United States presidential election, 2008 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
7/19/15, 1:54 PM
United States presidential election, 2008
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on
Tuesday, November 4, 2008. Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama and running mate Senator Joe
Biden defeated Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain and running mate Governor Sarah Palin.
The incumbent president, George W. Bush, was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to term limits in the
Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution. McCain secured the Republican nomination by
March 2008, but the Democratic nomination was marked by a sharp contest between Obama and initial
frontrunner Senator Hillary Clinton, with Obama not securing the nomination until early June. Early
campaigning had focused heavily on the Iraq War and the unpopularity of outgoing Republican President George
W. Bush, but all candidates focused on domestic concerns as well, which grew more prominent as the economy
experienced the onset of the Great Recession and a major financial crisis that peaked in September 2008.
United States presidential election, 2008
November 4, 2008
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College
270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout
61.6% (voting eligible)[1]
Obama would go on to win a decisive victory over McCain, winning both the popular vote and the electoral
college, with 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173; he received the largest percentage of the popular vote for a
Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Obama's successes in obtaining a major party's nomination and
winning the general election were both firsts for an African American. Although Hillary Clinton did not win the
Democratic nomination, she was the first woman to win a major American party's presidential primary for the
purposes of delegate selection when she won the primary in New Hampshire on January 8.[2][3][nb 1] She also
was the first woman to be an American presidential candidate in every primary and caucus in every state.[2]
Similarly, Sarah Palin became the first woman to appear on a Republican presidential ticket, and the second
woman overall to appear on a major party's presidential ticket (after Geraldine Ferraro in 1984).
This was notable as the first election since 1952 where neither of the two major candidates were either the
incumbent president or vice president. Obama's total vote amount of 69.5 million votes is the highest amount
ever won by a presidential candidate. The total of 131 million votes cast in the election represents over 43% of
the total U.S. population, the highest share of any presidential election in U.S. history.[6][7] This was also the first
election in which neither candidate was born in the contiguous U.S. Obama was born in Hawaii and McCain was
born in a military base in Panama.
Contents
1 Background
2 Nominations
2.1 Democratic Party nomination
2.1.1 Candidates
2.1.2 Before the primaries
2.1.3 Early primaries/caucuses
2.1.4 Super Tuesday
2.1.5 Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania
2.1.6 Indiana and North Carolina
2.1.7 Florida and Michigan
2.1.8 Clinching the nomination
2.2 Republican Party nomination
2.2.1 Candidates
2.2.2 Before the primaries
2.2.3 Early primaries/caucuses
2.2.4 Super Tuesday
2.3 Other nominations
2.3.1 Candidates gallery
2.4 Party conventions
3 General election campaign
3.1 Issues
3.1.1 Iraq
3.1.2 Bush's unpopularity
3.1.3 Change vs. experience
3.1.4 Economy
3.1.5 Health care
3.1.6 Race
3.2 Debates
3.3 Campaign costs
3.3.1 Expense summary
3.4 Notable expressions and phrases
4 Internet campaigns
4.1 Fundraising
4.2 Promotion
4.3 News
5 Controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
Nominee
Party
Home state
Barack Obama
John McCain
Democratic
Republican
Illinois
Arizona
Joe Biden
Sarah Palin
Electoral vote
365
173
States carried
28 + DC + NE-02
22
Popular vote
69,498,516
59,948,323
52.9%
45.7%
Running mate
Percentage
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states/districts won by
Obama/Biden, and Red denotes those won by McCain/Palin. Numbers
indicate electoral votes allotted to the winner of each state. Obama
won one electoral vote (from Nebraska's 2nd congressional district) of
Nebraska's five.
President before election
George W. Bush
Republican
Elected President
Barack Obama
Democratic
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