 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 77.69% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 County results Congressional district results Precinct results
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Elections in Arizona | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||
| ||||||||
The2008 United States presidential election in Arizona took place on November 4, 2008, and was part of the2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 10 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Arizona was won by Republican nominee and native sonJohn McCain with an 8.48% margin of victory over DemocratBarack Obama. McCain had served as United States Senator from the state since 1987, and enjoyed high approval ratings. Prior to the election, sixteen of seventeen news organizations considered this a state McCain would win, or ared state. Some polls taken near Election Day in 2008 showed DemocratBarack Obama closer than expected to winning it, but these did not come to fruition, as McCain won Arizona by high-single digits and carried all but four of the state's15 counties.[1] Nonetheless, this was closer than any of McCain's Senate victories and was a smaller margin than Bush's 10.5% margin 4 years earlier.
Obama became the first Democrat to win the White House without winningGila,Greenlee,La Paz, orPinal Counties since Arizona statehood in 1912, as well as the first to do so without winningNavajo County sinceLyndon B. Johnson in1964.
Arizona was one of only two states that voted against Obama in both 2008 and 2012 that his vice president Joe Biden would go on to win in2020, the other beingGeorgia.
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 R |
| The Takeaway[4] | Lean R |
| Electoral-vote.com[5] | Lean R |
| Washington Post[6] | Lean R |
| Politico[7] | Solid R |
| RealClearPolitics[8] | Toss-up |
| FiveThirtyEight[6] | Solid R |
| CQ Politics[9] | Lean R |
| The New York Times[10] | Solid R |
| CNN[11] | Lean R |
| NPR[6] | Lean R |
| MSNBC[6] | Lean R |
| Fox News[12] | Likely R |
| Associated Press[13] | Likely R |
| Rasmussen Reports[14] | Safe R |
Opinion polls taken from February through to October 2008 showed McCain leading Obama by margins of between 1% and 21%. The finalRealClearPolitics average gave the state an average of 53.8% for McCain, compared to 45.0% for Obama.[15]
John McCain raised $7,448,622. Barack Obama raised $5,491,056.[16]
Obama and his interest groups spent $1,510,900 in the state. McCain and his interest groups spent just $751.[17] The Democratic ticket did not visit the state. Arizona nativeJohn McCain visited the state 5 times in the election campaign.[18]
Arizona has long been a Republican-dominated state. At the time, it was represented in theSenate by two Republicans (John McCain andJon Kyl). After 1948, Arizona did not vote Democratic in a presidential race again until 1996, after which it did not vote Democrat again until 2020. In addition, both theArizona Senate andArizona House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans. However, theGovernor was DemocratJanet Napolitano, and both parties held fourHouse seats each before the election.
Arizona was McCain's home state and gave its 10 electoral votes to its favorite son. However, he won just under 54% of the vote. By comparison, he'd been reelected in 2004 with 77% of the vote, one of the largest margins of victory for a statewide race in Arizona history. This led to speculation that the race would have been far closer without McCain on the ballot.[19] One major factor is the growingHispanic vote in the state, a voting bloc that tends to favor the Democrats, although bothGeorge W. Bush and John McCain held moderate positions onillegal immigration.
Arizona politics are dominated byMaricopa andPima counties, home to Phoenix and Tucson respectively. Between them, these two counties cast almost three-fourths of the state's vote and elect a substantial majority of the legislature. Maricopa County, a Republican stronghold since 1948, gave McCain an 11-point victory. This alone was more than enough to make up for Obama's narrow victory in Democratic-leaning Tucson. McCain also did well elsewhere throughout the state, winning the more sparsely populated counties by double digits.
The election also saw Republicans making gains in the state legislature, as the GOP picked up one seat in theState Senate and three seats in theState House. The Democrats, however, managed to win the open seat inArizona's 1st congressional district, with former state representativeAnn Kirkpatrick cruising to victory over Republican Sydney Hay, giving the Democrats a majority of the state's House seats for the first time in 60 years.
Constitution Party nomineeChuck Baldwin,Boston Tea Party nomineeCharles Jay andindependent candidate Jonathan Allen were registeredwrite-in candidates in Arizona.
| Party | Candidate | Running mate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John McCain | Sarah Palin | 1,230,111 | 53.39% | 10 | |
| Democratic | Barack Obama | Joe Biden | 1,034,707 | 44.91% | 0 | |
| Libertarian | Bob Barr | Wayne Allyn Root | 12,555 | 0.54% | 0 | |
| Independent | Ralph Nader | Matt Gonzalez | 11,301 | 0.49% | 0 | |
| Green | Cynthia McKinney | Rosa Clemente | 3,406 | 0.15% | 0 | |
| Constitution | Chuck Baldwin (write-in) | Darrell Castle | 1,371 | 0.06% | 0 | |
| Independent | Charles Jay (write-in) | Barry Hess | 16 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Independent | Jonathan Allen (write-in) | Jeffrey Stath | 8 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Invalid or blank votes | 27,376 | 1.18% | — | |||
| Totals | 2,320,851 | 100.00% | 10 | |||
| Voter turnout | 77.69% | |||||
| Source:[20] | ||||||
| County | John McCain Republican | Barack Obama Democratic | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Apache | 8,551 | 35.11% | 15,390 | 63.19% | 414 | 1.70% | -6,839 | -28.08% | 24,355 |
| Cochise | 29,026 | 59.14% | 18,943 | 38.60% | 1,112 | 2.27% | 10,083 | 20.54% | 49,081 |
| Coconino | 22,186 | 40.65% | 31,433 | 57.59% | 964 | 1.77% | -9,247 | -16.94% | 54,583 |
| Gila | 14,095 | 62.88% | 7,884 | 35.17% | 438 | 1.95% | 6,211 | 27.71% | 22,417 |
| Graham | 8,376 | 69.40% | 3,487 | 28.89% | 206 | 1.71% | 4,889 | 40.51% | 12,069 |
| Greenlee | 1,712 | 58.63% | 1,165 | 39.90% | 43 | 1.47% | 547 | 18.73% | 2,920 |
| La Paz | 3,509 | 62.92% | 1,929 | 34.59% | 139 | 2.49% | 1,580 | 28.33% | 5,577 |
| Maricopa | 746,448 | 54.43% | 602,166 | 43.91% | 22,756 | 1.66% | 144,282 | 10.52% | 1,371,370 |
| Mohave | 44,333 | 65.20% | 22,092 | 32.49% | 1,570 | 2.31% | 22,241 | 32.71% | 67,995 |
| Navajo | 19,761 | 55.00% | 15,579 | 43.36% | 592 | 1.65% | 4,182 | 11.64% | 35,932 |
| Pima | 182,406 | 46.20% | 206,254 | 52.24% | 6,180 | 1.57% | -23,848 | -6.04% | 394,840 |
| Pinal | 59,421 | 56.38% | 44,254 | 41.99% | 1,723 | 1.63% | 15,167 | 14.39% | 105,398 |
| Santa Cruz | 4,518 | 33.86% | 8,683 | 65.07% | 143 | 1.07% | -4,165 | -31.21% | 13,344 |
| Yavapai | 61,192 | 61.08% | 36,889 | 36.82% | 2,104 | 2.10% | 24,303 | 24.26% | 100,185 |
| Yuma | 24,577 | 56.15% | 18,559 | 42.40% | 636 | 1.45% | 6,018 | 13.75% | 43,772 |
| Totals | 1,230,111 | 53.39% | 1,034,707 | 44.91% | 39,020 | 1.69% | 195,404 | 8.48% | 2,303,838 |
McCain won six of Arizona's eight congressional districts, including three districts that elected Democrats.[21]
| District | McCain | Obama | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 54.42% | 44.25% | Rick Renzi (110th Congress) |
| Ann Kirkpatrick (111th Congress) | |||
| 2nd | 60.75% | 38.07% | Trent Franks |
| 3rd | 56.47% | 42.34% | John Shadegg |
| 4th | 33.02% | 65.73% | Ed Pastor |
| 5th | 51.7% | 47.17% | Harry Mitchell |
| 6th | 61.32% | 37.55% | Jeff Flake |
| 7th | 41.65% | 57.19% | Raul Grijalva |
| 8th | 52.37% | 46.43% | Gabby Giffords |
Technically the voters of Arizona cast their ballots for electors: representatives to theElectoral College. Arizona is allocated 10 electors because it has 8congressional districts and 2senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 10 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and their running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 10 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.[22] An elector who votes for someone other than their 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 10 were pledged toJohn McCain andSarah Palin:[23][24]
.jpg)
