2008 United States presidential election in Nevada

2008 United States presidential election in Nevada

← 2004 November 4, 2008 2012 →

Nominee Barack Obama John McCain Party Democratic Republican Home state Illinois Arizona Running mate Joe Biden Sarah Palin Electoral vote 5 0 Popular vote 533,736 412,827 Percentage 55.15% 42.65%

County Results Obama   40-50%   50-60% McCain   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%

President before election George W. Bush Republican Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

Elections in Nevada
show Federal government U.S. President 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 Dem GOP 1916 Dem GOP 1920 Dem GOP 1924 Dem GOP 1928 Dem GOP 1932 Dem GOP 1936 Dem GOP 1940 Dem GOP 1944 Dem GOP 1948 Dem GOP 1952 Dem GOP 1956 Dem GOP 1960 Dem GOP 1964 Dem GOP 1968 Dem GOP 1972 Dem GOP 1976 Dem GOP 1980 Dem GOP 1984 Dem GOP 1988 Dem GOP 1992 Dem GOP 1996 Dem GOP 2000 Dem GOP 2004 Dem GOP 2008 Dem GOP 2012 Dem GOP 2016 GOP 2020 Dem GOP 2024 U.S. Senate 1865 1867 1869 1873 1875 1879 1881 1885 1887 1891 1893 1897 1899 1902 1903 1905 1909 1911 1913 (Sp) 1914 1916 1918 (Sp) 1920 1922 1926 1928 1932 1934 1938 1940 1942 (Sp) 1944 1946 1950 1952 1954 (Sp) 1956 1958 1962 1964 1968 1970 1974 1976 1980 1982 1986 1988 1992 1994 1998 2000 2004 2006 2010 2012 2016 2018 2022 2024 U.S. House 1864 1865 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2nd 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 Special elections 2nd district, 2011
show State government General 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 Gubernatorial 1886 1902 1906 1910 1914 1918 1922 1926 1930 1934 1938 1942 1946 1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022
show Ballot measures 2002 and 2016 2002 Nevada Question 2 2016 Nevada Question 2
show Henderson Mayoral 2017
show Las Vegas Mayoral 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
show North Las Vegas Mayoral 2013 2017
show Reno 2018
None of These Candidates
v t

The 2008 United States presidential election in Nevada was part of the 2008 United States presidential election, which took place on November 4, 2008, throughout all 50 states and D.C.. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain by 12.5 percentage points. Both candidates heavily campaigned in the state. Obama almost always led in polls, however some argued that McCain, a nationally prominent Senator from neighboring Arizona, had a legitimate chance of pulling off an upset in Nevada. In that vein, most news organizations considered Obama to be the favorite in the state, while many still viewed it as a relative swing state.^[1] In the previous four presidential elections, the margin of victory in Nevada had always been below 5 percentage points. George W. Bush carried the state twice in 2000 and 2004 while Bill Clinton won it in 1992 and in 1996. The 2008 election was the first since 1988 where the margin of victory was in the double digits, and the only time since 1964 that a margin of that scale was in favor of the Democrat.

Primaries[]

• 2008 Nevada Republican caucuses
• 2008 Nevada Democratic caucuses

Campaign[]

Predictions[]

There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:

Source	Ranking
D.C. Political Report[2]	Likely R
Cook Political Report[3]	Lean D (flip)
The Takeaway[4]	Lean D (flip)
Electoral-vote.com[5]	Lean D (flip)
Washington Post[6]	Lean D (flip)
Politico[7]	Lean D (flip)
RealClearPolitics[8]	Lean D (flip)
FiveThirtyEight[6]	Lean D (flip)
CQ Politics[9]	Lean D (flip)
The New York Times[10]	Lean D (flip)
CNN[11]	Lean D (flip)
NPR[6]	Lean D (flip)
MSNBC[6]	Toss-up
Fox News[12]	Toss-up
Associated Press[13]	Toss-up
Rasmussen Reports[14]	Toss-up

Polling[]

In the beginning of the general election, it was a dead heat. McCain did win several polls. However, since September 30, Obama swept every other poll taken in the state and tied one poll. The final 3 polls averaged 50% to 44% in favor of Obama.^[15] On election day, Obama won the state with 55% and by a double-digit margin of victory, a much better performance than polls showed.

Fundraising[]

John McCain raised a total of $1,980,771 in the state. Barack Obama raised $2,328,659.^[16]

Advertising and visits[]

Obama and his interest groups spent $9,622,022. McCain and his interest groups spent $6,184,427.^[17] Each campaign visited the state 7 times.^[18]

Analysis[]

Nevada is historically somewhat of a bellwether state, having voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1912 except in 1976 and 2016. In 2008, McCain of neighboring Arizona was leading most polls taken March until the end of September (around the time of the 2008 financial crisis), when Obama of Illinois started taking the lead in almost every poll conducted from the beginning of October on, some in double digits.^[19] The subprime mortgage crisis hit Nevada hard, and McCain's statement that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" apparently hurt him in a state devastated by the economic meltdown.

Obama ultimately carried the Silver State by a 12.5-point margin, larger than most polls anticipated. This was due almost entirely to Obama winning the state's three largest jurisdictions: Clark County, home to Las Vegas; Washoe County, which contains Reno; and the independent city of Carson City,^[20] which combine for 88% of Nevada's total population. Hispanics also played a large role in Obama's landslide victory. According to exit polling, they composed 15% of voters in Nevada and broke for Obama by a three-to-one margin.^[21] With their support, Obama carried Washoe County by a comfortable 12-point margin and a somewhat narrower one-point margin in Carson City. These two areas hadn't gone Democratic since Lyndon B. Johnson won them in 1964. Obama also won Clark County by double digits, the first time a Democrat did so since 1964. McCain ran up huge margins in most of the more rural counties, which have been solidly Republican ever since Richard Nixon's 1968 win.^[22] However, it was not nearly enough to overcome his deficit in Clark, Washoe and Carson City. Indeed, Obama's 122,000-vote margin in Clark County would have been enough by itself to carry the state, and Nevada voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole for the first time since 1960 and second since 1944.^[23]

At the same time, Democrats picked up a U.S. House seat in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, which is based in Clark County and consists of most of the Las Vegas suburbs. Democratic State Senator Dina Titus defeated incumbent Republican Jon Porter by 5.14 points with several third parties receiving a small but significant proportion of the total statewide vote. At the state level, Democrats picked up one seat in the Nevada Assembly and picked up two seats in the Nevada Senate, giving the Democrats control of both chambers of the Nevada Legislature for the first time in decades.

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last time that Carson City voted for the Democratic candidate.

Results[]

2008 United States presidential election in Nevada
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Barack Obama	Joe Biden	533,736	55.15%	5
	Republican	John McCain	Sarah Palin	412,827	42.65%	0
	None of these Candidates	None of these Candidates		6,267	0.65%	0
	Independent	Ralph Nader	Matt Gonzalez	6,150	0.64%	0
	Libertarian	Bob Barr	Wayne Allyn Root	4,263	0.44%	0
	Constitution	Chuck Baldwin	Darrell Castle	3,194	0.33%	0
	Green	Cynthia McKinney	Rosa Clemente	1,411	0.15%	0
Totals				967,848	100.00%	5
Voter turnout (Voting age population)						49.7%

Results breakdown[]

By county[]

County	Obama%	Obama#	McCain%	McCain#	Others%	Others#	Total
Carson City	49.08%	11,623	48.22%	11,419	2.69%	638	23,680
Churchill	32.95%	3,494	64.42%	6,832	2.63%	279	10,605
Clark	58.48%	380,765	39.48%	257,078	2.04%	13,299	651,142
Douglas	41.20%	10,672	56.55%	14,648	2.25%	584	25,904
Elko	28.35%	4,541	68.47%	10,969	3.18%	509	16,019
Esmeralda	23.69%	104	69.02%	303	7.29%	32	439
Eureka	19.33%	144	75.70%	564	4.97%	37	745
Humboldt	33.70%	1,909	63.31%	3,586	2.98%	169	5,664
Lander	27.45%	577	69.74%	1,466	2.81%	59	2,102
Lincoln	24.58%	518	71.10%	1,498	4.32%	91	2,107
Lyon	39.83%	8,405	57.59%	12,154	2.58%	544	21,103
Mineral	46.90%	1,082	49.02%	1,131	4.07%	94	2,307
Nye	41.31%	7,226	54.53%	9,537	4.16%	728	17,491
Pershing	36.66%	673	58.55%	1,075	4.79%	88	1,836
Storey	45.57%	1,102	51.57%	1,247	2.85%	69	2,418
Washoe	55.25%	99,671	42.61%	76,880	2.14%	3,856	180,407
White Pine	32.01%	1,230	63.51%	2,440	4.48%	172	3,842

By congressional district[]

Barack Obama carried two of the state's three congressional districts both held by Democrats while John McCain carried the one and only congressional district held by a Republican.

District	McCain	Obama	Representative
1st	34.25%	63.68%	Shelley Berkley
2nd	48.79%	48.76%	Dean Heller
3rd	42.59%	55.35%	Jon Porter (110th Congress)
			Dina Titus (111th Congress)

Electors[]

Technically the voters of Nevada cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Nevada is allocated 5 electors because it has 3 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 5 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 5 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them.^[24] An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2008, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All 5 were pledged to Barack Obama and Joe Biden:^[25]

1. Maggie Carlton
2. Tahis Castro
3. Ruby Duncan
4. Ron Hibble
5. Theresa Navarro

References[]