November 6, 2012 2016 → 1,921,290 1,188,314 Date 6 March 2012 | 11 0 60.7% 37.5% | |
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Location Massachusetts, United States Winner Mitt Romney | ||
The 2012 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 6, 2012 as part of the 2012 General Election in which all fifty states plus The District of Columbia participated. Massachusetts voters chose eleven 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.
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Obama and Biden won Massachusetts with 60.7% of the popular vote to Romney's and Ryan's 37.5%, thus winning the state’s eleven electoral votes, 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. The 2016 election was the next one, when Republican nominee Donald Trump lost his home state of New York, but won the presidency.
Massachusetts has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1984. It was also the sixth straight election (beginning in 1992) in which the Democratic presidential candidate swept every one of the state’s fourteen 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 (this also happened in 1988 and 2004 when Michael Dukakis and John Kerry respectively lost their bids).
Democratic primary
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 136 delegates which were pledged to vote for him at the 2012 Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Republican primary
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 (Santorum winning 7, Paul winning 2, and a tie in 1), earning the majority in all but 53 towns.
General election
Candidate Ballot Access: