[1] Slovenia's 1.7 million registered voters chose between the incumbent president Danilo Türk, the SDS/NSi party candidate Milan Zver and Borut Pahor of the Social Democrats[2] who was also supported by the Civic List.

[5] Danilo Türk, the incumbent president, announced that he would seek re-election for a second term as an independent candidate and[6] submitted over 13,000 signatures of support to the election commission.

Türk, a former United Nations diplomat and professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana,[7] entered the 2007 election as an independent candidate with the support of five political parties.

[11] In September 2011, Pahor's government lost a confidence vote amidst an economic crisis and political tensions.

He received support from the Social Democrats[13] and also from the Civic List, a Conservative Liberal party in the Slovenian center-right government coalition.

[16][17] Zver, a sociologist and political scientist, served as the Minister for Education and Sports in the centre-right government led by Janez Janša in 2004–2008.

[21] Other people who announced the intention to run include Miro Žitko, Ladislav Troha, Dušan Egidij Kubot - Totislo, Artur Štern, Martina Valenčič, Fani Eršte, and Milan Robič.

Pahor carried out a variety of voluntary jobs, and took part in a number of work actions organised by his campaign.

Samo Uhan, a politologist at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, stated that the first TV debate would not case a shift in support.

He described Türks' performance as presidential, Zvers' as an advocacy of the current governing coalition, and Pahor as being burdened by his negative experiences in the previous parliamentary term.

Božidar Novak stated that none of the candidates were outstanding in regard to substance, but that Pahor was slightly better than the other two in terms of style.

[27] The broadcast featured a number of interactive elements including a live analysis of web based reactions to the three candidates.

An analysis of web based responses indicated that Pahor made the best impression, followed by Türk and revealed Zver as the least convincing.

During the last two weeks of the campaign, magazine Mladina, in association with Ninamedia agency, was running a tracking poll to monitor the trends of changes in support for all three candidates.

The final prediction of the poll on Friday, 9 November, indicated 43.8% for Türk, 33.6% for Pahor, and 22.6% for Zver, what would result in a second round being necessary.

[60] In his first response, Pahor expressed a surprise by the amount of support in the first round and stated that he will aim to continue to be a candidate that is not limited to one side of the political spectrum.

[62][63] Pahor appeared to attract votes from both sides of the political spectrum, even one third of the voters of the SDS party.

[63] Discrepancies between the opinion polls and the results in the first round were attributed to low voter turnout, especially as a part of Türk's supporters presumably stayed at home.