Editing 2012 Democratic Presidential Primaries (section)

==The Race==
The 2012 Democratic Primaries were among the most closely-matched in recent history; the only contest truly comparable would be the Republicans in 1976.

The early frontrunners were Michael Casmir and Rick Hernandez.  Casmir, however, ran into trouble in the debates (where Gov. Koo of the West Coast performed extremely well), and was soon faced by several strong challengers.  Hernandez also ran into trouble when it became known that he had failed to address the impending shutdown of Las Vegas due to legal complications from the formation of the Sunbelt Superregion.

With Casmir underperforming to some extent (his win in Iowa was by far less than initially anticipated, as he fell to under a quarter of the vote), and Hernandez in trouble, several surprises emerged in Iowa: Jeremy Koo placed third very narrowly to Hernandez, and Eric Smith managed to clear the delegate threshhold with a surprise fifth place finish, while Robert Hudson came in fourth.

While Casmir struggled and Hernandez faltered, Robert Hudson won his home state of New Hampshire by a significant, yet not overwhelming, margin.  The big surprise was Eric Smith coming in second place, effectively ending Sen. Vanleer's campaign by pushing her into third.  Though Casmir managed to come back and win Nevada, his win was less convincing than it could have been (he won by less than 4%) and it left him in a dead heat with Smith.  An effective reversal of the results in South Carolina left Smith and Casmir in a dead heat going into Mega Tuesday.

Mega Tuesday was similarly inconclusive; Smith upset Casmir in New York, but by a margin that was so small that the state's delegation split evenly.  Casmir, in the meantime, won several states that he badly needed (Arizona most notably) and didn't get swamped in New York, allowing him to fight back.

The ensuing national campaign was closely-matched; Smith won most of the states in the South (rather unsurprisingly), as well as a number of other contests, but Casmir held on and managed to win Pennsylvania, winning the contest.