The 2012 United States presidential election in Arizona 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. State 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. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state Romney would win, or otherwise considered as a safe red state. Arizona was won by Romney with a 9.06% margin. Obama is the only Democrat to ever win two terms without carrying the state at least once since the state's founding in 1912. Arizona 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 Georgia.
Until 2020, Arizona had been won by the Republican nominee for president in every election since 1952, except when Bill Clinton narrowly carried the state over Bob Dole in 1996. This is also the most recent time that Arizona has backed the losing candidate in a presidential election and the last time a Democrat won the presidency without winning Arizona.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
Incumbent President Barack Obama won all the delegates.
Republican primary
The Republican primary was a closed primary that took place on February 28, 2012. More than 1,130,000 registered Republican voters participated in the event, the purpose of which was to select delegates from the state to attend the Republican National Convention on behalf of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. The Republican National Committee removed half of Arizona's delegate allocation because the state committee moved its Republican primary before March 6. Arizona therefore held a ballot to select 29 proportionally-allocated delegates. This election occurred the same day as the Michigan Republican primary. The Arizona primary was set as a winner-take-all contest, another violation of RNC delegate allocation rules, which require proportional allocation for all primaries held before April 1. Endorsements from 2008 primary rival and U.S. Senator John McCain and Governor Jan Brewer helped add to the prospects of a victory for Romney in Arizona.
Project White House
The small alternative newspaper Tucson Weekly, for the second election in a row, has sponsored an event called "Project White House" in which it gets as many ordinary citizens on the ballot as it possibly can. Afterward, a series of "reality show style" competitions occurred, including candidate meet-and-greets, and two televised debates which were sponsored by the Tucson Weekly, a local public-access television show called Illegal Knowledge, and local public television stations.
The two debates took place on February 18 and February 19, 2012, both were commercial-free, one hour long each, and both aired on Access Tucson while they were streamed live on the internet. Both debates were produced in conjunction with Project White House and Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly.
The first debate, held on the 18th at 8 pm MST, produced by Illegal Knowledge and hosted by Dave Maass of San Diego CityBeat, had nine participants, composed of eight lesser known Republican candidates (Donald Benjamin, Simon Bollander, Cesar Cisneros, Kip Dean, Sarah Gonzales, Al "Dick" Perry, Charles Skelley and Jim Terr) and one Green Party candidate (Michael Oatman). A press release regarding this first debate was distributed which invited all candidates listed on either Republican or Green Party ballots in Arizona to the first debate, although none of the major Republican or Green Party candidates appeared.
The second debate, held on the 19th at 7pm MST, produced by Access Tucson and hosted by both Dave Maass of San Diego CityBeat and Amanda Hurley of The University of Arizona School of Journalism, was restricted only to Republican candidates and featured seven of the eight lesser known Republican candidates from the previous night (less Cesar Cisneros).
There was a third Arizona debate which took place in Mesa, AZ on February 22, 2012, but was not associated with Project White House and had only invited the four major Republican candidates to participate.
Two lesser known candidates appearing in the first debates, Sarah Gonzales (who placed sixth) and Michael Oatman (who placed tied for third), placed ahead of their better known Republican and Green Party counterparts (Buddy Roemer and Gerard Davis respectively) in the Arizona Presidential Preference Election Results from February 28, 2012.
Campaign
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum were contesting and campaigning in the Arizona primary.
Televised debates in Arizona were held on February 18 and 19, 2012, on Public-access television and February 22, 2012, on CNN. Only the major Republican candidates, except for Roemer, were invited to the third, and none of them attended the first two.
Twenty-three candidates appeared on the presidential primary ballot, 11 of whom are residents of the state.
Results
Arizona was allocated 29 delegates because it moved its primary to February 28.
Voter turnout = 45.3%
General election
Ballot access
- Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan, Republican
- Barack Obama/Joseph Biden, Democratic
- Gary Johnson/James P. Gray, Libertarian
- Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala, Green
Write-in candidate access:
- Virgil Goode/Jim Clymer, Constitution
- Rocky Anderson/Luis J. Rodriguez, Justice
Results
By congressional district
Romney won six of nine districts, including two that elected Democrats.