2008 United States presidential election

2008 United States presidential election
538 members of the Electoral College; 270 electoral votes needed to win
	Opinion polls
Turnout	61.6% 1.5 pp
	Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Obama/Biden and red denotes those won by McCain/Palin. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia.
President before election; George W. Bush; Republican	Elected President ; Barack Obama; Democratic

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency.

Incumbent Republican President George W. Bush was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment; this was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, and the first since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating his main challengers Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, and selected Palin as his running mate. The Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, former first lady and Senator Hillary Clinton, as well as other challengers who dropped out before most of the primaries were held, including Senators John Edwards and Joe Biden. Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary made her the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary.^[a] After a long primary season, Obama narrowly secured the Democratic nomination in June 2008 and selected Biden as his running mate.

Bush's popularity had significantly declined during his second term, which was attributed to the growing disdain for the Iraq war, his response to Hurricane Katrina, the Abu Ghraib torture controversy, and the 2008 financial crisis. McCain opted to distance himself from Bush and did not campaign with him, nor did Bush appear in person at the 2008 Republican National Convention, although he did endorse McCain. Obama strongly opposed the Iraq war, as well as a troop surge that had begun in 2007, while McCain supported the war. Obama campaigned on the theme that "Washington must change", while McCain emphasized his experience. McCain's decision to suspend his campaign during the height of the financial crisis backfired as voters viewed his response as erratic.^[5]

Obama won a decisive victory over McCain, winning the Electoral College and popular vote by sizable margins, and flipping nine states that had voted Republican in 2004: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, as well as Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. Obama won every state in the Great Lakes region. Obama received the largest share of the popular vote won by a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and was the first Democrat to win an outright majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. At the time, Obama also received the most popular votes in history, a record which would be broken in 2020.

As of 2025^[update], this is the most recent time a Democrat carried Indiana and North Carolina in a presidential election and the most recent time a Democrat won the male vote in a presidential election.

^ "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press. Archived from the original on July 25, 2014. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
^ ^a ^b "Federal Elections 2008: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. 2009.
^ Sullivan, Ronald (June 7, 1972). "Dakotan Beats Humphrey By a Big Margin in Jersey" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
^ "Sanford Is Withdrawing From N.J." The Times-News. Associated Press. May 13, 1972. p. 12. Archived from the original on October 10, 2021. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
^ Halloran, Liz (September 24, 2008). "McCain Suspends Campaign, Shocks Republicans". USNews. Archived from the original on October 12, 2020. Retrieved December 5, 2020.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

[1] "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press. Archived from the original on July 25, 2014. Retrieved February 28, 2023.

[FEC2009-2] "Federal Elections 2008: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. 2009.

[Sullivan_1-3] Sullivan, Ronald (June 7, 1972). "Dakotan Beats Humphrey By a Big Margin in Jersey" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved June 15, 2018.

[Sanford_Is_Withdrawing_From_N.J-4] "Sanford Is Withdrawing From N.J." The Times-News. Associated Press. May 13, 1972. p. 12. Archived from the original on October 10, 2021. Retrieved October 14, 2020.

[6] Halloran, Liz (September 24, 2008). "McCain Suspends Campaign, Shocks Republicans". USNews. Archived from the original on October 12, 2020. Retrieved December 5, 2020.

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