 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 County results Congressional district results
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The2008 United States presidential election in Nevada was part of the2008 United States presidential election, which took place on November 4, 2008, throughout all 50 states andD.C. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
DemocratBarack Obama defeated RepublicanJohn McCain by 12.5 percentage points. Both candidates heavily campaigned in the state. Although Obama almost always led in polls, some argued that McCain, a nationally prominent senator from neighboring Arizona, had a legitimate chance of pulling off an upset in Nevada. Most news organizations considered Obama to be the favorite in the state, while many still viewed it as a relativeswing state.[1] In the previous four presidential elections, the margin of victory in Nevada had always been below 5 percentage points.George W. Bush carried the state twice in2000 and2004 whileBill Clinton narrowly won it in1992 and in1996. This was the first time since1964 that a Democrat won an outright majority of the vote in Nevada.
As of the2024 presidential election, this is the last time a Democratic candidate wonCarson City, as well as the last time that a presidential candidate has carried the state by a double-digit margin. Obama's winning margin of over 120,000 votes is the largest in history for a presidential candidate in Nevada, with no one else ever winning by six figures.
There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:
| Source | Ranking |
|---|---|
| D.C. Political Report[2] | Likely R |
| Cook Political Report[3] | Lean D(flip) |
| The Takeaway[4] | Lean D(flip) |
| Electoral-vote.com[5] | Lean D(flip) |
| Washington Post[6] | Lean D(flip) |
| Politico[7] | Lean D(flip) |
| RealClearPolitics[8] | Lean D(flip) |
| FiveThirtyEight[6] | Lean D(flip) |
| CQ Politics[9] | Lean D(flip) |
| The New York Times[10] | Lean D(flip) |
| CNN[11] | Lean D(flip) |
| NPR[6] | Lean D(flip) |
| MSNBC[6] | Toss-up |
| Fox News[12] | Toss-up |
| Associated Press[13] | Toss-up |
| Rasmussen Reports[14] | Toss-up |
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.[15] On election day, Obama won the state with 55% and by a double-digit margin of victory, a much better performance than polls showed.
John McCain raised a total of $1,980,771 in the state. Barack Obama raised $2,328,659.[16]
Obama and his interest groups spent $9,622,022. McCain and his interest groups spent $6,184,427.[17] Each campaign visited the state 7 times.[18]
Nevada is historically somewhat of abellwether state, having voted for the winner of every presidential election since1912 except in1976 and2016. In 2008, McCain of neighboringArizona was leading most polls taken March until the end of September (around the time of the2008 financial crisis), when Obama ofIllinois started taking the lead in almost every poll conducted from the beginning of October on, some in double digits.[19] 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 toLas Vegas;Washoe County, which containsReno; and the independent city ofCarson City,[20] 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.[21] 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 sinceLyndon B. Johnson won them in1964. 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's1968 win.[22] 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 since1960 and second since1944.[23]
At the same time, Democrats picked up aU.S. House seat inNevada's 3rd Congressional District, which is based in Clark County and consists of most of the Las Vegas suburbs. DemocraticState SenatorDina Titus defeated incumbent RepublicanJon 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 theNevada Assembly and picked up two seats in the Nevada Senate, giving the Democrats control of both chambers of theNevada Legislature for the first time in decades.
As of the2024 presidential election, this is the last time thatCarson City voted for the Democratic candidate. This is the most recent election that Nevada trended more Democratic than the previous one.
| 2008 United States presidential election in Nevada | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Running mate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | Barack Obama | Joe Biden | 533,736 | 55.15% | 5 | |
| Republican | John McCain | Sarah Palin | 412,827 | 42.65% | 0 | |
| None of these Candidates | None of these Candidates | 6,267 | 0.65% | 0 | ||
| Independent | Ralph Nader | Matt Gonzalez | 6,150 | 0.64% | 0 | |
| Libertarian | Bob Barr | Wayne Allyn Root | 4,263 | 0.44% | 0 | |
| Constitution | Chuck Baldwin | Darrell Castle | 3,194 | 0.33% | 0 | |
| Green | Cynthia McKinney | Rosa Clemente | 1,411 | 0.15% | 0 | |
| Totals | 967,848 | 100.00% | 5 | |||
| Voter turnout (Voting age population) | 49.7% | |||||
| County | Barack Obama Democratic | John McCain Republican | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Carson City | 11,623 | 49.08% | 11,419 | 48.22% | 638 | 2.70% | 204 | 0.86% | 23,680 |
| Churchill | 3,494 | 32.95% | 6,832 | 64.42% | 279 | 2.63% | -3,338 | -31.47% | 10,605 |
| Clark | 380,765 | 58.47% | 257,078 | 39.48% | 13,329 | 2.05% | 123,687 | 18.99% | 651,172 |
| Douglas | 10,672 | 41.20% | 14,648 | 56.55% | 584 | 2.25% | -3,976 | -15.35% | 25,904 |
| Elko | 4,541 | 28.35% | 10,969 | 68.47% | 509 | 3.18% | -6,428 | -40.12% | 16,019 |
| Esmeralda | 104 | 23.69% | 303 | 69.02% | 32 | 7.29% | -199 | -45.33% | 439 |
| Eureka | 144 | 19.33% | 564 | 75.70% | 37 | 4.97% | -420 | -56.37% | 745 |
| Humboldt | 1,909 | 33.70% | 3,586 | 63.31% | 169 | 2.99% | -1,677 | -29.61% | 5,664 |
| Lander | 577 | 27.45% | 1,466 | 69.74% | 59 | 2.81% | -889 | -42.29% | 2,102 |
| Lincoln | 518 | 24.58% | 1,498 | 71.10% | 91 | 4.32% | -980 | -46.52% | 2,107 |
| Lyon | 8,405 | 39.83% | 12,154 | 57.59% | 544 | 2.58% | -3,749 | -17.76% | 21,103 |
| Mineral | 1,082 | 46.90% | 1,131 | 49.02% | 94 | 4.08% | -49 | -2.12% | 2,307 |
| Nye | 7,226 | 41.31% | 9,537 | 54.53% | 728 | 4.16% | -2,311 | -13.22% | 17,491 |
| Pershing | 673 | 36.66% | 1,075 | 58.55% | 88 | 4.79% | -402 | -21.89% | 1,836 |
| Storey | 1,102 | 45.57% | 1,247 | 51.57% | 69 | 2.86% | -145 | -6.00% | 2,418 |
| Washoe | 99,671 | 55.25% | 76,880 | 42.61% | 3,863 | 2.14% | 22,791 | 12.64% | 180,414 |
| White Pine | 1,230 | 32.01% | 2,440 | 63.51% | 172 | 4.48% | -1,210 | -31.50% | 3,842 |
| Totals | 533,736 | 55.15% | 412,827 | 42.65% | 21,285 | 2.20% | 120,909 | 12.50% | 967,848 |
| Democratic Hold Gain from Republican | Republican Hold |
Barack Obama carried two of the state's three congressional districts.
| District | McCain | Obama | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 34.25% | 63.68% | Shelley Berkley |
| 2nd | 48.79% | 48.76% | Dean Heller |
| 3rd | 42.59% | 55.35% | Jon Porter (110th Congress) |
| Dina Titus (111th Congress) |
Technically the voters of Nevada cast their ballots for electors: representatives to theElectoral College. Nevada is allocated 5 electors because it has 3congressional districts and 2senators. 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.[24] An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as afaithless elector.
The electors of each state and theDistrict 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 toBarack Obama andJoe Biden:[25]
State and district results of the2008 United States presidential election | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
.jpg)
