ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the major factors that influence the presidential vote decision, to understand how and why people decided to vote for Obama or Romney. Economic conditions play a significant role in presidential elections; every presidential election is about more than just the economy. Party identification and ideology exercise great influence on the vote, in every election some Democrats and Republicans defect and vote for the candidate of the other party, due to the influence of election-specific attitudes on the vote. One useful way to understand the outcome of the 2012 presidential election is to analyze the short and long-term orientations and assess the advantage or disadvantage that each candidate had on each set of attitudes. Evaluations of presidential performance involve judgments of how well the president has achieved widely shared policy goals, such as peace and prosperity. The chapter also led to two possible conclusions about Romney's performance.
