United States Presidential Election Swing States, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona. As the campaign progressed, the War in Iraq and outgoing Republican President George W. Bush had become increasingly unpopular, and the major-party candidates ran on a platform of change and reform. Domestic policy and the economy eventually emerged as the main themes in the last few months of the election campaign after the onset of the worst recession since the 1930s. Obama would go on to win a decisive victory over McCain in both the electoral and popular vote. Obama received the most votes for a presidential candidate in American history, and won the popular and electoral vote by the largest margin in 12 years, as well as the largest percentage of the popular vote for a Democrat in nearly a half-century.
This was the first U.S. presidential election in which an African American was elected, having also been the first in which an African American won the nomination of either major party. This election was also notable for being the first time in U.S. history that both major party candidates were sitting U.S. Senators, only the third time (after 1920 and 1960) that any sitting U.S. Senator was elected president, and only the second time that the winning President and Vice President (Obama and Biden) were both sitting U.S. Senators. This was also the first election since 1952 in which neither of the major parties' nominees was the incumbent President or Vice President.
Read more about United States Presidential Election Swing States, 2008: Background, Nominations, General Election Campaign, Conduct, Results, Voter Demographics, Analysis, See Also
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)