2012 Republican Party presidential primaries

2012 Republican Party presidential primaries

← 2008 January 3 to July 14, 2012 2016 →
2,286 delegates to the Republican National Convention 1,144 (majority) votes needed to win
Candidate Mitt Romney Rick Santorum Home state Massachusetts Pennsylvania Delegate count 1,575 245 Contests won 44[1] 6[1] Popular vote 10,048,134[2] 3,938,527[2] Percentage 52.1% 20.4%   Candidate Ron Paul Newt Gingrich Home state Texas Georgia Delegate count 177 138 Contests won 4[1] 2[1] Popular vote 2,099,441[2] 2,737,442[2] Percentage 10.9% 14.2%
First place by first-instance vote First place by delegate allocation First place by convention roll call   Mitt Romney   Rick Santorum   Newt Gingrich   Ron Paul
Previous Republican nominee John McCain Republican nominee Mitt Romney

2012 U.S. presidential election
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Democratic Party
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Republican Party
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Voters of the Republican Party elected state delegations to the 2012 Republican National Convention in presidential primaries. The national convention then selected its nominee to run for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. There were 2,286 delegates chosen,^[3] and a candidate needed to accumulate 1,144 delegate votes at the convention to win the nomination.^[4] The caucuses allocated delegates to the respective state delegations to the national convention, but the actual election of the delegates were, many times, at a later date. Delegates were elected in different ways that vary from state to state. They could be elected at local conventions, selected from slates submitted by the candidates, selected at committee meetings, or elected directly at the caucuses and primaries.

The primary contest began in 2011 with a fairly wide field. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and the runner-up in the 2008 primaries, had been preparing to run for president ever since the 2008 election,^[5] and was from early on the favorite to win the nomination. However, he lacked support from the party's conservative wing and the media narrative soon revolved around speculation on a conservative or "anti-Romney" candidate who would challenge Romney in the primaries.^[6] Several candidates rose in the polls throughout the year. However, the field was down to four candidates by February 2012: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Representative Ron Paul, former Governor Romney and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. It was the first presidential primary to be affected by a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited independent expenditures to support or oppose candidates through super PACs.

Three different candidates won the first three contests. Santorum, who had been running a one-state campaign in Iowa, narrowly won in that state's caucuses by a handful of votes over Romney (who was thought to have won the caucuses before a recount). Romney won New Hampshire, but lost South Carolina to Gingrich. From there, Romney regained his momentum by winning the crucial state of Florida, while Santorum took his campaign national and carried three more states before Super Tuesday, while Romney carried seven states.

Super Tuesday primaries took place on March 6. With ten states voting and 391 delegates being allocated, it had less than half the potential impact of its 2008 predecessor. Romney carried six states and Santorum three, while Gingrich won his home state of Georgia. Twelve more events were held in March, including all of the territorial contests and the first local conventions that allocated delegates (Wyoming's county conventions). Santorum won Kansas and three Southern primaries, but was unable to make any significant gains on Romney, who maintained a solid lead over all other contenders after securing more than half of the delegates allocated in the month of March.

Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10, a week after losing Wisconsin and two other primaries to Romney. Gingrich followed suit on May 2, after the Republican National Committee (RNC) declared Romney the presumptive nominee on April 25 and put its resources behind him. On May 14, Paul announced that he would suspend funding the remaining primary contests and devote his resources to winning delegates at state conventions. He then won majorities in delegations of three states whose non-binding primaries had been in favor of other candidates.^[7] On May 29, Romney reached the nominating threshold of 1,144 delegates by most projected counts following his primary win in Texas^[8] and was congratulated by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus for "securing the delegates needed to be our party's official nominee at our convention in Tampa."^[9] With his subsequent victories in California and several smaller states, Romney surpassed a majority of bound delegates on June 5.

Romney chose congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate, but they went on to lose the general election to incumbent President Barack Obama. Ryan later went on to serve a term as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Romney was elected to the U.S. Senate from Utah in 2018.