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2012 United States presidential election in Virginia
The 2012 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 2012, as part of the presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Virginia voters chose 13 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. Virginia was won by Obama with 51.16% of the vote to Romney's 47.28%, a 3.88% margin of victory. Third parties and write-ins received a cumulative 60,147 votes, representing 1.56% of the vote. In 2008, Obama won the state by 6.30%, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to win it since Lyndon B. Johnson's nationwide Democratic landslide of 1964, but it had otherwise been a reliably Republican state prior to this. However, 2008 represented a realignment election for Virginia. Much of the Democratic gains were attributed to the growth of progressive suburban Northern Virginia, particularly in Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County, all of which voted for Obama twice despite becoming Republican strongholds after 1964. The Northern Virginia suburbs are generally dominated by Washington, D.C., the most Democratic region in the country. Obama's increased strength in this heavily populated region more than canceled out his weakness across rural Virginia, which, similar to the rest of Appalachia, swung towards the Republican Party in 2008 due to the Democrats' increasingly environmentalist policies. Obama suffered a historically poor showing even in traditionally Democratic counties of Southwest Virginia, similar to his weak performance in neighboring West Virginia. Having also won the state in 2008, Obama's 2012 victory made him the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 to carry Virginia in two consecutive elections. It also marked the first time since 1948 that the state voted Democratic in consecutive elections. The Democratic margin of victory also made 2012 the first time since 1948 that Virginia voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole, albeit by a narrow advantage of 0.02%, thereby making the state the closest to the national results.
Also on this shelf
BahÃa de Ponce.
Coachella Valley.
See also
- ▸First Congregational Church of Albany
- ▸Hermathena (composite of Hermes and Athena)
- ▸First Parish Church (Dover, New Hampshire)
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