South Dakota · 2012 presidential election

South Dakota presidential election results 2012

Mitt Romney carried South Dakota by 18.02 points (65,571 votes), winning 3 electoral votes.

Electoral votes: 3
Votes counted: 363,815
SD result: R+18.0
Compared with the nation: 21.9 pts more Republican
Swing since 2008: 9.6 pts to R

Statewide result

Candidate	Party	Votes	Share	Electoral votes
Mitt Romney	Republican	210,610	57.90%	3
Barack Obama	Democratic	145,039	39.90%	—
Total votes		363,815

Sources: sd.pdf · 2012

County resultsMIT Election Lab

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MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000-2016 (compiled from official state election records)
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Each county coloured by its winner and shaded by margin. Tap one for its history.

County	Barack Obama	Mitt Romney	Others	Total	Margin
Aurora	556	804	40	1,400	17.7
Beadle	2,881	4,230	152	7,263	18.6
Bennett	548	626	29	1,203	6.5
Bon Homme	1,167	1,830	77	3,074	21.6
Brookings	5,827	6,220	353	12,400	3.2
Brown	7,250	8,321	497	16,068	6.7
Brule	824	1,499	56	2,379	28.4
Buffalo	472	166	3	641	47.7
Butte	1,002	3,073	133	4,208	49.2
Campbell	153	616	18	787	58.8
Charles Mix	1,483	2,230	51	3,764	19.8
Clark	713	1,067	41	1,821	19.4
Clay	2,955	2,147	132	5,234	15.4
Codington	4,588	6,696	240	11,524	18.3
Corson	648	515	37	1,200	11.1
Custer	1,335	3,062	123	4,520	38.2
Davison	3,042	4,757	172	7,971	21.5
Day	1,497	1,320	56	2,873	6.2
Deuel	941	1,175	55	2,171	10.8
Dewey	1,207	663	25	1,895	28.7
Douglas	332	1,334	24	1,690	59.3
Edmunds	622	1,264	50	1,936	33.2
Fall River	1,140	2,258	118	3,516	31.8
Faulk	331	765	31	1,127	38.5
Grant	1,493	2,034	79	3,606	15.0
Gregory	599	1,507	45	2,151	42.2
Haakon	138	940	14	1,092	73.4
Hamlin	921	1,803	69	2,793	31.6
Hand	575	1,242	31	1,848	36.1
Hanson	760	1,627	29	2,416	35.9
Harding	82	638	19	739	75.2
Hughes	2,786	5,219	150	8,155	29.8
Hutchinson	923	2,451	51	3,425	44.6
Hyde	189	531	13	733	46.7
Jackson	426	661	19	1,106	21.2
Jerauld	452	538	16	1,006	8.5
Jones	108	490	11	609	62.7
Kingsbury	1,092	1,451	65	2,608	13.8
Lake	2,724	3,419	142	6,285	11.1
Lawrence	3,973	7,025	361	11,359	26.9
Lincoln	7,982	13,611	359	21,952	25.6
Lyman	605	933	31	1,569	20.9
Marshall	1,061	889	37	1,987	8.7
McCook	905	1,655	53	2,613	28.7
McPherson	272	921	22	1,215	53.4
Meade	2,928	7,566	323	10,817	42.9
Mellette	375	381	13	769	0.8
Miner	479	636	25	1,140	13.8
Minnehaha	34,674	40,342	1,567	76,583	7.4
Moody	1,429	1,535	69	3,033	3.5
Oglala Lakota	2,937	188	20	3,145	87.4
Pennington	15,125	28,232	1,107	44,464	29.5
Perkins	319	1,205	66	1,590	55.7
Potter	339	1,029	13	1,381	50.0
Roberts	2,302	1,883	71	4,256	9.8
Sanborn	389	688	38	1,115	26.8
Spink	1,300	1,670	71	3,041	12.2
Stanley	435	1,063	42	1,540	40.8
Sully	186	613	19	818	52.2
Todd	1,976	498	23	2,497	59.2
Tripp	737	1,905	49	2,691	43.4
Turner	1,411	2,715	84	4,210	31.0
Union	2,782	4,698	116	7,596	25.2
Walworth	671	1,731	60	2,462	43.1
Yankton	4,226	5,495	253	9,974	12.7
Ziebach	439	314	8	761	16.4

Candidate votes as printed in the document. “Total” is the document’s total where it prints one, otherwise the sum of the candidate columns. Margin is the leading ticket’s lead in points over the second.

Notes on how this document was read

Secondary source: MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000-2016 (compiled from official state election records).

Method: Machine-readable dataset; county sums checked against the state totals in The American Presidency Project summary (within 0.5% for both main tickets).

Certified state documentCertified

South Dakota Secretary of State, Election Night Results, Official Results General Election - November 6, 2012 (last updated 11/28/2012); Presidential Electors statewide
Open the original document · page 1

Every ticket on the ballot, as printed in the certified document (the statewide table above groups minor candidates as “Others” when the source does).

All 4 tickets as printed in the document

Ticket (as printed)	Code	Votes	Share
Romney & Ryan	—	210,610	57.89%
Obama & Biden	—	145,039	39.87%
Johnson & Gray	—	5,795	1.59%
Goode & Clymer	—	2,371	0.65%

Notes on how this document was read

Each ticket prints 'Name' / '& Mate votes pct' / 'Electors' over three lines; the label joins the first two lines, 'Electors' is dropped. The page's left menu (x < 300 pt) is ignored.

Method: text layer: words grouped by baseline (pdfplumber), numeric tokens taken as the row's values under the spec's column labels; each row's digits matched against PyMuPDF's words (second extraction)

South Dakota in every election · 2012 primaries · All states in 2012 · Report an error

Questions and answers

Who won South Dakota in 2012?

Mitt Romney won South Dakota by 18.02 percentage points (65,571 votes).

How many electoral votes did South Dakota have in 2012?

South Dakota cast 3 electoral votes in 2012.

How many people voted for president in South Dakota in 2012?

363,815 votes were counted for president.

How many counties did each candidate win in South Dakota in 2012?

Mitt Romney 56, Barack Obama 10 (out of 66 counties with results).

How did South Dakota change from 2008 to 2012?

The margin moved 9.6 points toward the Republican ticket, from Republican by 8.4 points to Republican by 18.0 points.

Official results As published by The American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara) and the state documents it links. How we use this data