United States House of Representatives elections in Rhode Island, 2012

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	Primary Date ; September 11, 2012
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	Rhode Island District Pages District 1 • District 2
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	2012 U.S. Senate Elections

The 2012 U.S. House of Representatives elections in Rhode Island took place on November 6, 2012. Voters elected two candidates to serve in the U.S. House, one from each of the state's two congressional districts.

Candidate Filing Deadline	Primary Election	General Election
June 27, 2012	September 11, 2012	November 6, 2012

Primary: Rhode Island has a closed primary system, meaning only registered members of a particular party may vote in that party's primary.

Voter registration: Voters were required to register to vote in the primary by August 12. For the general election, the voter registration deadline was October 7.^[1]

See also: Rhode Island elections, 2012

According to the New York Times race ratings in October 2012, one of the two districts was considered to be in play, District 1.^[2]

The Center for Voting and Democracy (Fairvote) projected that Democrats would win both districts while Republicans would win 0 seats.^[3]

Primary competitiveness

See also: National contested primary average during the 2012 U.S. congressional elections

Rhode Island tied with Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Washington for having the most competitive congressional primaries in 2012, with 100% of major party primaries having been contested (4 out of 4). The national average was 54.31%.

Two U.S. House incumbents ran for re-election in Rhode Island in 2012. 2 of those 2 (100%) faced a primary challenger. Nationwide, 200 out of the 386 incumbents seeking re-election faced a primary challenger (51.81%).

Partisan breakdown

Heading into the November 6 election, the Republican Party held each of the two Congressional seats from Rhode Island.

Members of the U.S. House from Rhode Island-- Partisan Breakdown
Party		As of November 2012	After the 2012 Election
	Democratic Party	2	2
	Republican Party	0	0
Total		2	2

Incumbents

Heading into the 2012 election, the incumbents for the two congressional districts were:

Name	Party	District
David N. Cicilline	Democratic	1
James R. Langevin	Democratic	2

Margin of victory for winners

There were a total of 2 seats up for election in 2012 in Rhode Island. The following table shows the margin of victory for each district winner, which is calculated by examining the percentage difference between the top-two vote getters. If the race was uncontested, the margin of victory is listed as 100%.

District	Winner	Margin of Victory	Total Vote	Top Opponent
Rhode Island, District 1	David Cicilline	12.1%	205,115	Brendan Doherty
Rhode Island, District 2	James R. Langevin	20.6%	222,660	Michael G. Riley

General election candidates

District	General Election Candidates	Incumbent	2012 Winner	Partisan Switch?
1st	David Cicilline Brendan Doherty C. Michael Blake Kenneth A. Capalbo David S. Vogel	David N. Cicilline	David Cicilline	No
2nd	James R. Langevin Michael G. Riley Abel G. Collins	James R. Langevin	James R. Langevin	No

Candidates

Note: Election results were added on election night as races were called. Vote totals were added after official election results had been certified. Click here for more information about Ballotpedia's election coverage plan. Please contact us about errors in this list.