Florida voters chose 29 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, against Republican challenger and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan.

However, with much of the remaining vote still coming in was from heavily Democratic areas, Romney's Florida campaign acknowledged that he had lost the state to Obama.

[6] Florida required all counties to finish counting by noon Saturday but would not announce an official winner until the votes were certified on November 20.

[7] On November 10, most major news sources projected Obama to be the winner of Florida's 29 electoral votes.

[8][9][10] Despite Tampa having been the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention, Obama ultimately carried Florida with 50.01% of the vote, to Romney's 49.13%, a margin of 0.88%.

"[18] According to a Gingrich campaign memo, he planned to challenge the results based on an interpretation of the Republican National Committee's rules that state that no contest can be winner-take-all prior to April 1, 2012.

Four urban counties, Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Duval, all experienced problems with counting their large number of absentee ballots.

In addition, both Democratic and Republican strategists agreed that the President's ground game and early voting leads played a huge role in such a tight race.

Mirroring the results of the 2008 presidential election in Florida, Obama dominated South Florida, winning Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties by comfortable margins, and actually increased his vote share in Miami -Dade and Broward counties from 2008.

"[36] Although Obama lost large swaths of North Florida, he was able to keep the margins relatively close along the Eastern Seaboard.

Where the state tipped into the Obama column was in Central Florida, the site of enormous growth in the last two decades.

Obama was able to deliver big wins in the Orlando and Tampa Bay areas, where George W. Bush won in 2004.

Democrat Alan Grayson won a new seat in Florida's 9th congressional district while former West Palm Beach mayor, Lois Frankel, won the newly created seat in Florida's 22nd congressional district for the Democrats.