Talk:2012 United States presidential election/Archive 14

Media coverage
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Media bias in the United States. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Changes to the votes by state table
In the "Results" section, I added the votes for Goode, Barr, Anderson, and Hoefling to "others" because none of these candidates had ballot access to 270 electoral votes (Note: Write-in access is not the same as ballot access) and none of them received even one tenth of one percent of the popular vote. I also made the table more like the 2008 table by adding columns for the state-by-state percentages for the candidates as well as columns for the margins of victory between Obama and Romney. Fourfourfive (talk) 07:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Good work, thank you. We should also indicate the results by congressional district for Maine and Nebraska, as was done in '08. Even though they weren't divided this year as Nebraska was in 2008, the electoral votes were still allocated by district. (I would add them, but I have been unable to locate them yet. I will keep looking.)  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 08:00, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * (One question: Were the EVs allocated based on the existing districts, or the new districts apportioned following the 2010 census? I will ask on the Reference Desk too.)  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 08:30, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Electoral College votes were reapportioned following the 2010 census. For example, Ohio went from having 20 electors to 18. Districts were redrawn even in states that didn't lose or gain votes, such as Nebraska, which redrew the 2nd district to make it harder for a Democrat to win there. So unless the Maine legislature has passed a law saying otherwise, I think it's safe to assume they selected electors from the slate that won in each of the new districts. 173.29.133.167 (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * OK good. Now we need to find out the results for presidential electors in each of those districts. It would be easy if the districts followed county lines, but they don't, so finding them is not so simple.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 17:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Michael, I agree. I am also very curious to get the results for Maine and Nebraska's districts and have them added to the table. It seems to me that in 2008 some people had been crowdsourcing to build a spreadsheet of results for ALL districts. It's surprising that I can't seem to find results, even for the special states of ME and NE.Patphilly (talk) 15:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Work in progress: Maine has tables for final votes by county and votes by municipality here. The presidential table does not separate the vote by Congressional District. However, by looking at each of the vote tables for Representatives, we can determine which counties/municipalities are in each District. There are five counties entirely in the 1st District, 10 counties entirely in the 2nd District, and one county (Kennebec) divided.
 * 1st District: Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, York counties plus part of Kennebec (municipalities: Augusta, Chelsea, China, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Manchester, Pittston, Readfield, Vassalboro, Waterville, Windsor, Winslow, Winthrop).
 * 2nd District: Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo and Washington counties plus part of Kennebec (municipalities: Albion, Belgrade, Benton, Clinton, Fayette, Gardiner, Litchfield, Monmouth, Mount Vernon, Oakland, Randolph, Rome, Sidney, Vienna, Wayne, West Gardiner).
 * Maybe that will help in the calculation. Now on to Nebraska!  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 05:39, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Nebraska has 93 counties, only one of which (Sarpy County) is divided among Congressional Districts. There are 17 counties wholly in the 1st District, one entirely in the 2nd District, and 74 counties in the 3rd District.
 * 1st District: Burt, Butler, Cass, Colfax, Cuming, Dixon, Dodge, Lancaster, Madison, Otoe, Platte, Polk, Saunders, Seward, Stanton, Thurston, Washington counties plus part of Sarpy County.
 * 2nd District: Douglas County plus part of Sarpy County.
 * 3rd District: Adams, Antelope, Arthur, Banner, Blaine, Boone, Box Butte, Boyd, Brown, Buffalo, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Cheyenne, Clay, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Deuel, Dundy, Fillmore, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Gosper, Grant, Greeley, Hall, Hamilton, Harlan, Hayes, Hitchcock, Holt, Hooker, Howard, Jefferson, Johnson, Kearney, Keith, Keya Paha, Kimball, Knox, Lincoln, Logan, Loup, McPherson, Merrick, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Nuckolls, Pawnee, Perkins, Phelps, Pierce, Red Willow, Richardson, Rock, Saline, Scotts Bluff, Sheridan, Sherman, Sioux, Thayer, Thomas, Valley, Wayne, Webster, Wheeler, York counties.
 * (I am still attempting to figure out how Sarpy County is divided.)  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 15:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Well it may not matter if we don't know the specific boundaries of the districts in Sarpy County. These tables show the presidential votes in the county divided by congressional district.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 16:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The Green Papers published presidential election results for Nebraska's congressional districts here. The only problem is that they don't show how the scattering (write-in) votes broke down by district. Fourfourfive (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Problem: the "votes by state" table tally is achieved from adding each state's official result with an unofficial tabulation of write-in votes. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. But the table is introduced with the line "The following table records official results for each state for the presidential candidates who had ballot access to at least 270 electoral votes." This is an incorrect statement since it makes no mention of the added unofficial write-in results. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.29.18 (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The count of other write-in votes is unofficial in the sense that Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas is not an official source, but the write-in votes are recorded from official county-level reports so the write-in votes themselves are not unofficial. I reworded the paragraph to try to make this clearer. Fourfourfive (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It makes a lot more sense now. The rewording does make it clearer. Only change I would suggest is to take the line "The column labeled 'Margin' shows Obama's margin of victory over Romney (the margin is negative for states won by Romney)" and move it from the 2nd sentence of that paragraph to the final sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.29.18 (talk) 05:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Analysis
"Obama is also the first president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to win a second term with a lower percentage of both the popular vote and the electoral vote."

Actually Wilson's popular vote percentage increased from 41.8 to 49.2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.237.81 (talk) 10:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually that is true about Wilson. Obama is the first presidential incumbent in history to win a second term by less votes than the first time around. Not to mention Romney receiving more votes than McCain did. There is nothing wrong with mentioning this fact and the Obama supporters need to grow a spine.Bjoh249 (talk) 13:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Except for the fact that your claims are totally untrue and unsourced. You cannot add material that is neither true nor sourced. Especially concerning living people. BTW:FDR also won a re-election with less in both the popular and electoral votes. Stop adding this unsourced, untrue, trivia. Dave Dial (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

All you have to do is look at the numbers of both the 2008 and 2012 races. I am talking about a SECOND term here. FDR won his second term by larger margin than he did in 1932. FDR also ran and won 4 terms, something no other president has ever acheived. The presidency is now limited to two terms. I have sourced my data as well.Bjoh249 (talk) 03:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Just going back and looking at the numbers that are available here on Wikipedia for historical U.S. elections, the statement (at top) appears to be untrue. 'Woodrow Wilson in 1916' would need to be replaced with 'James Madison in 1812.' It appears to me that James Madison won a second term in 1812 with a lower % of both the popular and electoral vote as compared to his first election in 1808. He and Barack Obama are the only 2 Presidents that this appears to be the case for. Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland both won second terms with a lower % of the popular vote while increasing their % in the electoral vote. (note: Cleveland's second term was non-consecutive.) The second statement (1st president in history to win a 2nd term with less votes) may be technically accurate but I don't understand why that is relevant or significant. Madison and Jackson had lower % totals of the popular vote. Their "raw vote" totals went up, but this is largely due to the expansion of the voting franchise. The fact is that very few Presidents who were elected to a 1st term have been re-elected to a 2nd one. (Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Ike, FDR, Wilson, McKinley, Grant, Lincoln, Jackson, Monroe, Madison, and Jefferson.) That's only 15 dudes total. OK, so 1 out of 15 had a lower vote total the 2nd time around. So? What does that mean? Why is that significant? To me, it just seems to highlight what an extraordinary vote total he accumulated in 2008. He set the bar pretty high. His 2008 vote total is (by far) the largest ever. His 2012 vote total is the second largest vote total ever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.29.18 (talk) 12:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Readability
The analysis section needs to be rewritten. Besides the poor referencing, it is basically unreadable with all the arbitrary edits. If all this analysis section amounts to is this is greater than that, and that is less than this, then why not make a table instead with all the this and that trivia with numbers and references for actual comparison?--I am One of Many (talk) 05:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it needs to be rewritten. There is nothing wrong with election factoids. But there is absolutely no analysis of the election in the analysis section. None. The section should be re-titled "Interesting Facts About the Election" and then start over with a blank analysis section. It seems like a good place to quote pundits. Dems and GOPers can quote their favorite talking heads' take on the election and there should also be some quotes from non-partisan election analysts like Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato. Or partisan analysts who attempt a non-partisan analysis like Stu Rothenberg and Nate Silver. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.29.18 (talk) 12:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

"State changes to voter registration and electoral rules" section
This section as it is right now is very short and poorly written. I think it should either be expanded and improved significantly or else completely eliminated. I am personally in favor of elimination, because the subject of voter ID laws, which the section is primarily about, is extensive and there are other articles on wikipedia already devoted to it, and at the same time it is not very relevant to this article, which deals mostly with the OUTCOME of the election, NOT the detailed rules behind it.

75.32.36.212 (talk) 06:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

"Voter demographics" section
Why is almost every word in this section capitalized (as in "Everyone Else")? It seems like all the entries in the table are treated as if they are titles (which they are not). Also, I think it would be better to have all the headings (such as "Age," "Gender," etc.) aligned left, not center (I think that would be more visually appealing). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.32.36.212 (talk) 07:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

President Obama Infobox photo.
Hello. I just edited the Infobox photo of President Obama, to his new Presidential Portrait, but changed it back to what it original one.

I thought I'd see what other editors thought before I just went in and changed the format.

I noticed that in the 2004 Presidential election article, it has President Bush's second term official portrait, and his first term presidential portrait in the 2004 Presidential election. But in the 1996 and 1992 Presidential Election articles, it has President Clinton's first term portraits in both of them.

Those were just some of my thoughts, and here's the picture that I was going to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bulba2036  (talk • contribs)  17:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)



The reason is because photos of Clinton as governor are most likely not readily available. Obama ran for a second term during his first term, and hence his first term photo should be used. If/when an appropriate picture arrises that can be used for 1992, then it should be inserted as quickly as possible. Thank you for your help though. Myownworst (talk) 22:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

3rd Party Debate Location (10/23/12)
The 3rd Party Debates on 10/23/12 was at the Hilton Hotel, not at the University Club of Chicago. Below is a link, and I was at the event. The UCC was the original event location, but it was later changed and held at the Hilton Chicago located at 720 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL. I have not made this change to the main article, but this change should be made.

http://freeandequal.org/updates/larry-king-to-moderate-third-party-presidential-debate/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Woodhams (talk • contribs) 21:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So noted and corrected.--Thatotherdude (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Turnout
The infobox lists a 58.9% turnout (voting eligible), while the source referenced gives either 58.2% or 58.7%, apparently depending on what kind of votes are counted. Is this just wrong, or is there a reason for the numbers to be different? 62.44.228.229 (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The source retrieval date was January and the source had been updated since March. I've updated with the most recent number, which is 58.2%. The two numbers are total ballots cast (58.7%) and total ballots cast for higher office (58.2%). The latter is the applicable number here since it applies specifically to the presidential election. -- NINTENDUDE 64 20:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Postscript on Polling
An interesting follow up: "Obama's Data Team Totally Schooled Gallup" if you believe your eyes. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 20:09, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Congressional District Map
The map displaying the election results by Congressional District has a few inaccuracies and should be fixed. President Obama won New York's 2nd, New York's 19th, and Washington's 8th District. All three are colored red, indicating that they were won by Romney. Rmenhen (talk) 23:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Introducion
Obama ridiculed Romney's achievements. That is objective. Obama stating that "Romney's experience did not qualify him for the White House" is subjective and opinionated. I have repeatedly removed (and will continue to do so) this type of original research but users continue to alter the introduction with subjective opinions. Myownworst (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the exact opposite is true. "Obama ridiculed them" is attributing a meaning to Obama's statements that there is no research to support. The statement I replaced it with merely repeated what Obama had said, without imputing meaning or correctness. So what I put in was objective: my opinion has no place in it. I repeat, I am paraphrasing Obama. How can that be an opinionated statement? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhimanyulele (talk • contribs) 14:13, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * You seem to be missing the point - I have repeatedly stated that your original research does not belong in the introduction (or anywhere on Wikipedia) and your research with a nascent citation clearly shows this is original research.Myownworst (talk) 21:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Possible error
If i am reading it correctly, the color-coded map for the 2008 electon shows that McCain/Palin carried Alaska that year; however, it is my recollection that Alaska was won by Obama/Biden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.176.134.206 (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

No, and actually no Democrat has carried Alaska since 1964. --Ariostos (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Religion
What does "Protestant or other Christian" vs "Catholic" mean? This reads as if Catholicism were not Christian. Catholicism is the largest Christian church by far, even if it only has 25% of the US population. &#9798; CUSH &#9798; 23:08, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * "Protestant" and "Other Christian" are two of the choices Fox News exit poll cited below the table. For some reason they're lumped together here.  Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:21, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah. &#9798; CUSH &#9798; 07:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Those results and wording are taken directly from the "Religion, combined Protestant and other Christian" section of the poll. A lot of non-Catholic Christians whom society would classify as Protestants, do not necessarily identify themselves as Protestants, but simply as Christians, which is probably why the pollster included that sort of grouping. It gives a clearer breakdown of the the Catholic vs. Protestant divide, since the overwhelming majority of those self-identified "other Christians" are Protestants. It does not in any way imply that Catholics are not Christians. Inqvisitor (talk)


 * Well, let's stick to what the source presents. Your interpretation that "other Christians" are Protestants as well leaves out Orthodox Christians outside of Catholicism completely. &#9798; CUSH &#9798; 14:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)


 * You need to re-check the source. The "Protestant or Other Christian" grouping comes directly from the source, not from me. In fact, that's the grouping that is usually used in polling religious people. Look at this Pew Research survey http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/#rr, which states clearly the policy that '"Protestant" refers to people who described themselves as "Protestant", "Mormon", or "other Christian" in exit polls. Orthodox Christians make up about 1% of the population, they are not the source of the "Other Christian" label. Many Protestant Christians are reluctant to identify themselves as Protestant, particularly among African-American Christians who are Protestant, but don't identify with mainstream American Protestant culture and thus don't label themselves that way. Since Protestant is a generic label for any Christian who does not identify with the Catholic Church, it makes sense to group them together, to get a more complete picture of how non-Catholic Christians, both black and white, voted. Inqvisitor (talk) 16:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Candidates?
(I'm a foreigner) I think too much is made of all the candidates each major party had - all but two of them dropped out months before the election. In fact all those others were only candidates to be the candidate. For the election itself, which is what this page is about, the Democrats had one candidate, the Republicans had one candidate, the Greens had one candidate, the Libertarians had one candidate - and they all had a share of the vote. The candidates who didn't actually stand aren't candidates! I know nothing's going to change, and I'm certainly not going to boldly change it. Just wanted to put my viewpoint. Silas Maxfield (talk) 20:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, Silas! The nominating process (via popular vote and proportional delegate allocation) for the major parties are very much part of the process of a United States presidential election, and the fact that a candidate did not win a nomination in the primaries does not negate the fact that they were candidates for President of the United States and actively campaigned for that office. This was not so pronounced earlier in United States history when party nominees were actually determined at the nominating conventions (which have been formalities in contemporary elections following the introduction and adaptation of the primary/caucus system in all 50 states and several territories, although the possibility for a brokered convention technically still exists). So, in a nutshell, these people didn't make it to the general election but were still active candidates for the presidency and participated in the process as part of the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Hope that makes sense and alleviates your concern. Tyrol5   [Talk]  16:04, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Decisive victory
Hoping our IP friend comes here and explained why we should change the article. Dbrodbeck (talk) 04:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think our 'friend' is coming back, but I'll be your friend if you'd like, since he/she obviously has a case to make: To suggest that Romney's defeat was "decisive" is questionable, to say the least. The 2012 election was the 14th closest out of 57 presidential elections by popular vote margin, at only 3.9% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin). That makes it closer than 3/4 of all presidential elections.

Honestly, the vote margin is readily available throughout this article, making it easy for readers to come to their own conclusion. I don't really see why we need to take a controversial stance on this right in the introduction. --Plokmijnuhbygvtfcdxeszwaq (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps "clear" or "definitive" would be better wording?--NextUSprez (talk) 20:46, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Is there any need for Wikipedia to choose an adjective at all? It can simply be omitted. Let readers decide for themselves what kind of victory it was. HiLo48 (talk) 21:01, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * This being a United States presidential election, the actual vote percentage is rather irrelevant. It is the electoral college votes that count, and by that metric, this was a decisive victory; Obama had 332 votes to 206, which is a larger margin that I believe about 20 of the 50 some elections that have taken place. There are several closer ones, and several landslides; this is in between, and so "decisive" is appropriate. In theory we could omit an adjective, community consensus seems to suggest otherwise....Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decisive does mean "clear" or "definitive". It fits the analysis of the election results, particular the electoral margin. It's not as if the election was close or anything, with one or two States swinging the balance one way or the other. Obama could won even if he had lost Ohio, Virginia and Florida. Then we wouldn't have "decisive" in the description. In reality, 4% and 126 electoral votes is decisive, and it fits. Dave Dial (talk) 21:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It deeply saddens me that users' political beliefs are more important than maintaining a neutral point of view. This is not a matter of left vs right, republican vs democrat.  This is a matter of objective statistics.  If anybody can find me a single article elsewhere on wikipedia where a 3.9% margin of victory is described as decisive, please provide a link to it.

Even the left-leaning website, Slate, has come out saying this election was "very close." http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2012/11/how_close_was_this_election_very_close.html "Measured by the standards of the 20th century, though, it reflects a genuinely tight race." "Outside of the 1960s, the tightest races of the 20th century produced popular-vote margins roughly comparable to Obama-Romney" Wikipedia is for factual information. Please keep your opinions to yourselves. Keep in mind, nobody is arguing that the text be changed to "Obama eeked out a tight victory by the skin of his teeth," but only that he didn't win "decisively" Plokmijnuhbygvtfcdxeszwaq (talk) 01:00, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I repeat, for the umpteenth time, that the margin of victory in terms of percentage of the popular vote does not matter. The margin in the electoral college votes, does. There, the margin was 126 votes, or 23.4%. That is a decisive margin. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:53, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree, but I ask for the second time, why don't we just drop the adjective, leave the numbers there, and let the readers decide for themselves? There's really no need for us to interpret such simple figures for readers. Nor is it even appropriate. HiLo48 (talk) 02:05, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with HiLo48. Just forget the adjective altogether. It isn't necessary, and is proving to be more trouble than it's worth.--Rollins83 (talk) 02:13, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The reason we describe the election as a "decisive" Obama victory is because the sources describe it that way. Some on election night stated it was a close popular vote(when they thought it was within 2% 50-48), but when the final results started to become clear, it was talked about as a decisive victory for Obama in reliable sources. The conservative outlets - US News, Forbes and NewsMax,the liberal outlets The Nation and Huffington Post as well as the mainstream Washington Post and local Fox station. I know there are some conservative Tea Party types who want to potray it as a close election, but it wasn't. And the polls weren't Skewered skewed. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 02:54, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Though I think DD2K means skewed, not skewered. Wikipedia tradition seems to be including such adjectives. That said, if consensus is to remove, I will not raise too many objections. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:07, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yea, I mean Skewed. Derp! heh-heh Dave Dial (talk) 03:25, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Republican contender photos
On my screen, eleven of the twelve photos are on a single line, while Pawlenty's by himself below. This looks odd, and while I suspect it's partly because of my screen, it means that we're likely to have more images on the top than the bottom. What if we put two lines, with six pictures on each? Nyttend (talk) 20:31, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Error in claim about popular vote?
From the last paragraph of the lede: "He became the eleventh President and third Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote more than once."

I count at least three Democrats before Obama who won a majority of the popular vote more than once: Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Is there some reason I'm not seeing why one or more of those Democrats does not count? SS451 (talk) 21:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Changed to "fourth." SS451 (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * And changed back. A majority means more than 50%, which Cleveland did not obtain in either the 1884 or 1892 elections. Dave Dial (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Good catch. I misread the second sentence of Cleveland's article. SS451 (talk) 15:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Romneyshambles
I have removed the term "Romneyshambles" from the section on Notable expressions, phrases, and statements because according to the reference it was a UK expression, so it was not part of the campaign. Victor Victoria (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I had a change of heart. Coverage of the election, is part of the election. It just needed to be clarified that it was an expression in the British press. Victor Victoria (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Margin of victory in each state
What happened to the "margin of victory" column in the state-by-state results table? That was really useful information and I would like to see it added back in. Orser67 (talk) 01:43, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Could I be mistaken?
Could be I am mistaken, but as far as I know Barack Obama's home state isn't 'Kenya', nor is part of the 'communist party'.. I could be wrong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.224.237.198 (talk) 21:23, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The vandalism you are referring to has been reverted.--JayJasper (talk) 21:28, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Abstention rate?
Where is the abstention rate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.236.100.211 (talk) 15:35, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Statistics
Is there any possibility of adding lists of the top five Republican, Democratic, and Other counties in the country, as is the case with the article about the 1932 election and some others? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.95.162.33 (talk) 12:41, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 8 one external links on United States presidential election, 2012. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121027001808/http://rt.com/usa/news/rt-third-party-debate-stein-249/ to http://rt.com/usa/news/rt-third-party-debate-stein-249/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20111201074626/http://blog.hcfama.org/2011/04/04/romnesia/ to http://blog.hcfama.org/2011/04/04/romnesia/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130729183835/http://www.cnbc.com/id/49722770/TwoTerm_Presidency_Musings to http://www.cnbc.com/id/49722770/TwoTerm_Presidency_Musings

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks
Damn, I screwed up, I thought i was reverting vandalism whereas I was actually reinserting it. thanks to the IP who caught it. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:41, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2016
Please change: Popular vote   65,915,795      60,933,504 Percentage 	  51.1%           47.2%

to

Popular vote   65,446,032      60,589,084 Percentage     50.9%           47.1%

The first numbers are wrong. See official numbers. Bold text

2601:19C:4600:7CDE:DCFB:A770:3DC9:349 (talk) 21:48, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I disagree with this requested edit, because the wikipedia article is using the data from the Federal Election Commission's July 2013 report, which "is based on official figures provided by State election officials, and includes results amended through July 2013". The archives.gov data is "official" in that they are the figures that were certified by the states in December 2012, but I believe the FEC's amended July 2013 numbers are best because they are the latest amended figures. -- fjarlq (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2016 (UTC)


 * This does bring up another important point. Why do Ohio's numbers look different than the source? Obama, Romney, and Stein's numbers are all off. Johnson's are the only ones that are correct. When I do the calculation for Others is also incorrect. The total should be 5,580,847. If someone else can corroborate this, I'll go ahead and make the tedious changes everywhere. Curoi (talk) 15:03, 17 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Padlock-silver-open.svg Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Last time voted for the Democratic candidate
The following text is unnecessary:

"As of 2017, this is the last time Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania voted for the Democratic candidate."

There has only been one presidential election since 2012; to say that this is the last time these states voted either way is premature. If they develop a pattern of voting one way, then it would be relevant but it's too early now and it hardly warrants a mention in the opening paragraphs. This just looks like somebody trying to gravedance over Clinton's defeat while inflating the victory of the winner. Acalamari 13:36, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed - obvious POV issues aside, that's simply a meaningless statistic given that there's only a single data point. Normally I wouldn't even bother commenting on something like this, but I've noticed via my watchlist that the offending text has been re-added multiple times over the past few days. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 14:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that shouldn't be there. Trivial points like that can be made for millions of tidbits that would bog down this article. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:28, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah sure, everything is a political issue and I'm so obviously trying to further humiliate your preferred political candidate. Get over yourself. 70.44.154.16 (talk) 04:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * No one here has said which candidate they supported and it is possible to support one without wanting to smear the other. Also, I would advise against sneaking the text back in a month later; as said above, this is a trivial point of information so far - far too trivial for such prominence in the lead - and the establishment of a voting pattern cannot be ascertained in one election. Acalamari 14:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Recreate Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2012?
Should we recreate Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2012? The article was deleted per Articles for deletion/Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2012 (2nd nomination) and create-protected until five days after the 2012 election; the article was so contentious and became so biased that it was decided that it wasn't worth having until emotions died down. Ironically, since then no one has even tried to recreate it (I don't know what to think about that). The existing article Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2008 still stands, and seems to be doing alright. Is it time to create Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2012? &thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 23:32, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Total Votes Cast is greater than the sum of the Candidate's votes
I haven't checked to see where the math error is, but the sum of shown votes for Obama, Romney, Johnson, Stein, and Others is 129,085,407. However, the table reflects 129,085,410 as the total.

I read through the "Talk" section and didn't see this discussed so I thought I would point it out. There may be a reason or there may be an error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:6E1:79E0:F00D:725A:24C4:19B3 (talk) 13:29, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Hispanic Vote Section
How remarkable was the Hispanic Vote in this election? I ask this as whilst I have no objection to the facts being placed within the article, I question why it is the only demographic group to have its own section. Out of the states seen as the swing states this election, the African-American vote was considered equally or more crucial to the result in many of them - Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina. I recognise the African-American vote was even stronger for Obama, but the wording of the Hispanic vote section provides no contrast to this other than the numerical figures. Beesleysam (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Mitt Romney portrait
I’m not sure if this has been discuses before but wouldn’t it be better if we changed the Romney portrait from this:

File:Mitt Romney by Gage Skidmore 8.jpg

to

File:Mitt Romney by Gage Skidmore 6 cropped.jpg This

We can see his face more and better in the second picture. So what does everyone think? Politicsnerd123 (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Either will do. GoodDay (talk) 22:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes I think the new portrait is better. It still kind of bothers me how the guidelines for candidate portraits in these articles is kind of arbitrary though. For example the current photo is from 2013 and the new one from 2011 (neither during the year of the actual election). Regardless I guess the new photo would at least be during his campaign. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 04:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)