Pennsylvania was won by Democratic nominee Barack Obama by a 10.32% margin of victory. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state Obama would win, or otherwise considered as a safe blue state. Although the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1992, the margins of victory had become smaller over the past elections, as was highlighted in 2004 when John Kerry won Pennsylvania by a slim margin of 2.50%. Since George W. Bush came relatively close to winning the state in 2004 and because Barack Obama lost the Democratic primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton by nearly 10% in April 2008, many analysts believed that Republican John McCain had a decent shot at winning Pennsylvania in the general election.[1] Nevertheless, Pennsylvania remained blue and gave Obama 54.47% of the vote to McCain's 44.15%, a margin of 10.32%. Normally a close state, 2008 marked the first and only time since 1972 that Pennsylvania was decided by a double-digit margin and was the strongest Democratic showing in the state since 1964. However, Obama became the first ever Democrat to win the White House without carrying Fayette or Greene Counties, as well as the first to do so without carrying Beaver, Washington, or Westmoreland Counties since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. As of 2020, this remains the last presidential election in which Pennsylvania voted to the left of Minnesota as well as did not weigh in as the most Republican state in the Northeast, as the state also voted to the left of New Hampshire.
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