2012 United States presidential election in Vermont

The 2012 United States presidential election in Vermont 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. Vermont voters chose three 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.

2012 United States presidential election in Vermont

November 6, 2012

Nominee Barack Obama Mitt Romney Party Democratic Republican Home state Illinois Massachusetts Running mate Joe Biden Paul Ryan Electoral vote 3 0 Popular vote 199,239 92,698 Percentage 66.57% 30.97%

County Results Obama   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%

President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

Elections in Vermont
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Municipal offices Mayoral elections City of Burlington 1865 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 2018 City of Rutland 2017 2019

A very liberal Northeastern state, and a former bastion of progressive Republicanism until the realignment election of 1992, Vermont was the second most Democratic state in the nation, weighing in as a whopping 31.74% more Democratic than the national average in the 2012 election. Repeating his success from 2008, Obama again carried Vermont in a landslide, taking 66.57% of the vote to Romney's 30.97%, a Democratic victory margin of 35.60%. Though this was slightly worse than his 2008 performance, when he received 67.46% of the vote to Republican Senator John McCain's 30.45%, a margin of 37.01%, this was still the second best performance for a Democrat in Vermont history, surpassing Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 performance.[1]

Vermont historically was a bastion of northeastern Republicanism, voting Republican in every single election but one between 1856 to 1988, interrupted only in 1964. It also elected solely Republican governors from 1854 to 1962. However, after migration from liberal northeastern cities such as Boston and New York to Vermont in the 1960s and 70s, it shifted sharply towards the Democratic Party with Bill Clinton's landslide victory in 1992, and has been part of the "Blue Wall" – the 19 jurisdictions, worth 242 electoral votes, that voted Democratic six times in a row from 1992 through 2012 – ever since.[2] Vermont also has one of the greenest economies in the country, with its own Clean Air Act and a state trust that buys farmland to support local farming. This, and a virtual nonexistence of party loyalty in the state, guaranteed Obama's landslide victory .[3] The Green Mountain State's original constitution abolished slavery and provided universal male suffrage,[4] and the state government legalized same-sex civil unions in July 2000, same-sex marriage in 2009,[5] and decriminalized marijuana in 2013.[6]

Obama's best performance was in Windham County, where he received 73.06% of the vote, though he also racked up great margins in Chittenden, Rutland, and Washington Counties, the state's three largest counties and home to Burlington, Rutland, and the state capital of Montpelier, respectively. The only county where he won by a margin of less than 20% is in Essex County in the Northeast Kingdom, generally the most conservative region in the state, where he won by 13.40%.

The results of the 2012 election made Vermont the second most Democratic state in the nation, only surpassed by the 42.71% margin in Obama's birth state of Hawaii.

As of 2020, this is the last election in which the Democrat won Essex County, and by extension, every county in the state.