Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012

Republican presidential primaries, 2012

2008 ← January 3, 2012, to present → 2016

Candidate Mitt Romney Rick Santorum Home state Massachusetts Pennsylvania Delegate count 972 229 States carried 34 [1] (incl. DC & 5 territories) 6 [1] Popular vote 6,888,096[2] 3,664,951[2] Percentage 45.63% 24.28%   Candidate Newt Gingrich Ron Paul Home state Georgia Texas Delegate count 135 120 States carried 2 [1] 2 [1] Popular vote 2,569,059[2] 1,649,032[2] Percentage 17.02% 10.92%

First place finishes by plurality of delegates   Mitt Romney (34)   Rick Santorum (6)   Newt Gingrich (2)   Ron Paul (2)

First place finishes by popular vote   Mitt Romney (35)   Rick Santorum (11)   Newt Gingrich (2)   Ron Paul (1) Convention delegate projections vary among sources. This count is a unprojected softcount, which only includes allocated delegates and unallocated delegates that have been elected. It does not included any projected count on future local conventions or the 117 unbound RNC delegates that are not a part of the primary election process. According to party rules all territories are counted as states, and a state is carried when a candidate can show a plurality of delegates in that state.[3]

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The 2012 Republican presidential primaries are the selection processes in which voters of the Republican Party are electing state delegations to the Republican National Convention of the party. The national convention will then finalize their winning nominee to run for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. There will be 2,286 delegates chosen,^[4] and a candidate must accumulate 1,144 delegate votes to win the nomination.^[5] The primaries and caucuses can be binding or nonbinding in allocating delegates to the respective state delegations to the national convention. But the actual election of the delegates are many times at a later date. Delegates are elected in different ways that vary from state to state. They can be elected at local conventions, selected from slates submitted by the candidates, selected at committee meetings or elected directly at the caucuses and primaries. Until the delegates are actually elected the delegate numbers are by nature projections, but it is only in the nonbinding caucus states where they are not allocated at the primary or caucus date.

The primary contest began in 2011 with a fairly wide field. Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, had been preparing to run for president ever since the 2008 election,^[6] and the media narrative became: "Who will be the anti-Romney candidate?"^[7] 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. Congressman Ron Paul, former Governor Romney and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. It is 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 went on to win New Hampshire, but lost South Carolina to Gingrich. From there, Santorum took his campaign national and carried three more states before Super Tuesday, while Romney carried seven.

Super Tuesday primaries took place on March 6. With ten states voting and 391 delegates being allocated, it had only about 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 RNC had declared Romney the presumptive nominee on April 25 and put its resources behind him. On May 14, Paul announced that he would skip funding the remaining primary contests and devote his resources to winning delegates at state conventions.^[8]

Upcoming primaries and state conventions

Next

• May 29, Texas primary
• June 2, Louisiana and Missouri state conventions and the Washington state convention Wednesday to Saturday, June 2.
• June 5, California, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota primaries

• Delegate Hard Count: This only includes bound delegates that have to vote for a candidate even if they support another candidate.^[2]
• Delegate Soft Count: This only includes delegates allocated at the primaries and unallocated delegates that are (s)elected at their local conventions or committees. It does not included any projections on future local conventions or the 117 unbound RNC delegates that are not a part of the primary election process. A breakdown of this count and its sources can be found in the Primary Schedule below.
• Plurality: A candidate secures a delegation when he has the highest number of delegates that can vote for him on the first ballot in the nomination at the National Convention. According to the current RNC rules it takes plurality in five delegations to be on the first ballot at the National Convention, and it takes 1,144 delegates at the roll call of the ballots to become the Republican nominee.^[3]

Timeline of the race

The primary contest takes place from January 3 to July 14 and will allocate and elect 2,286 voting delegates to the 2012 Republican National Convention in the week of August 27. To become the Republican Party's nominee for the 2012 presidential election a candidate needs a majority of 1,144 delegates to vote for him and plurality in five state delegations. The 2012 race is significantly different from earlier races. Many states have switched from their old winner-take-all allocation to proportional allocation. Many remaining winner-take-all states are allocating delegates to both the winner of each congressional district and the winner of the state. The change was made to prolong the race, giving lesser known candidates a chance and making it harder for a frontrunner to secure the majority early. It was also hoped that this change in the election system would energize the base of the party.^[9][10]

Most of the candidates started their campaigns in the summer of 2011, but after the first two primaries only four major campaigns remained. At the beginning of May, Romney was widely considered the presumptive nominee, and Paul was the only other major candidate running an active campaign.

The beginning (2011)

Tim Pawlenty (left) and Thaddeus McCotter (right) both dropped out early in the race.

Herman Cain suspended his campaign on December 3 after media reports of alleged sexual misconduct.

The 2008 Republican National Convention decided that the 2012 primary schedule generally would be subject to the same rules as the 2008 delegate selection contests.^[11] But on August 6, 2010, the Republican National Committee (RNC) adopted new rules for the timing of elections, with 103 votes in favor out of 144.^[12] Under this plan, allocation of delegates to the national convention were to be divided into three periods:^[13]

• February 1 – March 5, 2012: Contests of traditional early states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina,
• March 6–31, 2012: Contests that proportionally allocate delegates,
• April 1, 2012, and onward: All other contests including winner-take-all elections.

Several states, most notably Florida, scheduled their allocating contests earlier than prescribed. This pressured every traditional early state except Nevada to push back their contest into January. As a result of their violation of RNC rules, these states were penalized with a loss of half their delegates, including voting right for RNC delegates. Despite having early caucuses, Iowa, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri were not penalized, because their contests did not allocate national delegates.^[14]

The start of the 2012 Republican race for president was shaped by the 13 presidential debates of 2011 beginning on May 5. Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer, both former Governors, were left out of most of the debates, leading to complaints of bias.^[15] On December 28, 2011, Johnson withdrew to seek the Libertarian Party nomination and on February 23, 2012, Roemer withdrew to seek the Reform Party and the Americans Elect nomination.

Two candidates from the 2008 presidential primaries, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, ran again in the 2012 primary campaign. Mitt Romney was an early frontrunner, and he maintained a careful, strategic campaign that centered on being an establishment candidate. In the summer of 2011 he had a lead in polls with the support of much of the Republican electorate.^[16] However, his lead over the Republican field was precarious, owing to the entry of new candidates who drew considerable media attention. First congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota started her campaign in June and surged in the polls after winning the Ames Straw Poll in August, but she lost some of the momentum when Texas Governor Rick Perry shortly after was drafted by strong national Republican support. He performed strongly in polls, immediately becoming a serious contender.^[17] But he lost the momentum following poor performances in the September debates. As the third opponent to Romney's lead Herman Cain surged after the sixth debate on September 22. In November Cain's viability as a candidate was seriously jeopardized after several allegations of sexual harassment surfaced in the media, and he suspended his campaign on December 3, 2011, despite his unyielding denials of any misconduct.

In November as Herman Cain's campaign was stumbling former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich asserted himself as the fourth leading opponent to Romney.^[18] It was a comeback for Gingrich after his campaign had suffered under serious staff problems just weeks after he had entered the race in May.^[19] But in the few weeks before the Iowa caucus, Gingrich's lead quickly began to evaporate as super PACs sympathetic to Mitt Romney and others spent over $4.4 million in negative advertising on Gingrich.^[20][21] So on the eve of the Iowa Caucus, the first contest, there was no clear and strong frontrunner.

Early states (January to March)

• Six delegations had primary elections allocating 174 delegates
• Seven delegations had caucuses starting the process of electing 182 unallocated delegates

Gary Johnson (left) withdrew on December 28 and Buddy Roemer (right) on February 23, both to run for nomination by other parties.

In 2012 there were 13 state contests before Super Tuesday, seven caucuses and 5 primaries. Missouri had a nonbinding straw poll in the form of a primary. Santorum spent months in Iowa, traveling to all 99 counties and holding some 381 town hall meetings.^[22] This one state campaign succeeded when he tied with Romney in the Iowa Caucuses on January 3. This first in the nation caucus propelled him into a national campaign while it ended Michele Bachmann's campaign. On the night of the caucuses, Romney was reported the winner of Iowa by only eight votes over Santorum,^[23] but after the results were certified, Santorum was declared the winner, beating Romney by 34 votes, despite the results from 8 districts being lost.^[24] Newt Gingrich said after Iowa that his positive campaign had been a weakness, and had allowed his rivals to gain the upper hand through negative attacks paid by super PACs supporting them.^[25]

Mitt Romney easily won the next contest in New Hampshire, his win in was seen as a given. Romney had persistently showed popularity in that state, but rivals were intensely fighting for a second-place finish there.^[26] Jon Huntsman, Jr., a moderate, had staked his candidacy on New Hampshire and invested heavily in at least a strong second place showing, but after 150 campaign events in the state he ended third after Paul. Both he and Rick Perry dropped out of the race shortly before voting day in South Carolina and the two delegates allocated to Huntsman became unbound.^[27]

Romney was expected to virtually clinch the nomination with a win in South Carolina, but Gingrich, who is from neighboring Georgia, waged an aggressive and successful campaign winning all but one of the state's congressional districts.^[28] Gingrich victory in South Carolina together with two strong debate performances gave him a second surge, opening the race to a longer and more unpredictable campaign.

Romney did regain some of his momentum in the next two weeks and won the Florida primary and the Nevada caucuses. However, the race shifted again on February 7, when Santorum swept all three Midwestern states voting that day. By doing so he made a case for himself as the Not-Romney candidate and disrupted Romney's narrative as the unstoppable frontrunner.^[29]

Following his victories on February 7, Santorum received a huge boost in momentum as conservatives seeking an alternative to Romney began leaving Gingrich for Santorum. Numerous polls taken after Santorum's victories showed him either leading Romney nationally or close behind.^{[30][31][32][33][34]} To regain momentum Romney shelved his "no straw polls" policy and actively campaigned to win the CPAC straw poll, which he won with 38% to Santorum's 31%.^[35] He also campaigned in Maine, beating Ron Paul by only three percentage points.

Regaining momentum Romney won the remaining four states. The candidates campaigned heavily in Michigan, and even though Romney won the state vote he only won 7 out of 14 congressional districts, the rest went to Santorum. The two delegates allocated at-large in the state was before the election reported to be given proportionally but after the election the Michigan GOP announced there had been an error in the memo published and that the two delegates would be given to the winner, sparking accusations of Romney rigging the results from Santorum's team.^[36] After thirteen contests the GOP field for the presidential nomination was still wide open.

Michele Bachmann suspended her campaign on January 4 after ending up sixth in the Iowa caucus.

Jon Huntsman Jr. invested heavily in New Hampshire. After finishing third, he suspended his campaign on January 16.

Rick Perry suspended his campaign on January 19 after getting fifth place in Iowa and last in New Hampshire.

• The numbers for delegates, states, and districts won in these tables include results from local conventions held in states which did not allocate their delegates at the precinct caucuses or primary election. These conventions were generally held on dates later than the table indicates.

† The state did not allocate any delegates at its primary election, they were elected later.

Super Tuesday (March 6)

• Nine delegations had primary elections allocating 391 delegates
• North Dakota's delegation had caucuses starting the process of electing 25 unallocated delegates

The 10 states having Republican primaries on March 6

Super Tuesday 2012 is the name for March 6, the day on which the largest simultaneous number of state presidential primary elections was held in the United States. This election cycle's edition of Super Tuesday, where 17.1% of all delegates was allocated, was considerably smaller than the 2008 edition, where 41.5% of all delegates was allocated (twenty-one states with 901 delegates).^[37] In 2012 delegates were allocated in primaries in seven states and their sixty five congressional districts together with binding caucuses in two states.^[38]

North Dakota did not allocate any delegates at their caucuses, but had a consultative straw poll that the NDGOP leadership was required to use as a basic for making a party recommended slate of delegates. The persons on this slate was elected delegates at the April 1 state convention. According to Santorum and Paul supporters the slate was not as required based on the straw poll, but gave Romney a large majority of the delegates. The elected delegates have stated that they will divide up in such a way they reflect the caucus result, even if that means to vote for a candidate other than the one they support.^[39]

Romney secured more than half of the delegates available on Super Tuesday but did not secure his status as the inevitable nominee. Gingrich pursued a "southern strategy", winning his home state of Georgia, and even though Santorum carried 3 states, he did not win them with a large enough margin to secure his status as the Not-Romney candidate. In the weeks leading up to March 6, both Gingrich and Santorum experienced ballot problems, failing to appear on the Virginia primary ballot, leaving that race to Romney and Paul. With only two candidates on the ballot, Paul got 40% of the votes and carried one of Virginia's eleven congressional districts.

Santorum had also failed to submit full or any delegate slates in nine of Ohio's congressional districts^[40] making him unable to win all delegates in those districts. The state became the big battleground of Super Tuesday and its delegates were split between Romney and Santorum, who won three congressional districts where he didn't have a full slate. This created four unallocated delegates, whose status was to be determined later. But Santorum suspended his campaign before the meeting in the Ohio GOP central committee deciding on the delegates took place and Romney dropped the disputed on May 4 in the interest of party unity.^[41]

† North Dakota did not allocate any delegates at its primary election; they were elected later at the state convention.

Mid-March

• Seven delegations had primary election allocating 230 delegates
• Four smaller territories elected 24 delegates directly at their caucuses
• Two delegation had caucuses starting the process of electing 61 unallocated delegates

Mitt Romney became the presumptive nominee on Apr. 25

After Supertuesday all five territories had their contests. Puerto Rico held a primary and the four smaller insular areas (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and U.S. Virgin Islands) had convention style caucuses where no straw polls was take, therefore the table does not show popular vote percentages in these rows but the number of delegates committed to each candidate. Romney secured all but two delegates from the terrioties. The two delegate was from the Virgin Islands, one was elected as uncommitted and one was bound to Paul. On the Virgin Islands every caucusgoer had six votes that he or her could cast for six different delegates. Every person wanting to be a delegate should pledge to an candidate or declare to be uncommitted before the voting started. The six persons with the most votes became National Convention delegates. Only four persons ran as delegates pledge to Romney and they all got elected. The persons that ran as delegates pledge to Paul got a plurality of the votes, but only one of them was elected.

Missouri began its process of selecting national delegates with its caucuses from March 17 to April 10. The February primary was nonbinding and as such nothing more than a nonbindng strawpoll. Santorum won The Louisiana delegation securing 10 delegates for himself, but the election process for the major part of the delegates started at the caucuses on April 28.

As the first state with nonbinding caucuses Wyoming elected delegates in the week of March 5. At the county conventions one delegate was elected as uncommitted.,^[42] while eight delegates was committed to Romnney, two to Santorum and one to Paul.

By winning three primaries in the South, Santorum disrupted Gingrich's "Southern Strategy" and took the lead as the Not-Romney candidate. Gingrich won one congressional district and secured only 25 delegates in March. Three days after the Louisiana primary he announced a new "National Convention strategy", which includes laying off one-third of the campaign staff and spending less time on the road campaigning.^[43] He was at this point running out of money, having more campaign debt than cash on hand.

Romney maintained a solid lead over all other contenders by securing more than half of the delegates allocated or elected in the month of March. He carried all the territories and two states. And even though he did not secure the nomination in March he continued to be a clear and strong front-runner.

† The state did not allocated all its delegates at its primary election, some will be elected later.

April

• Eight state delegations had primary elections allocating 314 delegates
• Louisina's delegation had caucuses starting the process of electing 28 unallocated delegates

Rick Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10 after losing the Wisconsin primary

Newt Gingrich scaled down his campaign on March 27 after losing the Louisiana primary and suspended it on May 2 after losing the Delaware primary

In the last days of March, Romney received many endorsements as party leaders and establishment Republicans started to unite behind him.^[44] Most notable were the endorsement of former president George H. W. Bush^[45] and the endorsement of Paul Ryan, U.S. representative from Wisconsin and Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget.^[46]

Ryan, and U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Ron Johnson, campaigned with Romney before the April 3 primaries.^[47] The Super PACs supporting Romney also helped him to win the state using more than 3 million USD, almost four times more than spend by the Super PAC supporting Santorum in Wisconsin.^[48] Santorum only won three districts in Wisconsin with Romney winning the other five and all eight districts in Maryland along with the federal District of Columbia where Santorum was not even on the ballot.^[49]

With momentum building for Romney, Santorum interrupted campaigning (as did Romney) for the Easter holiday to give his campaign staff a chance to be with their families. He used the opportunity to meet with "movement conservatives" to strategize.^[50] Former Family Research Council chief Gary Bauer, who was present at the sit-down with Santorum, called it a strategy meeting.^[51] Four days later, on April 10, 2012, Rick Santorum suspended his campaign without endorsing any other candidate.^[52] He was at this point running out of money, having more campaign debt than cash on hand. Santorum won eleven contests (six states that allocated delegates and five non-binding caucus states) and forty-two delegate allocating congressional districts. More than 3.2 million people voted for him and he secured a total of 202 delegates before suspending his campaign. He can show a plurality in six states and that secures him the opportunity of a place on the first ballot nominating the Republican candidate for president at the National Convention.

With Santorum suspending his campaign, Gingrich saw a new hope of reasserting himself as the conservative alternative to Romney. His campaign had been scaling down since his March 24 defeat in the Louisiana primary and was $4.3 million in debt by the end of March.^[53] But now it began concentrating on the Delaware primary hoping a win there would be a game changer.^[54] The Adelson family that had already supported Gingrich heavily through the "Winning Our Future" super PAC gave another $5 million in late march bringing the PAC's cash on hand up to $5.8 million.^[55] But even with all the resources of the Gingrich campaign concentrated in Delaware he still lost the state with 29.4% to Romney. On May 2 he officially suspended his campaign.^[56] Gingrich won two contest (South Carolina and Georgia) nineteen delegate allocating congressional districts. More than 2.4 million people voted for him and he secured a total of 131 delegates before suspending his campaign. He can only show plurality in two states and is therefore not going to appear on the first ballot nominating the Republican candidate for president at the National Convention.

Four states that didn't allocate delegates at their earlier caucses had conventions in April. At the Wyoming state convention (Apr. 12-14) just after Santorum had suspended his campaign the state delegates united behind Romney and all 14 at-large delegates pledged to him. The same did not happen the same weekend at Colorado's state and district conventions. Santorum and Paul supporters came together to form the "Conservative Unity Slate" in an attempt to stop all the National Convention delegates from Colorado to be supporting Romney. He won a narrow plurality in the state delegation despite this opposing slate.^[57] Missouri had its district conventions a week after (Apr. 21). Santorum had carried every county at the nonbinding primary in February and many of his supporters threw their support to Romney who got half of the delegates. Paul won one out of the eight district conventions.^[58] Minnesota's district conventions was spread out over most of April and they where all but one won by Paul that secured a plurality in the state delegation even before the state convention in May.

Romney won all eight primaries of the month and on April 25 the RNC declared him the presumptive nominee and put its resources behind him.^[59]

May

• Twelve delegations had primary elections allocating 679 delegates
• Two delegations had caucuses starting the process of electing 55 unallocated delegates

Ron Paul won a plurality of delegates at several local conventions even though he did not win the popular vote in those states

On May 2, 2012, Newt Gingrich “mothballed” his campaign saying that a second term of president Obama would be disastrous. Gingrich mentioned Republican front-runner Mitt Romney during his press speech, but did not endorse him. He intends to officially endorse Mr. Romney at a “to-be-scheduled event” featuring both Republican leaders. “Today I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship,” Gingrich said, with his wife Callista at his side.^[60][61]

On May 7, 2012, after Romney visited him, Santorum urged his supporters to back Romney's campaign and said, "You can be sure that I will work with the governor to help him in this task to ensure he has a strong team that will support him in his conservative policy initiatives."^[62] “We both agree that President Obama must be defeated,” Santorum, 53, said in a e-mailed statement last night, “[Romney] clearly understands that having pro-family initiatives are not only the morally and economically right thing to do, but that the family is the basic building block of our society.” ^[63]

Continuing on May 15, Romney won the primaries in Oregon and Nebraska with Paul second in Oregon and Santorum second in Nebraska.^[64] On May 22, Romney swept Kentucky and Arkansas primaries. He is expected to exceed the nominating threshold in Texas, May 29. In distant second, Ron Paul is working behind the scenes to secure delegates in local caucuses following state primary elections.^[65][66]

June

• Seven state delegations will hold primary elections or caucuses and allocate 586 delegates

On June 5, California Republicans will vote for candidates, then send 169 delegates to the August Republican national convention. Six other states will send 417 delegates for a total of 586 delegates, proportioned in June and finalized before the first vote in Tampa, Florida.

Schedule and process

The primary election takes place from January 3 to July 14 and will allocate and elect 2,286 voting delegates and 2,125 alternate delegates in 56 delegations to the 2012 Republican National Convention in the week of August 27.^[67]

The total base number of delegates allocated to each of the 50 U.S. states is 10 at-large delegates, plus 3 delegates per congressional district. In addition, fixed numbers of at-large delegates are allocated to Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands under the party's delegate selection rules.^[68] States are awarded bonus delegates based on the following factors:

• Bonus delegates to each state that cast a majority of their Electoral College votes for the Grand Old Party (GOP) candidate in the 2008 presidential election
• One bonus delegate for each GOP senator
• One bonus delegate to each state that has a GOP majority in their delegation to the House of Representatives
• One bonus delegate for each state that has a GOP governor
• Bonus delegates for majorities in one or all of the chambers in their state legislature.

The two Republican National Committee members from each state and territory and the chairperson of the state's Republican Party are delegates unless the state is penalized for violating the RNC's scheduling rules. The individual states decide whether these delegates are bound or unbound.

For a candidate to be on the first ballot at National Convention he need to show a plurality in five state delegations. For the purpose of these primaries the five territories and D.C is counted as states (Rule 27). This five state rule is Rule No. 40 of the rules of the Republican Party as adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention and amended by the Republican National Committee on August 6, 2010.^[3] It is the rule outlining the way the convention will nominated the republican candidate for president.

RULE NO. 40: Nominations
(a) In making the nominations for President of the United States and Vice President of the Unite States and voting thereon, the roll of the states shall be called separately in each case; provided, however, that if there is only one candidate for nomination for Vice President of the United States who has demonstrated the support required by paragraph (b) of this rule, a motion to nominate for such office by acclamation shall be in order and no calling of the roll with respect to such office shall be required.
(b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a plurality of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.
(c) The total time of the nominating speech and seconding speeches for any candidate for nomination for President of the United States or Vice President of the United States shall not exceed fifteen (15) minutes.
(d) When at the close of a roll call any candidate for nomination for President of the United States or Vice President of the United States has received a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention, the chairman of the convention shall declare that the candidate has been nominated.
(e) If no candidate shall have received such majority, the chairman of the convention shall direct the roll of the states be called again and shall repeat the calling of the roll until a candidate shall have received a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention.

The primary election table below shows how and when the National Convention delegates are allocated and elected. This means it do not include straw polls, primary or other kinds. And it do not include the dates for different local conventions where delegates are already allocated are elected.^[69][70]

• Dates: The first date column is the date of primary or caucuses where the election process for the delegation starts. This event can allocated delegate or let them stay unallocated. But two more dates are important in the process, the date when congressional district delegates are (s)elected and the date when state delegates are (s)elected. Some event stretches for more than one day, if so the date stated in the table is the end day of the event. This is done for technical reasons.
• State Delegation Each delegation are made up of up to three kinds of delegates. Party members, delegates from the congressional districts and delegates from the state at-large. They can either be bound, meaning that they are legally or morally bound to vote for a candidate for at least the first ballot at the National Convention, or they can be unbound, meaning that they are free to vote for any candidate at the National Convention. Some delegates are only morally bound, meaning that they are allocated to a candidate or elected on his ticket but are not legally bound to vote for him. Some delegates are unbound but are elected at their local conventions because they are strong supporters of a candidate. This means that the binding status of a delegate only become of importance if no candidate have reached an majority of delegates before the National Convention. If a candidate suspends his campaign the delegates allocated and/or elected to him may become unbound depending on state rules. Five delegations (#) have been penalized for breaking RNC election guidelines, meaning that their number of delegates have been cut in half and their party leaders have been banned from voting. Ten delegations (†) have chosen to bind their party leaders to the result of the allocating event instead of leaving them unbound.

• Allocation: Delegates can either be allocated or unallocated at the starting primary or caucuses. The contests that allocated delegates on state and district levels uses following allocating systems:
  • Winner-take-all. The candidate receiving the most votes are allocated all the delegates.
  • Proportional. Most states that allocated proportionally have thresholds ranging from 10% to 25% of the vote.
• Election All delegates allocated as unallocated are (s)elected. In the race to get a majority of the delegates the events electing unallocated delegates naturally receive most attention. The methods are:
  • Convention. Except from Wyoming county conventions all these conventions is at the state and district level.
  • Direct election. Instead of voting for a candidate at the primary or caucuses the voters elect the delegates directly. The delegates can state their presidential preference and in that way be elected on a candidates "ticket"
  • Slate. Before the primary or caucuses each candidate submits a slate with prospective delegates. The allocated delegates are then selected from these slates.
  • Committee. The state GOP executive committee or its chairman selects the delegates.
• Secured delegates: These columns do not list the 117 unbound RNC delegates that are not a part of the primary election process. Five candidates secured delegates, they are listed in a candidates' column when they are allocated to him or when they after or at their election have pledge to him. Huntsman's (the fifth candidate) two New Hampshire delegates are listed as uncommitted. These are numbers that the candidates have actually secured for themselves, not projected counts or counts after a candidate has suspended his campaign and released his candidates. The uncommitted column (last) lists both elected delegates that are still uncommitted and unallocated delegates.

This is a sortable table — links provide quick paths to more information on the different state primaries:

• By clicking on the link in the 'State' column you will go to the state or territory article.
• By clicking on the link in the 'Contest' column you will go to the state or territory primary or caucuses article.
• Click the triangles to sort any column. Click twice to bring the largest numbers to the top.

Primary schedule

• Source: USA Today and The Green Papers

Notes

^# These states are penalized for breaking RNC schedule guidelines. The penalty cuts the delegation number in half and removes voting privileges from the party leader delegates.

^† These states are binding their party leader (RNC) delegates to the primary result.

^a Delegates are morally, but not legally, bound to a candidate.

^bWyoming has only one congressional district, so the 12 CD delegates are elected in the 23 counties that are paired together.

^cOhio Republican central committee will decided how to allocate the four unallocated delegates in April.

^dTennessee Republican central committee selects the 14 AL delegates.

^eLouisiana allocated 15 bound delegates proportional in a March 24 primary election.

^fMontana's caucus is its convention. The delegates to this caucus are selected by the counties' central committees at least 10 days before the date of state convention.

^gNorth Dakota's delegation meets before the National Convention to voluntarily divide the whole delegation according to the its caucus result.

Results by popular vote

Counties carried

2012 Republican primary results by county (exceptions: North Dakota – legislative districts, Louisiana – parishes, Alaska, Washington, D.C. – at-large)   Mitt Romney   Ron Paul   Rick Santorum   Newt Gingrich   Rick Perry   No recorded votes

Margin of victory

2012 Republican primary results by county (exceptions: North Dakota – legislative districts, Louisiana – parishes, Alaska, Washington, D.C. – at-large)

See also

• Republican Party presidential candidates, 2012
• Republican Party vice presidential candidate, 2012
• Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2012
• Endorsements for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012
• Nationwide opinion polling for the Republican Party 2012 presidential primaries
• Statewide opinion polling for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012
• Straw polls for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012
• United States third party and independent presidential candidates, 2012
• Results of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries
• 2012 Republican National Convention

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012

• Latest official RNC delegate count.
• USA Today: Election results District by District. (Source AP)
• Primaries collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Republican Primary Tracker from The Washington Post
• Republican Primary Tracker from The Wall Street Journal
• Republican Primary 17-poll average from The Wall Street Journal
• CNN State-by-state scorecard: Complete state results and national totals for the 2012 Republican race
• 2012 Election Central Analysis and news of debates and voting
• May 29: Texas Green Papers.
• June 5: California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota Green Papers.
• The Green Papers: Complete descriptions of delegate allocation;
• The Green Papers: Major state elections in chronological order;
• The Green Papers Republican 2012 Delegate Count, Current Summary.
• America's Choice 2012: 2012 Primaries and caucuses results from CNN
• Republican National Convention, Tampa, Florida, August 27—30, 2012
• Rules for the 2012 Republican National Convention.