Results". nymag.com.
  21. "Gingrich Challenges Florida's Winner-Take-All Delegate Scheme". npr.org.
  22. "Gingrich challenges Florida GOP winner-take-all rule in attempt to get delegates". PalmBeachPost.com.
  23. "Gingrich Camp Memo Challenges Florida as Winner-Take-All; RNC Responds". FloridaConservativeNews.com.
  24. "RNC Member: Gingrich Could Contest Fla.". [[National Review]].
  25. "Gingrich Memo "RE: Issues Surrounding Florida's Allocation of Delegates"". FoxNews.com Politics.
  26. "Huffington Post Election Dashboard". [[HuffPost]].
  27. "America's Choice 2012 Election Center: CNN Electoral Map". [[CNN]].
  28. "Election 2012 - The Electoral Map: Building a Path to Victory". [[The New York Times]].
  29. "2012 Presidential Election Results". The Washington Post.
  30. "RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Battle for White House".
  31. "PROJECTION: OBAMA WILL LIKELY WIN SECOND TERM".
  32. "Nate Silver's political calculations predict 2012 election outcome".
  33. [http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/09/v-fullstory/3088564/miami-dades-election-count-comes.html Broward joins Miami-Dade in completing election count]
  34. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections".
  35. "Daily Kos Elections' statewide election results by congressional and legislative districts".
  36. Campo-Flores, Arian. "Cuban-Americans Move Left".
  37. (5 November 2024). "Trump Is the First Republican Presidential Candidate to Win Miami-Dade County Since 1988". [[The New York Times]].
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

2012-florida-elections 2012-united-states-presidential-election-by-state united-states-presidential-elections-in-florida
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 2012 United States presidential election in Florida — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report