The 2012 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 6, 2012, as part of the 2012 General Election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Georgia voters chose 16 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.
Romney won Georgia by a 7.82% margin, an improvement from 2008 when John McCain won by 5.20%. Romney received 53.19% of the vote to Obama's 45.39%. Early County flipped from supporting the Republican candidate to the Democratic candidate, while Chattahoochee flipped from the Democratic column to the Republican column.
Obama remains the only Democrat to ever win two terms in office without carrying Georgia either time. Georgia is also one of only two states that voted against Obama in both 2008 and 2012 that his vice president Joe Biden would go on to win in 2020, the other being Arizona. As of 2020, this is the last time a Democratic presidential nominee won the rural Black Belt counties of Baker, Dooly, Early, Peach, Quitman, and Twiggs, and the last time that the suburban Atlanta counties of Gwinnett, Henry, and Cobb would vote Republican in a presidential race. This is also the last time that Georgia has backed the losing candidate in a presidential election and the last time a Democrat won the presidency without winning Georgia. This remains the most recent election where Georgia voted to the left of Arizona and to the right of Iowa and Ohio.
Incumbent president Barack Obama was unopposed in the Georgia primary, therefore winning all of the state's delegates.
The 2012 Georgia Republican primary took place on March 6, 2012.[2][3]
Georgia has 76 delegates to the Republic National Convention. The three super delegates are awarded winner-take-all to the statewide winner. Thirty-one delegates are awarded proportionately among candidates winning at least 20% of the vote statewide. Another 42 delegates are allocated by congressional district, 3 delegates for each district. If a candidate gets a majority in a district, he wins all 3 delegates. If no one get majority, the delegates are split 2 and 1 between the top two candidates respectively.[4]
Write-in candidate access:
Out of a total of 6,066,961 registered voters at the time of the presidential election, turnout for the general election was 3,908,369, or 64.42% of registered voters.
Romney won 10 of 14 congressional districts, including one that elected a Democrat.[8]