United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2012

United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2012

November 6, 2012

Nominee Mitt Romney Barack Obama Party Republican Democratic Home state Massachusetts Illinois Running mate Paul Ryan Joe Biden Electoral vote 11 0 Popular vote 1,462,330 960,709 Percentage 59.48% 39.08%

County Results   Obama—60-70%   Obama—50-60%   Romney—50-60%   Romney—60-70%   Romney—70-80%

President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

The 2012 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 6, 2012 as part of the 2012 General Election in which all 50 states plus The District of Columbia participated. Tennessee 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.

Mitt Romney received Tennessee's 11 electoral votes after he garnered 59.48% of the popular vote in Tennessee, to Barack Obama's 39.08%.^[1]

Much like in previous elections, larger metropolitan areas such as Memphis and Nashville were won by the Democratic Party, but rural areas overwhelmingly favored the Republican Party. Barack Obama proved especially unpopular among the state's conservative electorate; consequently, Mitt Romney's 20.4% margin of victory was the strongest Republican win in Tennessee since 1972. Tennessee has not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1996.

General Election

Results

United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2012
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	Mitt Romney	Paul Ryan	1,462,330	59.48%	11
	Democratic	Barack Obama	Joe Biden	960,709	39.08%	0
	Libertarian	Gary Johnson	Jim Gray	18,623	0.67%	0
	Green	Jill Stein	Cheri Honkala	6,515	0.26%	0
	Constitution	Virgil Goode	Jim Clymer	6,022	0.24%	0
	Justice	Rocky Anderson	Luis J. Rodriguez	2,639	0.11%	0
	American Third Position	Merlin Miller	Virginia D. Abernethy	1,739	0.07%	0
Totals				2,458,577	100.00%	11

History

In previous elections, Tennessee was typically won by the Republican party, with Republicans winning in Tennessee for the past three election cycles, since the 2000 election.^[2]

Democratic primary

The 2012 democratic primary in Tennessee took place on Super Tuesday, March 6, 2012, with Barack Obama receiving 80,355 (88.5%) votes.^[3] Other candidates received a combined total of 10,411 (11.5%) votes. Tennessee had a total of 91 delegates to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, of which 82 were pledged to presidential contenders depending on the popular vote. The remaining 9 super-delegates were unbound.

Republican primary

Tennessee Republican primary, 2012

March 6, 2012

Candidate Rick Santorum Mitt Romney Party Republican Republican Home state Pennsylvania Massachusetts Delegate count 29 14 Popular vote 205,809 155,630 Percentage 37.1% 28.1%   Candidate Newt Gingrich Ron Paul Party Republican Republican Home state Georgia Texas Delegate count 9 Popular vote 132,889 50,156 Percentage 24.0% 9.0%

Results by county. Dark green indicates a county won by Santorum, orange by Romney, and purple by Gingrich.

The Republican primary took place on Super Tuesday, March 6, 2012.^[4][5]

Tennessee has 58 delegates to the 2012 Republican National Convention. Three super delegates are unbound. 27 delegates are awarded by congressional district, 3 delegates for each district. If a candidate wins two-third of the vote in a district, he takes all 3 delegates there; if not, delegates are split 2-to-1 between the top two candidates. Another 28 delegates are awarded to the candidate who wins two-thirds of the vote statewide, or allocated proportionately among candidates winning at least 20% of the vote if no one gets two-thirds.^[6]

Results

Tennessee Republican primary, 2012[7]
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Projected delegate count
			NYT [8]	CNN [9]	FOX [10]
Rick Santorum	205,809	37.11%	29	27	26
Mitt Romney	155,630	28.06%	14	15	12
Newt Gingrich	132,889	23.96%	9	8	9
Ron Paul	50,156	9.04%	0	0	0
Rick Perry (withdrawn)	1,966	0.35%	0	0	0
Michele Bachmann (withdrawn)	1,895	0.34%	0	0	0
Jon Huntsman (withdrawn)	1,239	0.22%	0	0	0
Buddy Roemer (withdrawn)	881	0.16%	0	0	0
Gary Johnson (withdrawn)	572	0.10%	0	0	0
Uncommitted	3,536	0.64%	0	0	0
Unprojected delegates:			6	8	9
Total:	554,573	100.00%	58	58	58

See also

• United States presidential election, 2012
• Republican Party presidential debates, 2012
• Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012
• Results of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries
• Tennessee Republican Party
• Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2012
• Tennessee Democratic Party

References

1. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections - Tennessee". Retrieved 4 January 2013.
2. "Romney Poised To Prevail Over Obama". Huffington Post. November 6, 2012.
3. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/TN-D
4. "Primary and Caucus Printable Calendar". CNN. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
5. "Presidential Primary Dates" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
6. Nate Silver (March 4, 2012). "Romney Could Win Majority of Super Tuesday Delegates". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
7. http://state.tn.us/sos/election/results/2012-03/RepPresStateCertCountyTotals.pdf
8. Tennessee - New York Times
9. Tennessee - CNN
10. Tennessee - Fox News

External links

• The Green Papers for Tennessee (Republican)
• The Green Papers for Tennessee (Democratic)
• The Green Papers: Major state elections in chronological order