2008 United States presidential election in New Mexico

2008 United States presidential election in New Mexico

← 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 472,422 346,832 Percentage 56.91% 41.78%

County Results Obama   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90% McCain   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%

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

Elections in New Mexico
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The 2008 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 4, 2008. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

New Mexico was won by the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, by a 15.13% margin of victory; Obama took 56.91% of the vote while his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona, took 41.78%. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state Obama would win, or otherwise considered it as a safe blue state. Due to the extremely narrow margins of victory in the previous two presidential elections (less than 1% in 2004 and less than 0.1% in 2000), it started out as a swing state, but hypothetical general election match-up polls taken in the state continued to show a big lead for Obama. Obama's leads in the polls in New Mexico increased so much that McCain did not campaign nearly as much there as he did elsewhere, despite it neighboring his home state of Arizona. A large Hispanic and Native American as well as a trending Democratic population put Obama over the top.^[1]

Primaries[]

• 2008 New Mexico Democratic primary
• 2008 New Mexico Republican primary

Campaign[]

Predictions[]

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

Source	Ranking
D.C. Political Report[2]	Likely D (flip)
Cook Political Report[3]	Lean D (flip)
The Takeaway[4]	Solid 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]	Solid D (flip)
CQ Politics[9]	Safe D (flip)
The New York Times[10]	Solid D (flip)
CNN[11]	Safe D (flip)
NPR[6]	Solid D (flip)
MSNBC[6]	Solid D (flip)
Fox News[12]	Likely D (flip)
Associated Press[13]	Likely D (flip)
Rasmussen Reports[14]	Safe D (flip)

Polling[]

Obama won a majority of the pre-election polls taken in the state, including sweeping all of them taken after September 14. The final three polls averaged the Democrat leading 55% to 43%.^[15]

Fundraising[]

John McCain raised a total of $1,016,376 in the state. Barack Obama raised $3,987,438.^[16]

Advertising and visits[]

Obama and his interest groups spent $4,535,378. McCain and his interest groups spent $3,606,796.^[17] The Democrat ticket visited the state five times to the Republicans' eight times.^[18]

Analysis[]

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The key voting bloc^{[according to whom?]} in this state is Hispanics, which make up a plurality of the state's total population with 45%. George W. Bush received over 40% of the Hispanic vote nationally in 2004. This support was enough for Bush to nip John Kerry by approximately 6,000 votes in New Mexico in 2004. In the previous two elections, New Mexico had been a very close swing state. Al Gore won the state by 300 votes in 2000, which was even narrower than the controversial results in Florida. However, after the 2004 presidential election, support for Republicans in the Hispanic community collapsed.^{[citation needed]} During the 2008 election, New Mexico was regarded as an Obama-leaning state although John McCain was from neighboring Arizona and held similar views on illegal immigration to those of Bush. Ultimately, McCain obtained 30% of the Hispanic vote.^{[citation needed]}

Native Americans also represent a key voting demographic in New Mexico.^[19] Obama won the Native American vote, 78–21%, and carried most of the counties within the confines of the Navajo Nation.^[20]

The Republican base in New Mexico consists of the more rural southeastern part of the state which, while thinly populated, votes heavily Republican.^{[citation needed]} Democrats are strongest in the state capital, Santa Fe, and its close-in suburbs. The city of Albuquerque and the southwestern part of the state both lean Democratic, but not as overwhelmingly as does Santa Fe. On a larger context, Southern New Mexico is typically more Republican while Northern New Mexico is traditionally more Democratic, while Albuquerque and other areas in the center tend to swing both ways.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008, Obama carried the state by a 15-point margin, largely by dominating the Albuquerque area. He won Bernalillo County, home to Albuquerque itself, by 21 points; Kerry had won it by four points in 2004. While McCain dominated the southeastern part of the state, it was not nearly enough to overcome Obama's edge in the Albuquerque area.^[21]

During the same election, former Democratic U.S. Representative Tom Udall, who had represented New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, defeated former Republican U.S. Representative Steve Pearce, who had represented New Mexico's 2nd congressional district, for an open U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by Republican Pete Domenici once it was discovered that he had brain cancer. Former Republican U.S. Representative Heather Wilson, who represented New Mexico's 1st Congressional District, vacated her seat to challenge Pearce in the GOP senatorial primary only to lose the nomination to him. As a result, all three of New Mexico's U.S. House seats were up for grabs, and Democrats captured all three of them. At the state level, Democrats increased their majorities in both houses of the New Mexico Legislature, picking up three seats in both the New Mexico House of Representatives and New Mexico Senate.

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Luna County voted for the Democratic candidate.

Results[]

2008 United States presidential election in New Mexico
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Barack Obama	Joe Biden	472,422	56.91%	5
	Republican	John McCain	Sarah Palin	346,832	41.78%	0
	Independent	Ralph Nader	Matt Gonzalez	5,327	0.64%	0
	Libertarian	Bob Barr	Wayne Allyn Root	2,428	0.29%	0
	Constitution	Chuck Baldwin	Darrell Castle	1,597	0.19%	0
	Green	Cynthia McKinney	Rosa Clemente	1,552	0.19%	0
Totals				830,158	100.00%	5
Voter turnout (voting age population)						56.4%

Results breakdown[]

By county[]

County	Obama%	Obama#	McCain%	McCain#	Others%	Others#	Total
Bernalillo	60.03%	168,406	38.82%	109,212	1.32%	3,701	281,319
Catron	31.31%	659	66.32%	1,396	2.38%	50	2,105
Chaves	37.00%	8,160	61.80%	13,630	1.20%	264	22,054
Cibola	63.12%	3,176	34.12%	1,717	2.76%	139	5,032
Colfax	54.53%	3,465	44.07%	2,800	1.40%	89	6,354
Curry	32.31%	4,655	66.52%	9,585	1.17%	169	14,409
De Baca	34.32%	358	64.81%	676	0.86%	9	1,043
Doña Ana	57.82%	38,574	40.79%	27,211	1.39%	930	66,715
Eddy	36.45%	7,289	62.34%	12,468	1.21%	242	19,999
Grant	59.15%	8,092	39.33%	5,381	1.51%	207	13,680
Guadalupe	70.85%	1,541	28.28%	615	0.87%	19	2,175
Harding	41.22%	256	57.49%	357	1.29%	8	621
Hidalgo	50.87%	990	48.00%	934	1.13%	22	1,946
Lea	27.37%	5,084	71.61%	13,301	1.02%	190	18,575
Lincoln	36.47%	3,482	61.86%	5,906	1.68%	160	9,548
Los Alamos	52.49%	5,709	45.84%	4,986	1.66%	181	10,876
Luna	51.64%	4,289	46.44%	3,857	1.91%	159	8,305
McKinley	71.31%	15,993	27.57%	6,183	1.13%	253	22,429
Mora	78.57%	2,156	20.59%	565	0.84%	23	2,744
Otero	39.56%	8,602	58.83%	12,791	1.61%	350	21,743
Quay	38.83%	1,546	59.36%	2,363	1.81%	72	3,981
Rio Arriba	74.75%	11,245	24.25%	3,648	1.00%	151	15,044
Roosevelt	34.08%	2,270	64.33%	4,285	1.59%	106	6,661
Sandoval	55.72%	32,669	42.97%	25,193	1.31%	768	58,630
San Juan	38.76%	18,028	59.92%	27,869	1.32%	614	46,511
San Miguel	79.75%	10,320	19.15%	2,478	1.11%	143	12,941
Santa Fe	76.76%	53,802	22.03%	15,443	1.21%	849	70,094
Sierra	42.92%	2,351	54.97%	3,011	2.12%	116	5,478
Socorro	59.37%	4,643	38.50%	3,011	2.14%	167	7,821
Taos	81.54%	13,384	17.22%	2,827	1.24%	204	16,415
Torrance	44.41%	3,068	53.87%	3,721	1.72%	119	6,908
Union	28.39%	492	70.28%	1,218	1.33%	23	1,733
Valencia	53.00%	15,142	45.61%	13,033	1.39%	397	28,572

By congressional district[]

Barack Obama carried two of the state's three congressional districts, while John McCain just narrowly carried the other congressional district that simultaneously elected a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives.

District	McCain	Obama	Representative
1st	39.64%	60.07%	Heather Wilson (110th Congress)
			Martin Heinrich (111th Congress)
2nd	49.97%	48.64%	Steve Pearce (110th Congress)
			Harry Teague (111th Congress)
3rd	37.79%	61.01%	Tom Udall (110th Congress)
			Ben R. Luján (111th Congress)

Electors[]

Officially the voters of New Mexico cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. New Mexico is allocated five electors because it has three congressional districts and two senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of five 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 five 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.^[22] An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and of 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 meet in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All five were pledged to Barack Obama and Joe Biden:^[23]

1. Brian Colon
2. Annadelle Sanchez
3. Tom Buckner
4. Christy French
5. Alvin Warren

References[]