United States presidential election in Arizona, 2008

Main article: United States presidential election, 2008

United States presidential election in Arizona, 2008

November 4, 2008

Nominee John McCain Barack Obama Party Republican Democratic Home state Arizona Illinois Running mate Sarah Palin Joe Biden Electoral vote 10 0 Popular vote 1,230,111 1,034,707 Percentage 53.39% 44.91%

200px County results

President before election George W. Bush Republican Elected President Barack Obama Democratic

The 2008 United States presidential election in Arizona took place on November 4, 2008 throughout all 50 states and D.C., which was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 10 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.

Arizona was won by Republican nominee and favorite son John McCain with an 8.5% margin of victory. Prior to the election, 16 of 17 news organizations considered this a state McCain would win, or otherwise considered as a red state. It was the home state of John McCain and has only been carried by a Democrat once since 1948. However, polls taken near Election Day in 2008 showed Democrat Barack Obama closer than expected to winning the state. McCain carried all but four of the state's 15 counties.

Primaries

• Arizona Democratic primary, 2008
• Arizona Republican primary, 2008

Campaign

Predictions

There were 17 news organizations who made state by state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:

1. D.C. Political Report: Republican
2. Cook Political Report: Leaning Republican
3. Takeaway: Leaning McCain
4. Election Projection: Leaning McCain
5. Electoral-vote.com: Leaning Republican
6. Washington Post: Leaning McCain
7. Politico: Solid McCain
8. Real Clear Politics: Toss Up
9. FiveThirtyEight.com: Solid McCain
10. CQ Politics: Leaning Republican
11. New York Times: Solid Republican
12. CNN: Leaning Republican
13. NPR: Leaning McCain
14. MSNBC: Leaning McCain
15. Fox News: Republican
16. Associated Press: Republican
17. Rasmussen Reports: Safe Republican

Polling

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

Opinion polls taken from February through to October 2008 showed McCain leading Obama by margins of between 1% and 21%. The final RealClearPolitics average gave the state an average of 53.8% for McCain, compared to 45.0% for Obama.

Fundraising

John McCain raised $7,448,622. Barack Obama raised $5,491,056.

Advertising and visits

Obama and his interest groups spent $1,510,900 in the state. McCain and his interest groups spent just $751. The Democratic ticket didn't visit the state. Arizona native John McCain visited the state 5 times in the election campaign.

Analysis

Arizona has long been a Republican-dominated state. It is represented in the Senate by two Republicans (John McCain and Jon Kyl). It has only supported a Democrat for president once in the last 60 years, when Bill Clinton carried it in 1996. In addition, both the Arizona Senate and Arizona House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans. However, the Governor was Democrat Janet Napolitano, and both parties held four House 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 percent of the vote. By comparison, he'd been reelected in 2004 with 77 percent 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. One major factor is the growing Hispanic vote in the state, a voting bloc that tends to favor the Democrats, although both George W. Bush and John McCain held moderate positions on illegal immigration.

Arizona politics are dominated by Maricopa and Pima 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 the State Senate and three seats in the State House. The Democrats, however, managed to win the open seat in Arizona's 1st congressional district, with former state representative Ann 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.

Results

Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin, Boston Tea Party nominee Charles Jay and independent candidate Jonathan Allen were registered write-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:

Results breakdown

By county

County	McCain#	McCain%	Obama#	Obama%	Barr#	Barr%	Nader#	Nader%	McKinney#	McKinney%	Others#	Others%	Total ballots	Total eligible registration	Voter turnout
Apache	8,551	34.3%	15,390	61.8%	111	0.4%	109	0.4%	75	0.3%	26	0.1%	24,907	41,425	60.13%
Cochise	29,026	58.8%	18,943	38.4%	371	0.8%	356	0.7%	90	0.2%	34	0.1%	49,390	70,715	69.84%
Coconino	22,186	40.4%	31,433	57.3%	267	0.5%	309	0.6%	117	0.2%	32	0.1%	54,861	69,855	78.54%
Gila	14,095	62.0%	7,884	34.7%	150	0.7%	156	0.7%	31	0.1%	17	0.1%	22,717	31,132	72.97%
Graham	8,376	68.8%	3,487	28.7%	60	0.5%	56	0.5%	23	0.2%	5	0.0%	12,170	17,282	70.42%
Greenlee	1,712	57.7%	1,165	39.3%	16	0.5%	17	0.6%	3	0.1%	0	0.0%	2,968	4,337	68.43%
La Paz	3,509	61.9%	1,929	34.0%	39	0.7%	53	0.9%	14	0.2%	8	0.1%	5,671	8,195	69.20%
Maricopa	746,448	54.0%	602,166	43.6%	7,605	0.6%	6,095	0.4%	1,799	0.1%	849	0.1%	1,380,571	1,730,886	79.76%
Mohave	44,333	64.3%	22,092	32.0%	433	0.6%	561	0.8%	111	0.2%	75	0.1%	68,930	105,200	65.52%
Navajo	19,761	54.3%	15,579	42.8%	158	0.4%	182	0.5%	70	0.2%	50	0.1%	36,366	58,528	62.13%
Pima	182,406	45.9%	206,254	51.9%	1,923	0.5%	1,995	0.5%	683	0.2%	167	0.0%	397,503	496,667	80.03%
Pinal	59,421	56.0%	44,254	41.7%	530	0.5%	562	0.5%	116	0.1%	0	0.0%	106,095	145,704	72.82%
Santa Cruz	4,518	33.4%	8,683	64.1%	49	0.4%	35	0.3%	17	0.1%	1	0.0%	13,542	21,287	63.62%
Yavapai	61,192	60.6%	36,889	36.6%	638	0.6%	638	0.6%	185	0.2%	106	0.1%	100,904	118,923	84.85%
Yuma	24,577	55.5%	18,559	41.9%	205	0.5%	177	0.4%	72	0.2%	25	0.1%	44,256	67,315	65.74%
Total	1,230,111	53.0%	1,034,707	44.6%	12,555	0.5%	11,301	0.5%	3,406	0.1%	1,395	0.1%	2,230,851	2,987,451	77.69%
Source:

By congressional district

McCain won a majority of the vote in six of Arizona's eight congressional districts, while Obama won two. McCain won two districts (AZ-08 and AZ-05) represented by Democrats (Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell, respectively), and one other (AZ-01) represented by a Republican at the time but which voted for a Democrat (Ann Kirkpatrick) in the simultaneous U.S. House elections. Both districts Obama carried are represented by Democrats.

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%	Gabrielle Giffords

Electors

Technically the voters of Arizona cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Arizona is allocated 10 electors because it has 8 congressional districts and 2 senators. 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 his or her 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. 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 10 were pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin:

1. Bruce Ash
2. Kurt Davis
3. Wes Gullett
4. Sharon Harper
5. Jack Londen
6. Beverly Lockett Miller
7. Lee Miller
8. Bettina Nava
9. Randy Pullen
10. Michael Rappoport