2008 United States presidential election in Arkansas

Primaries

• 2008 Arkansas Democratic presidential primary
• 2008 Arkansas Republican presidential 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:

Polling

Main article: Statewide opinion polling for the 2008 United States presidential election#Arkansas

John McCain won every single opinion poll taken in Arkansas prior to the election, with leads ranging from 7% to 29%. Although, McCain polled just in the low 50% range. RealClearPolitics gave the state an average of 52.3% for McCain, compared to 38.8% for Obama. The margin of victory on election day was more than double of the RCP average. The state was not seriously contested by either campaign.

Fundraising

Obama raised $1,004,783. McCain raised $934,884. Both candidates raised the most in Pulaski County.

Advertising and visits

Obama spent over $110,350. McCain spent only $459. Neither candidate visited the state.

Results

By county

Democratic Republican ]]

;Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Bradley (largest city: Warren)
• Clark (largest city: Arkadelphia)
• Clay (largest city: Piggott)
• Hempstead (largest city: Hope)
• Jackson (largest city: Newport)
• Lawrence (largest city: Walnut Ridge)
• Lincoln (largest city: Star City)
• Little River (largest city: Ashdown)
• Mississippi (largest city: Osceola)
• Monroe (largest city: Clarendon)
• Poinsett (largest city: Harrisburg)
• Randolph (largest city: Pocahontas)

By congressional district

McCain won all four congressional district in Arkansas, three of which were held by Democrats.

Electors

Main article: List of 2008 United States presidential electors

Technically the voters of Arkansas cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Arkansas is allocated 6 electors because it has 4 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 6 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 6 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. 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 6 were pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin:

1. Jim Burnett
2. Reta Hamilton
3. Rose Bryant Jones
4. Phyllis Kincannon
5. Steve Lux
6. Kermit Parks

Analysis

Although former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, easily carried his home state of Arkansas in 1992 and 1996, the state was largely considered a safe state for McCain. Early polls gave McCain a 9-point lead among possible voters on Election Day. Although the state was still strongly Democratic at the non-presidential levels, on Election Day, Arkansas voted for McCain by a margin of approximately 20% — ten points better than Bush's showing four years earlier. In this election, Arkansas voted 27.12% to the right of the nation at-large.

A handful of counties — some of which had not voted for the Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon won every county in 1972 — swung safely into the GOP column. The Delta county of Jackson, for example, swung from a 14.3-point victory for Democrat Kerry in 2004 to a 16.3-point victory for McCain in 2008. Possible factors suggested for such a large swing away from the Democrats was Obama's status as the first African American major-party nominee in a historically segregationist state still dominated by conservative whites, as well as the fact that Hillary Clinton, who once served as First Lady of Arkansas while her husband was Governor, did not receive the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Polling from the Spring showed Hillary Clinton defeating McCain in a hypothetical match-up in Arkansas. Obama became the first Democrat in history to win the White House without carrying Arkansas.

During the same election, however, freshman Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor faced no Republican opposition, and was reelected in a landslide victory over Rebekah Kennedy of the Green Party. The four members of the state's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives (three Democrats and one Republican) were also reelected with no major-party opposition. Republicans, however, picked up three seats in the Arkansas House of Representatives and one Democratic state representative became a Green (he later returned to the Democratic Party in 2009).

Notes

References

References

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