US presidential election, 2008

United States presidential election, 2008

← 2004 November 4, 2008 2012 →
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	58.2% 1.5 pp
Nominee Barack Obama John McCain Party Democratic Republican Home state Illinois Arizona Running mate Joe Biden Sarah Palin Electoral vote 365 173 States carried 28 + DC + NE-02 22 Popular vote 69,498,516 59,948,323 Percentage 52.9% 45.7%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes those won by Obama/Biden, red denotes states won by McCain/Palin. Numbers indicate electoral votes allotted to the winner of each state.
President before election George W. Bush Republican Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

George W. Bush
Republican

Barack Obama
Democratic

The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, a Senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, a long-time Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Obama became the first African American ever to be elected as president.

The incumbent Republican president, George W. Bush, was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment. As neither Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney sought the presidency, the 2008 election was the first election since 1952 in which neither major party's presidential nominee was the incumbent president or the incumbent vice president. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and other challengers. The Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, Senator Hillary Clinton. 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 clinched the Democratic nomination in June 2008.