Barack Obama Democratic Barack Obama Democratic The 2012 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 2012, as part of the presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated.

Virginia voters chose 13 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, Congressman Paul Ryan.

The Democratic margin of victory also made 2012 the first time since 1948 that Virginia voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole, albeit by a narrow advantage of 0.02%: These were ultimately signs of Virginia's continuing leftward shift, after it had been a mostly reliable state for Republicans on the presidential level since 1952.

Other candidates failed to submit the necessary 10,000 signatures (including at least 400 from each of the state's 11 congressional districts) required to get on the ballot by the deadline of 22 December 2011.

[10] On 27 December, Rick Perry filed a lawsuit – joined later by Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum – in the federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond that challenged provisions that determine who can appear on the primary ballot.

Perry and the other candidates argued that the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party and members of State Board of Elections violated their rights by enforcing state requirements as to the number of signatures, the qualifications for signers and the requirement that all petition circulators be "an eligible or registered qualified voter in Virginia."

Perry and the other litigants argued that these restrictions "impose a severe burden" on their freedoms of speech and association under the First and Fourteenth Amendment.

U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ruled on 29 December that he would not issue an injunction to stop the printing of ballots before a scheduled hearing on 13 January.

[14] The Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, representing the state, made a motion to dismiss the case because of a lack of standing.

[15] On 13 January, Judge Gibney Jr. dismissed the lawsuit citing the equitable doctrine of laches ("sleeping on one's rights"), writing, "They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago...

"[16] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, emphasizing that the candidate plaintiffs' failure to file in a timely fashion required dismissal.

[3] The leftward shift of college-educated whites and dominance by the unabashedly liberal District of Columbia only furthered Democratic margins.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Romney's best performances were in Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, where he garnered over 60% of ballots cast.

Despite polls predicting a close race, Obama's comfortable margin in Virginia solidified the state's shift to the Democrats.