2012 United States presidential election in Washington (state)

2012 United States presidential election in Washington (state)

← 2008 November 6, 2012 2016 →
Turnout81.25% (of registered voters) Decrease3.36%[1]
 
Nominee Barack Obama Mitt Romney
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Illinois Massachusetts
Running mate Joe Biden Paul Ryan
Electoral vote 12 0
Popular vote 1,755,396 1,290,670
Percentage 55.80% 41.03%


President before election

Barack Obama
Democratic

Elected President

Barack Obama
Democratic

The 2012 United States presidential election in Washington took place on November 6, 2012, as part of the 2012 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Washington voters chose 12 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, Congressman Paul Ryan.

President Obama easily won the state of Washington, taking 55.80% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 41.03%, a 14.77% margin of victory.[2] In terms of raw vote total, Obama received 1,755,396 votes to Romney's 1,290,670 votes, a 464,726 vote margin. Obama received the largest number of votes of any candidate up to that point, a record which would be broken by his then-running mate Joe Biden in 2020, when Biden broke Obama's record by 614,216 votes.[3] Third parties collectively made up 79,450 votes, or 2.54%. Obama led in every single poll conducted, often by double digits. Washington has not voted for a Republican since Ronald Reagan carried it in his 1984 landslide, and today is considered part of the Blue Wall, a bloc of 242 electoral votes that have safely voted for the Democratic nominee since 1992. Despite being a Republican-leaning swing state in the early- to mid-20th century, the rise of cultural conservatism and resistance to social liberalism in the Republican Party pushed voters in Washington, as well as many other Blue Wall states, away from the Republicans.[4]

  1. ^ Secretary of State: Kim Wyman. "November 6, 2012 General Election Results". www.sos.wa.gov. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  2. ^ "November 06, 2012 General Election Results: President/Vice President". www.wa.gov. Washington Secretary of State. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  3. ^ "November 3, 2020 General Election Results – President/Vice President". www.wa.gov. Washington Secretary of State. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  4. ^ Cohen, Micah (September 25, 2012). "Washington State, Women's Rights and Big Cities". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved December 5, 2020.