How Many Republicans Voted For Obama In 2008

Bush Ties In The 12 Biggest States

In 2004, the 69,323,699 votes cast in the 12 biggest states divided almost equally:

• 34,784,178 votes were for Kerry, and
• 34,539,521 votes were for Bush.

Kerrys slender 244,657-vote margin of victory in the 12 biggest states was about one-third of one percent of the 69,323,699 votes cast in those states .

Kerry received 50.2% of the popular vote from the 12 biggest states, and Bush received 49.8%.

Having fought Kerry to a near-tie in the 12 biggest states, Bush then won the 39 smallest jurisdictions by a margin of 3,256,828 votes , thereby ending up with a margin of victory of 3,012,171 in the national popular vote.

Table 9.33 shows the popular vote for Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush in the 2004 election in the 12 biggest states. Column 4 shows Bushs percentage of the two-party vote. Columns 5 and 6 show the Republican and Democratic margins, respectively, for each state. Columns 7 and 8 show the Republican and Democratic electoral votes, respectively, for each state.

Table 9.33 Results of the 2004 election in the 12 biggest states

Appendix HH presents the 2012 two-party presidential vote for all 50 states and the District of Columbia in alphabetical order. See table 9.45 for the presidential vote for Barack Obama , Mitt Romney , Gary Johnson , Jill Stein , and the other 22 minor-party and independent candidates who were on the ballot in 2012 in at least one state.

Exit Polls: How Obama Won

Barack Obama, who will be the nations first African-American president, won the largest share of white support of any Democrat in a two-man race since 1976 amid a backdrop of economic anxiety unseen in at least a quarter-century, according to exit polls by The Associated Press and the major television networks.

Obama became the first Democrat to also win a majority since Jimmy Carter with the near-unanimous backing of blacks and the overwhelming support of youth as well as significant inroads with white men and strong support among Hispanics and educated voters.

The Illinois senator won 43 percent of white voters, 4 percentage points below Carters performance in 1976 and equal to what Bill Clinton won in the three-man race of 1996. Republican John McCain won 55 percent of the white vote.

Fully 96 percent of black voters supported Obama and constituted 13 percent of the electorate, a 2-percentage-point rise in their national turnout. As in past years, black women turned out at a higher rate than black men.

A stunning 54 percent of young white voters supported Obama, compared with 44 percent who went for McCain, the senator from Arizona. In the past three decades, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 45 percent of young whites.

See Also

• The best party is a Hollywood party

It also appears youth turnout rose 1 point since 2004, to constitute 18 percent of the electorate.

Electoral History Of Barack Obama

This is the electoral history of Barack Obama. Obama served as the 44th president of the United States and as a United States senator from Illinois .

A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 representing the 13th district, which covered much of the Chicago South Side. In 2000, Obama ran an unsuccessful campaign for Illinois’s 1st congressional district against four-term incumbentBobby Rush. In 2004, Obama campaigned for the U.S. Senate, participating in the first Senate election in which both major party candidates were African American, the other being Alan Keyes. Obama won the election, gaining a seat previously held by a Republican.

In 2008, Obama entered the Democratic primaries for the U.S. presidential election. Numerous candidates entered initially, but over time the field narrowed down to Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton from New York. The contest was highly competitive between the two, with neither being able to reach a majority of delegates without the addition of unpledged delegates. Eventually, Clinton ended her campaign, endorsing Obama for the nomination, prompting his victory. He went on to face Senator John McCain from Arizona as the Republican nominee, defeating him with 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173.

Fact Check: Clarifying The Comparison Between Popular Vote And Counties Won In The 2020 Election

9 Min Read

Posts circulating on social media point to the number of counties won and number of votes cast for President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 U.S. election, suggesting that disparities in those numbers are evidence of fraud or election irregularity. This is misleading. Given counties vary widely in population size, so does the number of votes cast per county.

Examples are visible here , here . Most iterations include a screenshot of a tweet by conservative activist Charlie Kirk dated Dec. 20, 2020 here , which has been retweeted over 48,400 times as of the publishing of this fact check . 

The post reads: Barack Obama: 69,000,000 votes 873 counties. Donald Trump: 75,000,000 votes 2,497 counties. Joe Biden: 81,000,000 votes 477 counties …And were not allowed to question his victory.

Some posts with this claim referring to voter fraud or election irregularities read: Its a mathematical impossibility!!!! Let me make it even more plain. THERE ARE NOT 81 MILLION PEOPLE IN THOSE 477 COUNTIES!!! ,  Wake up people! This is the integrity of our United States elections. Its not about Democrat or Republican. Its about Americans future and current Corruption!!!   and You dont have to be good at math to see the fraud.

In 2008, Obama did obtain 69,498,516 votes, 52.93% of the popular vote , while only winning 28% of the counties .

Reelection And Political Gridlock

Discontent over Democratic President Obamas Affordable Care Act helped the Republicans capture the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. It also helped spawn the Tea Party, a conservative movement that emerged from the right wing of the Republican Party and pulled the traditional conservative base further to the right. The Tea Party, which was strongly opposed to abortion, gun control, and immigration, focused primarily on limiting government spending and the size of the federal government.

Obama won reelection in 2012, but the Republicans retained their hold on the House of Representatives, and the Democratic majority in the Senate grew razor-thin. Political bickering and intractable Republican resistanceincluding a 70% increase in filibusters over the 1980s, a refusal to allow a vote on some legislation, and the glacial pace at which the Senate confirmed the Presidents judicial nominationscreated political gridlock in Washington, interfering with Obamas ability to secure any important legislative victories.

In Big Shift Latino Vote Was Heavily For Obama

• Nov. 6, 2008

Latino voters shifted in huge numbers away from the Republicans to vote for Senator Barack Obama in the presidential election, exit polls show, providing the votes that gave him unexpectedly large margins of victory in three battleground states: Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Mr. Obamas pull on Latino voters also extended to Florida, where a majority of them voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since at least 1988, when exit polls were first conducted in the state.

In a year when turnout among many groups surged nationwide, the number of Latinos who went to the polls increased by nearly 25 percent over 2004, with sharp rises among naturalized immigrants and young, first-time voters, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Hispanic support for the Democratic nominee increased by 14 points over all compared with 2004, the biggest shift toward the Democrats by any voter group.

For the first time, Latino voters emerged as a mobilized Democratic voting bloc in states across the country, Latino officials said.

They really delivered, said Efrain Escobedo, director of civic engagement at the Latino officials association, a bipartisan group that ran voter registration drives across the country. This is an electorate that now understands the importance of voting, and they made a significant shift in the political landscape.

Barack Obama: Campaigns And Elections

Obamas election to the Senate instantly made him the highest-ranking African American officeholder in the country and, along with the excitement generated by his convention speech and his books , placed him high on the roster of prospective Democratic presidential candidates in 2008. After spending a low-profile first year in office focusing on solidifying his base in Illinois and traveling abroad to buttress his foreign policy credentials as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama spent much of 2006 speaking to audiences around the country and mulling whether to run for president. According to annual National Journal evaluations of senators’ legislative voting records, Obama ranked as the first, tenth, or sixteenth most liberal member of the Senate, depending on the year.

From February through early June, Obama and Clinton battled fiercely through the remaining primaries and caucuses. Overall, Clinton won twenty primaries to Obamas nineteen, including victories in most of the large states, notably California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Both candidates were bidding to become historic firststhe first African American president or the first woman president.

Midterm Election of 2010

The 2012 Election

Midterm Election of 2014

Postscript on the 2016 Election

President Obama And The White Vote No Problem

In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, there was much talk that President Obama could be headed to a historically poor showing among white voters, a result that could jeopardize his ability to win the overall popular vote.

And, while Obama did lose white voters by 20 points to former Massachusetts governor  Mitt Romney  he still won a clear popular vote victory — with a majority of his total vote nationwide coming from white voters.

Take a look at this chart — from the wizards in the Post’s polling unit — that shows the percentage of white voters supporting the Democratic candidate all the way back to 1972.

Obama’s 39 percent showing among white voters matched the percentage that Bill Clinton received in 1992 — albeit it in a competitive three-way race — and exceeded the percentage of the white vote earned by Walter Mondale in 1984, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George McGovern in 1972.

And, Obama’s showing among white voters mattered less than did Mondale’s or Carter’s because the white vote accounted for significantly less of the overall electorate in 2012 than it did in either 1984 or 1980. In fact, the white vote as a percentage of the overall electorate has declined in every election since 1992.

In the end, President Obama’s “problem” with the white vote wound up being less than advertised — and certainly less problematic to his political prospects than Mitt Romney’s 44-point loss among Hispanic voters.

The General Election: Key Dates

• September 26: First presidential debate, in Oxford, Miss., on the campus of the University of Mississippi, moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS.
• October 2: Vice presidential debate, in St. Louis, Mo., on the campus of Washington University, moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS.
• October 7: Second presidential debate, in Nashville, Tenn., on the campus of Belmont University, moderated by Tom Brokaw of NBC.
• October 15: Third presidential debate, in Hempstead, N.Y., on the campus of Hofstra University, moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS.
• November 4: Election Day
• December 15: Electors meet to cast electoral votes
• January 8, 2009: Electoral votes are counted in the U.S. Congress
• January 20: Inauguration of Barack Obama

Plenty Of White Bigots Will Vote For Barack Obama On Tuesday There Are Some Things They Fear More Than Black People

Sean Quinn, of the polling site FiveThirtyEight, respected for its obsessiveness and eerie prescience, recently posted a hair-raising story about a pair of Barack Obama supporters. Quinn seems ready to verify its source, but only after the election. At any rate, it goes like this: A man canvassing for Obama in western Pennsylvania asks a housewife which candidate she intends to vote for. She yells to her husband to find out. From the interior of the house, he calls back, “We’re voting for the nigger!” At which point the housewife turns to the canvasser and calmly repeats her husband’s declaration.

Ah, racism. It’s always a step ahead of us. Even before the majority of Democrats decided that Obama was electable despite being the first openly black presidential candidate, pollsters began gradually raising the level of speculation about the tide of bigotry that might overwhelm white voters once they got into that private little booth and faced the prospect of pulling a lever that suddenly seemed to read “Some Black Dude.”

If you got to a white neighborhood in the suburbs and ask them, “How would you feel about a large black man kicking your door in,” they would say, “That doesn’t sound good to me… But if you say, “Your house is on fire, and the firefighter happens to be black,” it’s a different situation.

Who Really Voted In 2016

The national story

Exit polls indicated that the voting electorate in 2016 was 71 percent white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Latino, and 7 percent Asian or other race. Compared to 2012, the share of white voters dropped by a percentage point, as did the share of black voters. The vote share of Latinos increased by a point and the vote share of Asians and all other racial minorities increased by 2 points.

Our estimates tell a significantly different story about the racial/ethnic distribution of voters. The most salient difference here is that the exit polls underestimated the share of white voters and overestimated the share of voters of color. Our estimate is that 73.7 percent of voters were white , 8.9 percent were Latino , and 5.5 percent were Asian or other race . However, our figures agree with the exit polls on the percent of black voters .

As for shifts from 2012, our data show that the white vote share declined by only 0.3 percentage points in 2016. We found that the black vote share declined by 1.1 points, which mirrors the exit poll results, while the Latino vote share increased by 0.9 points and the vote share of Asians or other races increased by 0.5 points. So, other than shifts in the black vote share, we generally found less change in the racial/ethnic structure of the voting electorate between the two elections.

The story in the states

Well start with the trio of Rust Belt statesMichigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinthat were decisive to Trumps victory.

How Biden Won: Ramping Up The Base And Expanding Margins In The Suburbs

The other reason, though, is Trump, who remains one of the most polarizing figures in American political history. Lots of people turned out for and against him.

Democrats have now won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. A Republican hasn’t won it since George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004.

And yet, Democrats have only won the presidency in five of those elections because of the Electoral College. Democrats are concentrated on the coasts and in cities, making it harder to win the White House than their popular vote margins might suggest.

In fact, in this election, Biden won the national popular vote by some 6 million votes so far, more than double Hillary Clinton’s margin over Trump four years ago. But just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College.

Michael Brown And Ferguson

Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was shot and killed on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer. The disputed circumstances of the shooting of the unarmed man sparked existing tensions in the predominantly black city, where protests and civil unrest erupted. The events received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracted protesters from outside the region, and sparked a vigorous debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African Americans, the militarization of the police, and the Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri and nationwide. Continued activism expanded the issues to include modern-day debtors prisons, for-profit policing, and school segregation.

As the details of the original shooting emerged, police established curfews and deployed riot squads to maintain order. Peaceful protests were met with police militarization, and some areas of the city turned violent. The unrest continued on November 24, 2014, after a grand jury did not indict Officer Wilson.

Notable Expressions And Phrases

• Yes We Can: Obama’s campaign slogan
• That one: McCain’s reference to Obama during the 2nd debate.
• Lipstick on a pig: Obama used this phrase to insinuate that any changes that McCain was advocating from the policies of George W. Bush would only be slight modifications of Bush’s policies but the underlying policies would be the same, and in Obama’s opinion, bad. Some called it sexist, claiming it was a reference to Sarah Palin, who cracked a joke during the Republican convention that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick.

Attempts To Change Or Repeal

Read Ballotpedia’s fact check »

The Affordable Care Act was subject to a number of lawsuits challenging some of its provisions, such as the individual mandate and the requirement to cover contraception. Four of these lawsuits were heard by the United States Supreme Court, resulting in changes to the law and how it was enforced. In addition, since the law’s enactment, lawmakers in Congress have introduced and considered legislation to modify or repeal parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Finally, between 2010 and 2012, voters in eight states considered ballot measures related to the law. This section summarizes the lawsuits, legislation, and state ballot measures that attempted to change, repeal, or impact enforcement of parts of the law.

United States V Windsor

United States v. Windsor was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of marriage and spouse to apply only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act , is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer , a same-sex couple residing in New York, were lawfully married in Toronto, Canada, in 2007. The state of New York had recognized the marriage beginning in 2008 following a court decision. Spyer died in 2009, leaving her entire estate to Windsor; however, when Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses, she was barred from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA, which provided that the term spouse only applied to marriages between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsors claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes.

Overturning DOMA: Photo of gay rights advocates gathered on the steps of the United States Supreme Court building on the morning of June 26, 2013, hours before the court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.

Inside Obamas Sweeping Victory

Barack Obama captured the White House on the strength of a substantial electoral shift toward the Democratic Party and by winning a number of key groups in the middle of the electorate. Overall, 39% of voters were Democrats while 32% were Republicans a dramatic shift from 2004 when the electorate was evenly divided. The Democratic advantage in Election Day party identification was significantly larger than in either of Bill Clintons victories.

While moderates have favored the Democratic candidate in each of the past five elections, Barack Obama gained the support of more voters in the ideological middle than did either John Kerry or Al Gore before him. He won at least half the votes of independents , suburban voters , Catholics , and other key swing groups in the electorate.

Without a doubt, the overwhelming backing of younger voters was a critical factor in Obamas victory, according to an analysis of National Election Pool exit polls that were provided by National Public Radio. Obama drew two-thirds of the vote among those younger than age 30. This age group was Kerrys strongest four years ago, but he drew a much narrower 54% majority.

Obamas expanded support did not extend to all age groups, however. In particular, McCain won the support of voters age 65 and older by a 53%-to-45% margin, slightly larger than Bushs 52%-to-47% margin four years ago. Notably, Al Gore narrowly won this age group in 2000 .

How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, received no Republican votes in either the Senate or the House of Representatives when it was passed in 2009. In the Senate, the bill was passed with a total of 60 votes, or 58 Democratic Party votes and 2 Independent Party votes. The House passed the legislation with 219 Democratic votes.

The Affordable Care Act received 39 votes against it in the Senate, all from Republicans. One senator abstained from voting. In the House, the ACA received 212 votes against it, with 34 coming from the Democratic Party and 178 from the Republican Party. There were enough votes for the ACA in the Senate to prevent an attempt to filibuster the bill, while the House vote required a simple majority.

The ACA originated in the Senate, though both the House and Senate were working on versions of a health care bill at the same time. Democrats in the House of Representatives were initially unhappy with the ACA, as they had expected some ability to negotiate additional changes before its passage. Since Republicans in the Senate were threatening to filibuster any bill they did not fully support, and Democrats no longer had enough seats to override the filibuster, no changes could be made. Since any changes to the legislation by the House would require it to be re-evaluated in the Senate, the original version was passed in 2009 on condition that it would be amended by a subsequent bill.

Kennedy Edges Out Nixon

In a very close election, John F. Kennedy edged out Richard Nixon by a mere 112,827 votes. Though Nixon won more states , Kennedy triumphed in Electoral College votes . This was, in part, a result of political strategy: Nixon campaigned in all 50 states, while Kennedy focused on swing states.

This election also featured the first televised debate, in which Nixons famously waxy, sweating face likely docked him public support.

Get A Compelling Long Read And Must

To say the Republican presidential primary has become interesting would be a gross understatement. With three different winners in the first three contestsan unprecedented situationeveryone is asking why the frontrunners keep falling and why the GOP base cannot unite behind a leader.

Well, hold on to your seat, because heres a big question: Would you believe that both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 primary? And after they became disenfranchised by the Republican Party for moving too far Left, they decided to do the only logical thing: become Democrats? And in addition, does it blow your mind that besides voting for the Big O, they took out their frustrations over a too-liberal GOP by financially supporting the most far-left Democrats in the entire Congress?

Seem far-fetched? Well, it isand it isnt.

No, of course, Romney and Gingrich didnt switch parties, vote for Obama or support liberal Democrats. If either had, it would, without question, be lunacy for any element of the Republican Party to endorse them. To many in the GOP, Obama is not just a political adversary but the Devil Incarnate who must be defeated at all costs. So running someone against Obama who had previously supported him would be a surefire recipe for disaster.

Enter the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

A) Became a Democrat because the GOP wasnt conservative enough.

C) Voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

Brilliant.

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