
The
2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial
presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. The
Republican ticket of former
Illinois Governor Alan Schiro and North Carolina
senator Edward C. Hartley defeated incumbent
Democratic President Scott McKay and
Vice President Frank Agnos. Schiro took office as the
45th president on
January 20, 2013, becoming the first
Italian American and third
Roman Catholic (after
John F. Kennedy and McKay) President of the United States. It was the first election since 1992 in which an incumbent President lost re-election, and the first since 1968 in which the winning candidate triumphed despite losing his home state.
McKay had alienated many members of his party by pursuing the
'First In Peace' Doctrine, which many Democrats considered isolationist, overly friendly to dictatorships, and poorly planned, as well as through a number of insulting comments he made in interviews and online, some of which were criticized as sexist, homophobic, and vulgar. Nevertheless, he was able to fend off primary challenges by retired U.S. Army general and
University of Texas President Jack Jones and New York Congresswoman
Karen Callahan. Schiro, who had been a frontrunner in the 2008 Republican primaries before bowing out to "focus on leading Illinois through
this crisis", defeated five other Republican candidates, most notably Governor of Kentucky
C. Harris Walker, by April. He selected Senator Hartley, a
Vietnam War veteran and former
astronaut, as his running mate.
Schiro ran a
low-key campaign focused on economic policy, promising to
balance the federal budget by
reforming welfare policy; he also promised to take a tougher line on
Russia and
Jaysh al-Islam and to restore 'decency' to the White House in the wake of Schiro's
gaffes and scandals. McKay promoted ambitious plans to implement
universal healthcare, negotiate an international agreement to
limit warming to 1.5º Celsius, and promote economic growth in the '
Rust Belt'; critics noted that many of these proposals had been pursued during McKay's first term and had failed in Congress.
Schiro led McKay narrowly in polls throughout the race, aside from a brief period after the
Democratic National Convention in September, but his lead substantially narrowed in October after the
Supreme Court upheld McKay's use of
Section 1498 to authorize imports of drugs such as
insulin. However, Schiro managed to win by a slightly larger margin than the polls suggested, which some analysts have attributed to 'the
Callahan effect' of low turnout for McKay among women voters. Of the states McKay had won in
2008, Schiro won
Alaska,
Colorado,
Florida,
Iowa,
Maine,
Michigan,
Minnesota,
Missouri,
Nevada,
New Mexico, and
Wisconsin, as well as
Nebraska's 2nd congressional district.
McKay returned to politics in 2018 by announcing his candidacy for President in the
2020 election. As of May 2019, polls indicate that he is the leading Democratic candidate.