Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Illinois junior senator Barack Obama and Delaware senior senator Joe Biden, defeated the Republican ticket of Arizona senior senator John McCain and Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency.
Incumbent Republican president George W. Bush was ineligible to run for a third term due to the term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution; this was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, and the first since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating his main challengers Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, and selected Palin as his running mate. The Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, former first lady and Senator Hillary Clinton, as well as other challengers who dropped out before most of the primaries were held, including Senators John Edwards and Joe Biden. Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary made her the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary. After a long primary season, Obama narrowly secured the Democratic nomination in June 2008 and selected Biden as his running mate.
During his second term in office, Bush's popularity declined significantly, which was attributed to the growing disdain for the Iraq War, his response to Hurricane Katrina, the Abu Ghraib torture controversy, and the 2008 financial crisis. McCain opted to distance himself from Bush and did not campaign with him, nor did Bush appear in person at the 2008 Republican National Convention, although he did endorse McCain. Obama strongly opposed the Iraq War, as well as a troop surge that had begun in 2007, while McCain supported the war. Obama campaigned on the theme that "Washington must change", while McCain emphasized his experience. McCain's decision to suspend his campaign during the height of the financial crisis backfired as voters viewed his response as erratic.
Obama won a decisive victory over McCain, winning the Electoral College and popular vote by sizable margins, and flipping nine states that had voted Republican in 2004: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, as well as Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. He also won every state in the Great Lakes region.
Background
Article Two of the United States Constitution says that the president and vice president of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for at least 14 years. Candidates for president typically seek the nomination of a political party, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose a candidate for the position. Traditionally, the primaries are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the president and vice president. President George W. Bush, a Republican and former governor of Texas, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to the Twenty-second Amendment; in accordance with Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009.
Nominations
Democratic Party
Before the primaries
Media speculation had begun almost immediately after the results of the 2004 presidential election were released. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats regained majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Early polls taken before anyone had announced a candidacy had shown Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the most popular potential Democratic candidates. Nevertheless, the media speculated on several other candidates, including Al Gore, the runner-up in the 2000 election; John Kerry, the runner-up in the 2004 election; John Edwards, Kerry's running mate in 2004; Delaware Senator Joe Biden; New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson; Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack; and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.
Edwards was one of the first to formally announce his candidacy for the presidency, on December 28, 2006. This run would be his second attempt at the presidency. Clinton announced intentions to run in the Democratic primaries on January 20, 2007. Obama announced his candidacy on February 10 in his home state of Illinois.
Early primaries and caucuses
Early in the year, the support for Barack Obama started to increase in the polls and he passed Clinton for the top spot in Iowa; he ended up winning the caucus in that state, with Edwards coming in second and Clinton in third. Obama's win was fueled mostly by first time caucus-goers and Independents and showed voters viewed him as the "candidate of change". Iowa has since been viewed as the state that jump-started Obama's campaign and set him on track to win both the nomination and the presidency. After the Iowa caucus, Biden and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd withdrew from the nomination contest.
Obama became the new front runner in New Hampshire, when his poll numbers skyrocketed after his Iowa victory. The Clinton campaign was struggling after a huge loss in Iowa and no strategy beyond the early primaries and caucuses. According to The Vancouver Sun, campaign strategists had "mapped a victory scenario that envisioned the former first lady wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination by Super Tuesday on Feb. 5." In what is considered a turning point for her campaign, Clinton had a strong performance at the Saint Anselm College, ABC, and Facebook debates several days before the New Hampshire primary as well as an emotional interview in a public broadcast live on TV. Clinton won that primary by 2% of the vote, contrary to the predictions of pollsters who consistently had her trailing Obama for a few days up to the primary date. Clinton's win was the first time a woman had ever won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection.
On January 30, 2008, after placing in third in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, Edwards announced that he was suspending his campaign for the presidency, but he did not initially endorse any remaining candidates.
Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday was February 5, 2008, when the largest-ever number of simultaneous state primary elections was held. Super Tuesday ended up leaving the Democrats in a virtual tie, with Obama amassing 847 delegates to Clinton's 834 from the 23 states that held Democratic primaries.
California was one of the Super Tuesday states that could provide a large number of delegates to the candidates. Obama trailed in the California polling by an average of 6.0% before the primary; he ended up losing that state by 8.3% of the vote. Some analysts cited a large Latino turnout that voted for Clinton as the deciding factor.
The Louisiana, Nebraska, Hawaii, Wisconsin, U.S. Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia primaries and the Washington and Maine caucuses all took place after Super Tuesday in February. Obama won all of them, giving him 10 consecutive victories after Super Tuesday.
Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania
On March 4, Hillary Clinton carried Ohio and Rhode Island in the Democratic primaries; some considered these wins, especially Ohio, a "surprise upset" by 10%, although she did lead in the polling averages in both states. She also carried the primary in Texas, but Obama won the Texas caucuses held the same day and netted more delegates from the state than Clinton.
Only one state held a primary in April. This was Pennsylvania, on April 22. Although Obama made a strong effort to win Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton won that primary by nearly 10%, with approximately 55% of the vote. Obama had outspent Clinton three to one in Pennsylvania, but his comment at a San Francisco fundraiser that small-town Americans "cling" to guns and religion drew sharp criticism from the Clinton campaign and may have hurt his chances in the Keystone State. In addition, Clinton had several advantages in Pennsylvania. Throughout the primary process, she relied on the support of older, white, working class voters. Pennsylvania held a closed primary, which means that only registered Democrats could vote, and, according to Ron Elving of NPR, the established Democratic electorate "was older, whiter, more Catholic and more working-class than in most of the primaries to date." After Pennsylvania, Obama had a higher number of delegates and popular votes than Clinton did and was still in a stronger position to win the nomination. Clinton, however, had received the endorsement of more superdelegates than Obama.
Indiana and North Carolina
On May 6, North Carolina and Indiana held their Democratic presidential primaries. Clinton and Obama campaigned aggressively there before the voting took place. Polling had shown Obama a few points ahead in North Carolina and Clinton similarly leading in Indiana. In the actual results, Obama outperformed the polls by several points in both states, winning by a significant margin in North Carolina and losing by only 1.1% in Indiana (50.56% to 49.44%). After these primaries, most pundits declared that it had become "increasingly improbable," if not impossible, for Clinton to win the nomination. The small win in Indiana barely kept her campaign alive for the next month. Although she did manage to win the majority of the remaining primaries and delegates, it was not enough to overcome Obama's substantial delegate lead.
Florida and Michigan
During late 2007, the two parties adopted rules against states' moving their primaries to an earlier date in the year. For the Republicans, the penalty for this violation was supposed to be the loss of half the state party's delegates to the convention. The Democratic penalty was the complete exclusion from the national convention of delegates from states that broke these rules. The Democratic Party allowed only four states to hold elections before February 5, 2008. Clinton won a majority of delegates and popular votes from both states (though 40% voted uncommitted in Michigan) and subsequently led a fight to seat all the Florida and Michigan delegates.
There was some speculation that the fight over the delegates could last until the convention in August. On May 31, 2008, the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic Party reached a compromise on the Florida and Michigan delegate situation. The committee decided to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida at the convention in August, but to only award each a half-vote.
Clinching the nomination
The major political party nomination process (technically) continues through June of an election year. In previous cycles, the candidates were effectively chosen by the end of the primaries held in March, but, in this cycle, Barack Obama did not win enough delegates to secure the nomination until June 3, after a 17-month campaign against Hillary Clinton. He had a wide lead in states won, while Clinton had won majorities in several of the larger states. Now, because a form of proportional representation and popular vote decided Democratic state delegate contests, numbers were close between Clinton and Obama. By May, Clinton claimed to hold a lead in the popular vote, but the Associated Press found that her numbers were "accurate only" in one close scenario.
In June, after the last of the primaries had taken place, Obama secured the Democratic nomination for president, with the help of multiple super delegate endorsements (most of the super delegates had refused to declare their support for either candidate until the primaries were completed). He was the first African American to win the nomination of a major political party in the United States. For several days, Clinton refused to concede the race, although she signaled her presidential campaign was ending in a post-primary speech on June 3 in her home state of New York. She finally conceded the nomination to Obama on June 7. She pledged her full support to the presumptive nominee and vowed to do everything she could to help him get elected. Clinton would eventually become the Democratic presidential nominee 8 years later, which she then lost the general election to Donald Trump.
Republican Party
Not only was the 2008 election the first time since 1952 that neither the incumbent president nor the incumbent vice president was a candidate in the general election, but it was also the first time since the 1928 election that neither sought his party's nomination for president; as Bush was term-limited from seeking another nomination, the unique aspect was Vice President Cheney's decision not to seek the Republican nomination. The 2008 election was also the third presidential election since 1896 in which neither the incumbent president, the incumbent vice president, nor a current or former member of the incumbent president's Cabinet won the nomination of either major party the others being 1920 and 1952. With no members of the Bush administration emerging as major contenders for the Republican nomination, the Republican race was as open as the Democratic race.