2008 United States presidential election in Nevada

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:

Polling

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

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. 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.

Advertising and visits

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

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. 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 Nevada by a 12.5-point margin, larger than most polls anticipated. His victory rested almost entirely on 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, 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. 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. 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.

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 2024 presidential election, this is the last time that Carson City voted for the Democratic candidate. This is the most recent election that Nevada trended more Democratic than the previous one.

Results

By county

Democratic Republican ]]

;Counties and independent cities that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• Carson City
• Washoe (largest municipality: Reno)

By congressional district

Barack Obama carried two of the state's three congressional districts.

Electors

Main article: List of 2008 United States presidential 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. 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:

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

References

References

1. [http://vote2008.thetakeaway.org/2008/09/20/track-the-electoral-college-vote-predictions/ Vote 2008 – The Takeaway – Track the Electoral College vote predictions] {{webarchive. link. (April 22, 2009)
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6. Based on Takeaway
7. "POLITICO's 2008 Swing State Map - POLITICO.com".
8. "RealClearPolitics – Electoral Map".
9. "CQ Presidential Election Maps, 2008".
10. (2008-11-04). "The Electoral Map: Key States". The New York Times.
11. (2008-10-31). "October – 2008 – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs". CNN.
12. (April 27, 2010). "Winning The Electoral College". Fox News.
13. "roadto270".
14. "Election 2008: Electoral College Update – Rasmussen Reports".
15. "Election 2008 Polls – Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections".
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17. "Map: Campaign Ad Spending - Election Center 2008 from CNN.com". CNN.
18. "Map: Campaign Candidate Visits - Election Center 2008 from CNN.com". CNN.
19. "RealClearPolitics – Election 2008 – Nevada".
20. "CNN Election Center 2008 – Nevada Results".
21. Cost, Jay. (2009-01-18). "Election Review, Part 3: The West". RealClearPolitics.
22. Sullivan, Robert David; [http://www.americamagazine.org/content/unconventional-wisdom/how-red-and-blue-map-evolved-over-past-century ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’]; ''America Magazine'' in ''The National Catholic Review''; June 29, 2016
23. Counting the Votes; [https://web.archive.org/web/20161231170405/http://www.countingthevotes.com/nevada Nevada]
24. "Electoral College". [[California Secretary of State]].
25. (December 2022)