Presidential+Election+2012

=by Selmon Rafey and Patrick Germain=

The 2012 Presidential Election occurred on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. The Democratic candidate, incumbent President Barack Obama and his running mate, Vice-President Joe Biden were re-elected to a second term. Their main opposition was Rep ublican candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

__ Primary Elections __
As the **incumbent** president, Barack Obama was already known to be the choice for the Democratic primary of the 2012 election. Politicians will rarely ever run against an incumbent in a presidential **primary**, a major exception being Eugene McCarthy’s run against the incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson. Prior to the Republican primary, a total of twelve Republican politicians announced their bid for candidate. Many simply did not have enough popular support to be chosen as the Republican candidate, among them Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, and Thaddeus McCotter. Many had ideologies that were not capable of representing a majority of Republicans. Jon Huntsman was viewed as too moderate. Republicans like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum were viewed as too staunchly conservative. Ron Paul was seen as hardly Republican for his strong beliefs in libertarian principles. Rick Perry, though very conservative, had popular support, but ran his campaign poorly, often making public blunders in his speaking and debates. Others were harmed by events that took place in their private lives: Herman Cain was accused by two women of sexual harassment and misconduct and of adultery by another, and Newt Gingrich had an affair. By the end of the race for Republican primary, it was also common for candidates who knew they would not win to back out so that they could endorse the candidate they most supported. In this election most who dropped out backed Mitt Romney, who would become the Republican candidate for presidency. Romney won the primary not by increasing his support throughout the campaign season, but by maintaining an even amount of support throughout.

__ Campaign Spending __
A record amount of money raising and spending took place during the 2012 presidential election. Both candidates raised around a billion dollars. Barack Obama’s campaign raised $1072.6 million and spent $985.7 million dollars. Mitt Romney’s campaign raised $992.5 million dollars and spent $992 million. For both candidates, the greatest amount of campaign earning and spending took place in the the month of October before the election.



Independent spending groups had a large effect on the race. Independent groups which supported Republicans tended to raise more money. The independent group which spent the most was “Restore Our Future, Inc.,” a ** Super PAC ** which supported Mitt Romney. It spent $142,655,346 on the Romney campaign, mostly through attack ads, and represented 33% of all independent Republican spending. Another Republican Super PAC called “American Crossroads” raised $91,115,447, spent mostly on attack ads against Barack Obama. “American Crossroads” was not tied to a single Republican candidate, but functioned to help the entire party. It spent 21% of independent Republican spending. The largest democratic Super PAC was “Priorities USA Action.” Founded by an Obama White House aide, Bill Burton, it directly supported Obama by creating attack ads against Mitt Romney. It figured in as 77% of all independent Democratic spending.

__ Key Locations and Demographics __
During the election, there were key ** swing states ** that the candidates tried to appeal to. The most contentious states in the election consisted of Colorado, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Nevada. In the run-up to the election, the numbers would sometimes swing in favor of the candidates, leading to uncertainty until the final moments of the election. Due to this “up in the air” appearance, both campaigns heavily focused ads and tours across these locations.



In addition to the swing states, there were also a few **demographics** that many analysts believed to be the deciding groups in the election. One of these groups consisted of Hispanic voters. Since the Hispanic population in the U.S. is fastest growing minority group, the importance of this group was not overlooked, especially in key states with Hispanic populations, such as Florida. This led to delicate mentioning of certain immigration policies such as the Dream Act, a key topic to many Hispanic voters. Also, women were also a key demographic in the race. Romney in particular tried to distance himself from a variety of more conservative beliefs regarding women’s health, especially in the wake of controversial statements made by other politicians such as Todd Akin.

__ Public Perception __
President Obama was generally perceived as more likable than Mitt Romney. In a CNN/ ORC poll, Obama received more support for having every characteristic that was listed, which included being in touch with the problems of the people, being more honest and trustworthy, being strong and decisive, and having a clear plan for America. It is likely that Obama’s middle-class upbringing had a great effect on this, as compared to Romney’s life-long upper class lifestyle. People may also have felt less connected with Romney because of his less common faith in the Church of Latter Day Saints, as opposed to Obama’s faith in more mainstream protestant Christianity.

An ABC News/ Washington Post poll from September 7-9, 2012, showed that Obama had in advantage in terms of how enthusiastic his supporters were for him. Among Obama’s supporters, those who responded that they were “very enthusiastic” made up 56%, while only 46% of Romney supporters said they were very enthusiastic about his campaign. After their party’s respective conventions, Obama was given a boost in public favor, while Romney appeared to have lost public favor. The FOX and ABC/WP polls both showed a 4% increase in favorability among voters for president Obama, while FOX showed a 2% decrease for governor Romney and ABC/WP showed a 3% for Romney.

The presidential debates had a noticeable effect on the campaign. For the first debate, President Obama was not as aggressive or collected as Romney, and this caused public opinion polls of Romney to rise immediately after. Even democrats agreed that Obama had “lost” the debate. Obama’s momentum had slowed down. The vice-presidential debate was not a clear victory for either Biden or Ryan, but it had the effect of regaining momentum for the democrats as Biden’s fortitude excited the party. The second and last debates showed Obama in high spirits again, with Romney, too, showing good debating abilities. However, Romney faced a few setbacks after a failed attack on Obama over the deaths of 4 Americans at the Libyan Embassy, as well as excessively agreeable tone in the final debate. However, after all the debates, the race was close, with both candidates having very similar popularity.

__ Results __
President Obama won the election with 332 electoral votes and 51.03% of the popular vote ( 65,899,660 voters). Romney received 206 electoral votes and 47.19% of the popular vote (60,932,152 voters). Obama carried all the swing states except North Carolina, which was also one of the few areas that Obama lost from the 2008 election (in addition to Indiana and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional district).



Demographically, Obama won among women, youth, and minority voters, whereas Romney won the men, white, and rural voters. Specifically, Obama won women by approximately 10% and Hispanics by 44%. Many saw this as a sign that the Republican party must moderate their platform in order to win a majority in highly competitive demographics for the next presidential election.

Due to the tight nature of the race, many in Romney’s camp refused to concede. Many believed that due to “skewed polling” that Romney had a legitimate shot in numerous swing states, claiming that heavily Democrat-leaning numbers were caused by oversampling. This led to Romney waiting until approximately 1 a.m. EST to concede to Obama.

= Review =

**__ Definitions __**
__Incumbent__ = the candidate who holds the position for which (s)he is running, which means that (s)he is running for reelection.

__Primary__ = each state votes for which politician they want to be the presidential candidate for their party

__Super PAC__ = groups that may engage in unlimited political spending, as long as it is spends independently of any particular campaign, though it may clearly favor one candidate or party.

__Swing States__ = states that could potentially give their electoral votes to a candidate of either party. demographics = the statistical information regarding a population, such as gender, race, age, etc.

__Dream Act__ = a bill which would grant residency to undocumented immigrants who are U.S. high school graduates, have come to the United States as minors, and have lived in the United States continuously for five years or more before the bill was enacted.

__**Questions**__
__ 1. Who was the incumbent candidate in the 2012 election? __

__ 2. Which party generally receives more money from Super PACs and what is the party’s largest Super PAC contributor? __

__ 3. President Obama is more favorable among which demographic groups? __

__ 4. Why would Republicans not favor a man like Jon Huntsman as their presidential candidate? __

__ 5. There was more enthusiasm for which campaign? __

__ 6. Who was viewed as the “winner” of the first presidential debate? __

__ ANSWERS __ : HERE

__**Sources**__
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance/independent-expenditures/totals http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance http://www.slideshare.net/GloverParkGroup/the-public-opinion-landscape-election-2012 http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/06/4966431/2012-election-exit-poll-shows.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/president/

**See Also** Election 2012 Recap Electoral Process - General Election