November 12, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Fact of the Day: Mitt Romney Received Less Votes Than John McCain
In the 2012 presidential election, the losing candidate, Mitt Romney received 58.8 million votes. In 2008, losing candidate John McCain received just shy of 60 million votes. With votes still being counted, these numbers are not set in stone, but it’s likely Romney will not overcome the over one million vote deficit to his 2008 counterpart.
To be fair, the turnout for the 2012 election was lower than 2008, with over 9 million fewer people turning out to vote. In fact, while 2012 Romney had a 1+ million deficit to 2008 McCain, 2012 Obama had a 7+ million deficit to his 2008 self. And that difference shows up in the margin of victory which, while still decisive, is much narrower in 2012 — just 2.7% compared to 7.27% in 2008.
So it could be said that the mantra of — lower turnout favors Republicans — was still true in this election, only the margin was too large to overcome, particularly with an increasingly diverse electorate that heavily favors Democratic candidates.
And finally, even with the much smaller margin of victory and with turnout shedding 9 million voters, Obama still won more votes in 2012 (62 million) than John McCain in 2008 (60 million). That stat alone should hit Republicans like a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant. / photo by Gage Skidmore
