In the presidential election, Democratic governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey defeated Republican President William Howard Taft and former president and Progressive Party nominee Theodore Roosevelt.

[3] Socialist union leader Eugene Debs, running his fourth campaign, took six percent of the vote.

[3] At the 1912 Democratic National Convention, Wilson took the nomination on the 46th ballot, defeating Speaker Champ Clark and several other candidates.

Wilson's election made him the first Democratic president since Grover Cleveland.

Roosevelt's candidacy finished second in the popular vote and the electoral college, the only time a third party candidate accomplished either feat.