2008 United States presidential election in Utah

2008 United States presidential election in Utah

← 2004 November 4, 2008 2012 →

Nominee John McCain Barack Obama Party Republican Democratic Home state Arizona Illinois Running mate Sarah Palin Joe Biden Electoral vote 5 0 Popular vote 596,030 327,670 Percentage 62.24% 34.22%

County Results McCain   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90% Obama   40-50%   50-60%

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

Elections in Utah
Federal government Presidential elections 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 Presidential primaries Democratic 2008 2016 2020 Republican 2008 2012 2016 2020 U.S. Senate elections 1958 1964 1968 1970 1974 1976 1980 1982 1986 1988 1992 1994 1998 2000 2004 2006 2010 2012 2016 2018 2022 U.S. House elections 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 Special elections 3rd 2017
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Ballot measures 2004 Amendment 3
Salt Lake County Mayoral elections 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Salt Lake City Mayoral elections 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
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The 2008 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 4, 2008. It was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Utah was won by Republican nominee John McCain by a 28.02% margin of victory. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state McCain would win, or otherwise considered as a safe red state. Highlighting its status as a GOP bastion, the Beehive State gave McCain one of his largest victories over Democrat Barack Obama, a near two-to-one margin. Obama did, however, manage to carry three counties, and he greatly improved on John Kerry's performance in 2004.

Primaries[]

• 2008 Utah Democratic primary
• 2008 Utah Republican primary

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[1]	Likely R
Cook Political Report[2]	Solid R
The Takeaway[3]	Solid R
Electoral-vote.com[4]	Solid R
Washington Post[5]	Solid R
Politico[6]	Solid R
RealClearPolitics[7]	Solid R
FiveThirtyEight[5]	Solid R
CQ Politics[8]	Solid R
The New York Times[9]	Solid R
CNN[10]	Safe R
NPR[5]	Solid R
MSNBC[5]	Solid R
Fox News[11]	Likely R
Associated Press[12]	Likely R
Rasmussen Reports[13]	Safe R

Polling[]

McCain won every pre-election poll conducted in this state, each with a double-digit margin and with at least 55% of the vote. The final three-poll average showed McCain leading 59% to 31%.^[14]

Fundraising[]

John McCain raised a total of $1,165,621 in the state. Barack Obama raised $2,121,563.^[15]

Advertising and visits[]

Obama spent $297,645. McCain spent just $250.^[16] Neither campaign visited the state.^[17]

Analysis[]

Utah is a heavily Republican state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide in 1964, and even then the margin of victory was small. Johnson is also the last Democrat to manage even 40 percent of Utah's popular vote. The majority of the state's population is Mormon and highly conservative, especially on social issues. Utah gave George W. Bush his largest margin of victory in 2004 over John Kerry, as Bush received over 71 percent to Kerry's 26 percent and carried every county in the state.^[18]

With 62.15 percent of the popular vote, Utah proved to be McCain's third strongest state in the 2008 election after Oklahoma and neighboring Wyoming.^[19]

Although McCain easily won Utah in 2008, Obama did very well for a Democrat in this Republican stronghold. Obama was able to reduce McCain's margin of victory by narrowly winning Salt Lake County, the state's most populous county that contains the state capital of Salt Lake City, by a mere 296 votes–the first time a Democrat had carried that county since 1964. Obama also carried Summit and Grand counties, both of which have significantly lower Mormon populations than the rest of the state.^[20][21][22]

Election 2008 proved to be remarkable as it was a Democratic presidential nominee's best showing in the Beehive State since 1968.^[23] In substantially Native American and non-Mormon – but historically heavily Republican – San Juan County, Obama’s performance was the best by a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.

During the same election, popular incumbent Republican Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. was reelected to a second term in a massive landslide victory, taking in 77.74 percent of the vote over Democrat Bob Springmeyer's 19.65 percent and Libertarian Dell Schanze's 2.62 percent. At the state level, however, Democrats did manage to pick up two seats in the Utah House of Representatives.

Results[]

2008 United States presidential election in Utah
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	John McCain	Sarah Palin	596,030	62.24%	5
	Democratic	Barack Obama	Joe Biden	327,670	34.22%	0
	Constitution	Chuck Baldwin	Darrell Castle	12,012	1.25%	0
	Peace and Freedom	Ralph Nader	Matt Gonzalez	8,416	0.88%	0
	Libertarian	Bob Barr	Wayne Allyn Root	6,966	0.73%	0
	Write-ins	Write-ins		5,224	0.55%	0
	Green	Cynthia McKinney	Rosa Clemente	982	0.10%	0
	Others	Others		290	0.03%	0
Totals				957,590	100.00%	5
Voter turnout (Voting age population)						55.5%

Results by county[]

County[24]	John Sidney McCain III Republican		Barack Hussein Obama Democratic		Charles Obadiah Baldwin[25] Constitution		Ralph Nader[25] Peace and Freedom		Robert Laurence Barr Jr.[25] Libertarian		Various candidates[25] Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Beaver	1,902	75.81%	542	21.60%	30	1.20%	21	0.84%	12	0.48%	2	0.08%	1,360	54.20%	2,509
Box Elder	15,228	79.90%	3,311	17.37%	221	1.16%	147	0.77%	127	0.67%	24	0.13%	11,917	62.53%	19,058
Cache	29,127	70.47%	10,294	24.91%	1,153	2.79%	315	0.76%	372	0.90%	71	0.17%	18,833	45.57%	41,332
Carbon	4,091	52.60%	3,468	44.59%	62	0.80%	90	1.16%	48	0.62%	18	0.23%	623	8.01%	7,777
Daggett	297	67.65%	131	29.84%	2	0.46%	8	1.82%	1	0.23%	0	0.00%	166	37.81%	439
Davis	77,341	69.74%	30,477	27.48%	1,175	1.06%	956	0.86%	811	0.73%	142	0.13%	46,864	42.26%	110,902
Duchesne	4,689	81.63%	911	15.86%	66	1.15%	27	0.47%	37	0.64%	14	0.24%	3,778	65.77%	5,744
Emery	3,358	75.49%	973	21.88%	43	0.97%	39	0.88%	26	0.58%	9	0.20%	2,385	53.62%	4,448
Garfield	1,663	79.12%	402	19.12%	13	0.62%	9	0.43%	10	0.48%	5	0.24%	1,261	59.99%	2,102
Grand	1,871	45.89%	2,067	50.70%	28	0.69%	56	1.37%	30	0.74%	25	0.61%	-196	-4.81%	4,077
Iron	12,518	76.10%	3,258	19.81%	352	2.14%	138	0.84%	163	0.99%	21	0.13%	9,260	56.29%	16,450
Juab	2,683	74.20%	741	20.49%	129	3.57%	30	0.83%	28	0.77%	5	0.14%	1,942	53.71%	3,616
Kane	2,212	70.13%	856	27.14%	27	0.86%	31	0.98%	24	0.76%	4	0.13%	1,356	42.99%	3,154
Millard	3,653	77.08%	758	15.99%	264	5.57%	27	0.57%	34	0.72%	3	0.06%	2,895	61.09%	4,739
Morgan	3,311	79.57%	689	16.56%	102	2.45%	28	0.67%	29	0.70%	2	0.05%	2,622	63.01%	4,161
Piute	635	79.57%	141	17.67%	13	1.63%	7	0.88%	2	0.25%	0	0.00%	494	61.90%	798
Rich	831	82.60%	154	15.31%	9	0.89%	5	0.50%	5	0.50%	2	0.20%	677	67.30%	1,006
Salt Lake	176,692	48.58%	176,988	48.66%	3,229	0.89%	3,768	1.04%	2,556	0.70%	516	0.14%	-296	-0.08%	363,749
San Juan	2,638	51.42%	2,406	46.90%	45	0.88%	25	0.49%	14	0.27%	2	0.04%	232	4.52%	5,130
Sanpete	6,664	75.98%	1,631	18.60%	324	3.69%	87	0.99%	54	0.62%	11	0.13%	5,033	57.38%	8,771
Sevier	6,394	79.86%	1,359	16.97%	131	1.64%	52	0.65%	53	0.66%	18	0.22%	5,035	62.88%	8,007
Summit	6,956	41.38%	9,532	56.71%	75	0.45%	126	0.75%	104	0.62%	16	0.10%	-2,576	-15.33%	16,809
Tooele	10,998	63.44%	5,830	33.63%	206	1.19%	151	0.87%	137	0.79%	15	0.09%	5,168	29.81%	17,337
Uintah	8,441	83.15%	1,462	14.40%	157	1.55%	45	0.44%	37	0.36%	9	0.09%	6,979	68.75%	10,151
Utah	122,224	77.71%	29,567	18.80%	2,877	1.83%	1,119	0.71%	1,311	0.83%	181	0.12%	92,657	58.91%	157,279
Wasatch	5,430	63.65%	2,892	33.90%	81	0.95%	86	1.01%	30	0.35%	12	0.14%	2,538	29.75%	8,531
Washington	37,311	75.33%	10,826	21.86%	628	1.27%	312	0.63%	413	0.83%	39	0.08%	26,485	53.47%	49,529
Wayne	940	71.54%	335	25.49%	10	0.76%	12	0.91%	12	0.91%	5	0.38%	605	46.04%	1,314
Weber	45,885	62.52%	25,666	34.97%	557	0.76%	697	0.95%	485	0.66%	104	0.14%	20,219	27.55%	73,394
Totals	596,030	62.58%	327,670	34.41%	12,012	1.26%	8,416	0.88%	6,966	0.73%	1,276	0.13%	268,360	28.18%	952,370

By congressional district[]

John McCain swept all three of the state's congressional districts.

District	McCain	Obama	Representative
1st	63.62%	33.42%	Rob Bishop
2nd	57.72%	39.55%	Jim Matheson
3rd	67.35%	29.25%	Chris Cannon (110th Congress)
			Jason Chaffetz (111th Congress)

Electors[]

Technically the voters of Utah cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Utah 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.^[26] 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 John McCain and Sarah Palin:^[27]

1. Scott Simpson
2. Richard Snelgrove
3. Stan Lockhart
4. Enid Greene-Mickelesen
5. Mark Shurtleff

References[]