2012 United States presidential election in Massachusetts


The 2012 United States presidential election in Massachusetts 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. Massachusetts voters chose 11 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.
Obama and Biden won Massachusetts with 60.65% of the popular vote to Romney's and Ryan's 37.51%, thus winning the state's 11 electoral votes by a 23.14% margin of victory, despite the fact that Massachusetts is Romney's home state and he had been Governor of the state from 2003 to 2007. This was the first time a presidential candidate lost his home state since Al Gore lost Tennessee in the 2000 election. Romney also became the first Republican candidate to lose their home-state since Richard Nixon lost his home-state of New York to Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
Massachusetts had been a Democratic-leaning state since 1928, and a Democratic stronghold since 1960, and has kept up its intense level of the sizable Democratic margins since 1996, even fending off one of the state's own former governors, Mitt Romney. Massachusetts has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. It was also the sixth straight election in which the Democratic presidential candidate swept every one of the state's 14 counties. Consequently, Romney became the first candidate since Theodore Roosevelt one hundred years earlier to claim an electoral vote yet win no county in his home state. The 2012 election also marks the third consecutive instance where a major party's presidential candidate who considered Massachusetts as his home state lost. Romney also became the first major party nominee to lose their home state by twenty or more points in 80 years.
The 2012 presidential election marks the most recent cycle that Romney would stand for public office as a resident of Massachusetts. He would be on the ballot again in 2018, but as a candidate for United States Senator from Utah.

Primaries

Democratic

Incumbent president Barack Obama won the Democratic Primary with 81% of the vote. He wasn't challenged in the primary and the rest of the vote went to write-in candidates. Through the primary and district caucuses, he won all of the state's 110 pledged delegates, which were pledged to vote for him at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Massachusetts Democratic primary, 2012---
CandidateVotesPercentageDelegates
Barack Obama127,90986.50%110
No preference16,07510.87%0
Write-ins3,8892.63%0
Totals147,873100.00%110

Republican

The 2012 Massachusetts Republican primary was held on March 6, 2012. Among the 41 delegates to the Republican National Convention, 38 are awarded proportionately among candidates getting at least 15% of the vote statewide, and another three super delegates are unbound. Expectedly, Romney won Massachusetts by a landslide. Romney won the plurality in every town with the exception of 10 towns, earning the majority in all but 53 towns.

Green-Rainbow

The 2012 Massachusetts Green-Rainbow primary was held on March 6, 2012.
Massachusetts Green-Rainbow primary, 2012---
CandidateVotesPercentageDelegates
Jill Stein1,01867.06%8
No preference23215.28%2
Kent Mesplay895.86%1
Harley Mikkelson845.53%1
Write-ins956.26%0
Totals1,518100.00%11

General election

Candidate Ballot Access:

By county