Throughout the general election campaign Ohio was considered a key battleground state and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigned extensively in the state. Some experts believe that the popularity of the auto industry bailout put in place under President Obama helped him take the state. In February 2013, nineteen cases of voter fraud were being investigated in Hamilton County; in March 2013, three individuals were charged with voter fraud, with one individual alleged to have voted six times. However, minus these questionable votes, assuming they went to Obama, the outcome of the Ohio race is not affected as President Obama still wins Ohio by over 166,000 votes.
Results
President Obama won Ohio over Governor Mitt Romney. Ohio was too close to call for a decent portion of the night. At 11:12 P.M. EST, MSNBC called Ohio for Obama. All major news networks soon followed suit. Giving Ohio to Obama gave him enough electoral votes to win. At first the Romney campaign contested the call, but conceded at about 1:00 A.M. Obama's victory in Ohio can be attributed to several factors. Obama only won 17 out of Ohio's 88 counties. However those 17 counties combined account for more than half of the state’s total population. Romney did do well in most rural areas of the state, particularly in western Ohio. Romney also won all but one county in the Appalachia region, becoming the first Republican since Richard Nixon’s 2,900-plus-county landslide in 1972 to carry Belmont, Jefferson and Monroe Counties, and losing only Athens County, home of Ohio University. Romney also did well in the northern Columbus suburbs. For Romney, most of his wins came from smaller populated counties. Obama won in Hamilton County home of increasingly Democratic Cincinnati. Obama also did well in Lucas County, and Franklin County, home of Toledo and Columbus respectively. Obama gained significant support in southern Ohio where many of the counties where a majority voted against him four years prior, became more competitive as Romney only won by pluralities in five of them. Most notably, Pike County became the closest county in the entire nation where Romney came out on top by one vote. Obama also did well in the Akron-Youngstown area, and the auto belt. However, the main source of Obama's victory was in Cuyahoga County home of Cleveland. Obama won statewide by almost 3%.
The Democratic primary was held on March 6, 2012, the same day as the Republican primary. Incumbent President Barack Obama ran unopposed, and thus won all 151 of the state's delegates.
Republican primary
The 2012 Ohio Republican primary took place on March 6, 2012. Ohio has 66 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Three party officials are not bound by the primary result. Forty-eight delegates are generally awarded winner-take-all by Congressional district. Another 15 delegates are awarded to the candidate who gets an outright majority statewide, or are allocated proportionately among candidates winning at least 20% of the vote if no candidate wins a majority. Despite an early lead in the vote count and having won most counties, Santorum's lead was reduced and overcome by Romney as Hamilton and Cuyahoga County results came in. Romney also won areas such as Akron, Youngstown, Dayton and Columbus. These and other highly populated counties would eventually go to Obama in November. Notes: 1. In the six congressional districts where Rick Santorum submitted only a partial slate of district delegates and district alternates by the late December 2011 deadline, he will be automatically awarded only the number of delegates he submitted, assuming he wins the particular district. The Ohio Republican Party said on March 2, 2012, that the remaining delegates in such districts will be "considered unbound" until a panel composed of three members of the Ohio GOP's central committee decides which campaign is permitted to appoint such delegates. 2. In three congressional districts, Rick Santorum did not make the district-specific portion of the ballot. 3. In every district, each of the 6 candidates listed above appears on the "at-large" portion of the ballot. The results of the at-large ballot will determine the allocation of fifteen national convention delegates.
