page_title: Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign
section_title: Presumptive presidential nominee
hierarchical_section_title: Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign / Campaign for the party nomination / Presumptive presidential nominee
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the vote share for Mitt Romney in the Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2012 by county. &#160;&#160; 70%+ &#160;&#160; 60-69.9% &#160;&#160; 50-59.9% &#160;&#160; 40-49.9% &#160;&#160; 30-39.9% &#160;&#160; 20-29.9% &#160;&#160; 10-19.9% &#160;&#160; under 10% &#160;&#160; no votes
context_page_description: The Mitt Romney presidential campaign of 2012 officially began on June 2, 2011, when former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney formally announced his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, at an event in Stratham, New Hampshire. Having previously run in the 2008 Republican primaries, this was Romney's second campaign for the presidency.
  He filed his organization with the Federal Elections Commission as an exploratory committee and announced the organization in a video message on April 11, 2011. He became the party's presumptive nominee with his victory in the Texas primary on May 29, 2012.
  On August 11, 2012, in Norfolk, Virginia, Romney announced that Paul Ryan, the long-time U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, would be his running mate for vice president.
  On August 30, 2012, in Tampa, Florida, Romney formally accepted the Republican Party's nomination at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
  Romney's campaign came to an end on November 6, 2012, upon defeat by incumbent President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.
context_section_description: After Super Tuesday, Santorum won in Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, while Ron Paul won the Virgin Islands Caucus. However, Romney maintained a solid lead with wins in Guam, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands. As a result, Santorum dropped out on April 10. After Romney won the April 24 Delaware primary, Gingrich dropped out on May 2 in a move that was seen as an end to the nomination contest and resulted in the Republican Party declaring Romney the presumptive nominee. While Ron Paul never officially dropped out, he stopped campaigning on May 14.
  By April 2012, in the absence of viable alternatives to Romney for the Republican nomination, polls showed Romney gaining on Obama's earlier double-digit lead in a hypothetical head-to-head general election contest. However, polls (both nationally and in battleground states like Florida and Ohio) also showed that for most of those who said they would vote for Romney, the primary motivator was hostility toward Obama rather than affirmative support for Romney. On April 25, 2012, the Republican National Committee (RNC) declared Romney the party's presumptive nominee. On May 29, Texas held their 2012 Republican primaries, which Romney won. The subsequent accumulation of the state's 155 delegates was enough to secure Romney the party's nomination assuming at least 34 unpledged delegates voted for him, which was very likely. After wins in California and several smaller states on June 5, Romney exceeded 1144 pledged delegates, giving him absolute certainty of the nomination and making the June 26th Utah Primary, the last contest of the cycle, purely symbolic. In July Romney described an Obama recess appointment as "Chicago-style politics at its worst," introducing the meme into the rhetoric of the 2012 campaign
  On August 28, 2012, delegates at the Republican National Convention chose Mitt Romney as their presidential nominee against President Barack Obama.  This formal nomination sets up a two-month final race to the elections on November 6.
caption: Vote share for Romney, by county. Darker colors mean higher voter percentage. Black indicates no votes were cast for Romney.
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