The 2008 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 4, 2008, as part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose five electors to the Electoral College, who voted for

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

and

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

. However, Nebraska is one of the two states of the U.S. that, instead of giving all of its electors to the winner based on its statewide results, allocates just two electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote. The other three electors vote based on their individual congressional district results.

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, statewide, was not a

swing state In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pres ...

in 2008. Located in the Great Plains of the United States, it is one of the most staunchly Republican states in the country. While some hypothetical general election match-up polls between Republican John McCain and Democrat

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

showed the race to be seemingly close, they were largely regarded as outliers as more polls released showed McCain leading in double digits. McCain wound up carrying the popular vote in Nebraska by 14.93 points, taking in 56.53% of the total statewide vote. However, Obama narrowly defeated McCain in

Nebraska's 2nd congressional district Nebraska's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses the core of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It includes all of Douglas County, which includes Omaha, as well as the s ...

, which contains Omaha and the surrounding areas. Due to Nebraska's system of allocating electoral votes to winners of Congressional Districts, Obama was able to win one electoral vote while John McCain received the state's other four electoral votes. On top of this, his 41.6% of the statewide popular vote is the highest a Democratic presidential candidate has won in the Cornhusker State since

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

carried the state in his 1964 landslide. 2008 was the first presidential election ever where Nebraska voted to the left of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. As of 2020, this remains the last time that a Democrat has won more than 40% of the vote in Nebraska.

Primaries & caucuses

2008 Nebraska Democratic presidential caucuses The 2008 Nebraska Democratic presidential caucuses took place on February 9, 2008, where 24 of the state's 31 convention delegates were chosen. Like he did throughout many other states that held caucuses instead of primaries, Barack Obama won th ...

2008 Nebraska Republican presidential primary The 2008 Nebraska Republican presidential primary took place on May 13, 2008. John McCain won the primary, although he had secured his party's nomination weeks before the election through his performance in earlier primary contests. Nebraska's pr ...

Campaign

Predictions

There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:

Polling

McCain led in every single pre-election poll. Since May, he led in each poll by a double-digit margin of victory and each with at least 52% of the vote.

Fundraising

John McCain raised a total of $678,059 in the state, while Barack Obama raised $864,393.

Advertising and visits

Obama spent $55,807 while McCain and the Republican Trust PAC spent a total of just $1,225. Both Obama and McCain visited the state once. Obama held a downtown rally at Omaha and McCain traveled to both Omaha and Ashland. Palin also visited Omaha once.

Campaign in Omaha

Nebraska has two electoral votes that go to the winner of the popular vote in the state, while the other three are split based on whichever candidate wins the popular vote in each of Nebraska's three congressional districts, all of which have trended Republican in the past elections. However Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, based in the city of Omaha, is significantly less conservative. The second CD of Nebraska was actually considered as a battleground area by some, leading the Obama campaign to open a single campaign office in Omaha with 15 staff members to cover the congressional district in September 2008. More than 900 people attended the opening of those offices. Democratic Mayor

Mike Fahey Michael Gahan Fahey (born December 20, 1943) is an American businessman who served as the 49th mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. He first took office on June 11, 2001. Fahey won his second term as mayor in the May 10, 2005 election. He is a member of the ...

of Omaha said that he would do whatever it takes to deliver the electoral vote tied to the 2nd Congressional District to Obama, and the Obama Campaign considered

"in play". Former Democratic

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

Bob Kerrey Joseph Robert Kerrey (born August 27, 1943) is an American politician who served as the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 1989 to 2001. Before entering politics, he served in the Vietna ...

and then senior

Ben Nelson Earl Benjamin Nelson (born May 17, 1941) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 37th governor of Nebraska from 1991 to 1999 and as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 2001 to 2013. He is a member of the De ...

campaigned in the city for Obama.

Analysis

Nebraska, part of the conservative Great Plains region, is one of the most Republican states in the nation. It has only gone Democratic in a presidential election seven times since statehood. Continuing on that trend, McCain won the Cornhusker State by nearly 15 points. Obama was only able to win four counties: Douglas County, which contains Omaha; Lancaster County, which contains the state capital of

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

and the University of Nebraska; Saline County; and Thurston County, which contains a Native American reservation and was the only county to be won by

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...

in 2004. No Democratic presidential nominee since

's landslide 1964 victory has ever won more than four counties in Nebraska. In 2008, McCain won

Nebraska's 1st Congressional District Nebraska's 1st congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses most of its eastern quarter, except for Omaha and some of its suburbs, which are part of the 2nd congressional district. It include ...

and

Nebraska's 3rd Congressional District Nebraska's 3rd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses its western three-fourths; it is one of the largest non-at-large districts in the country, covering nearly , two time zones and 68 c ...

by fairly safe margins, along with the state as a whole, but Obama managed to carry

Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District Nebraska's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses the core of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It includes all of Douglas County, which includes Omaha, as well as the s ...

, based in Omaha, by a slim margin of 1,260 votes, resulting in one of Nebraska's five electoral votes being awarded to Obama. This was a particularly notable win, because with Nebraska's split electoral vote system Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win an electoral vote from Nebraska since 1964. Obama did particularly well in the state's two most populated counties, Douglas and Lancaster. While John Kerry had lost these counties by double digits, Obama was able to carve out small victories in a state he lost by a landslide. During the same election, Republicans held the open

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

seat vacated by Republican

Chuck Hagel Charles Timothy Hagel ( born October 4, 1946)Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Mike Johanns Michael Owen Johanns ( ; born June 18, 1950) is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 2009 to 2015. He served as the 38th governor of Nebraska from 1999 until 2005, and was chair of the Mi ...

easily defeated Democrat

Scott Kleeb Scott Michael Kleeb (born August 23, 1975) is an American businessman and politician. He is the former CEO and President of Energy Pioneer Solutions, a company that created and then sold a new data-driven model for energy efficiency issues that f ...

, a rancher, by 17.46 points. Johanns received 57.52% of the total vote while Kleeb took in 40.06%. At the state level, a candidate known to be a Republican picked up a seat in the nonpartisan and

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

Nebraska Legislature The Nebraska Legislature (also called the Unicameral) is the legislature of the U.S. state of Nebraska. The Legislature meets at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. With 49 members, known as "senators", the Nebraska Legislature is the sm ...

in 2008. , this is the last election in which Saline County voted Democratic.

Results

Statewide

By county

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civi ...

(largest city: Omaha) * Lancaster (largest city:

) * Saline (largest city:

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

)

Congressional district

John McCain carried two of the state's three congressional districts, while Barack Obama carried one congressional district held by a Republican.

Electors

Technically the voters of Nebraska cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Nebraska is allocated 5 electors because it has 3

congressional districts Congressional districts, also known as electoral districts and legislative districts, electorates, or wards in other nations, are divisions of a larger administrative region that represent the population of a region in the larger congressional bod ...

and 2 senators. 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 2 electoral votes, and the other 3 are allocated via the individual results of the congressional districts. 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 In the United States Electoral College, a faithless elector is an elector who does not vote for the candidates for U.S. President and U.S. Vice President for whom the elector had pledged to vote, and instead votes for another person for one or ...

. The electors of each state and the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

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 5 members of the Electoral College from the state. 4 of the electors were pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin; 2 at large, 1 for each of the 1st and 3rd Congressional districts. 1 was pledged to

and Joe Biden: *

Charles Thone Charles Thone (January 4, 1924 – March 7, 2018) was an American Republican politician. He was the 34th Governor of Nebraska, serving from 1979 to 1983. He previously served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representi ...

is an elector for

Nebraska's 1st congressional district Nebraska's 1st congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses most of its eastern quarter, except for Omaha and some of its suburbs, which are part of the 2nd congressional district. It include ...

pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin.Nebraska Certificate of Ascertainment, page 1 of 3.
National Archives and Record Administration. * William Forsee is an elector for

pledged to

and Joe Biden.Elector casts first Nebraska Democratic vote in 44 years
Omaha World-Herald. * D. Neal Smith is an elector for

Nebraska's 3rd congressional district Nebraska's 3rd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses its western three-fourths; it is one of the largest non-at-large districts in the country, covering nearly , two time zones and 68 c ...

pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin. * Norman Riffel is an at-large elector pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin. * Patricia Dorwart is an at-large elector pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2008 United States Presidential Election In Nebraska

2008 2008 Nebraska elections