Democratic nominee Barack Obama won New Hampshire with a margin of 9.61%. Obama took 54.13% to Republican John McCain's 44.52%. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state Obama would win, or otherwise considered as a safe blue state. The state was originally thought to be a swing state in 2008 for a number of reasons. New Hampshire is considerably more fiscally conservative than its neighbors in New England and has a strong disdain for taxes, giving the Republicans an edge in the state. However, like the rest of New England, it is considerably more liberal on social issues like abortion and gay rights, which helps the Democrats. Also, McCain was very popular among Republicans based on the fact that he won both the 2000 and 2008 primaries here. In 2008, Obama lost the primary to Hillary Clinton. However, after the financial crisis, Obama pulled away in the pre-election polls.
The 2008 result made Barack Obama the first Democratic presidential nominee to sweep all ten of New Hampshire's counties since native son Franklin Pierce in 1852. As of the 2020 election this is the last election in which a presidential candidate of either party won all ten counties in New Hampshire and the last election where the Democratic candidate won Belknap County. Obama even won a majority of the vote in traditionally staunchly Republican Carroll County, the only county in all of New England to have voted for Republican Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election. Carroll County had not given a majority to a Democratic presidential nominee since 1884 or voted Democratic since 1912.
