United States elections, 2008
Encyclopedia
The 2008 United States general elections were held on November 4. The result was a significant victory for the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 on the national level, as they increased majorities in both houses of Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 and won the Presidency
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

. Democrat Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 defeated Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

 in the presidential election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...

. Riding Obama's coattails
Coattail effect
The coattail effect is the tendency for a popular political party leader to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election...

, the Democrats also picked up net gains of 8 Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 seats and 21 House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 seats.

The governorships of 11 states and two U.S. territories were also up for election. Only one of them changed party hands: Democrat Jay Nixon
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon, Sr. is the 55th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Missouri's Attorney General before his election in 2008.-Political career:...

 won the Missouri gubernatorial election
United States gubernatorial elections, 2008
The United States gubernatorial elections of 2008 were the elections of state and territorial governors and were held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 in 11 states and 2 territories. Prior to the election, eight of the total seats were held by Democrats and five by Republicans...

, replacing Republican Matt Blunt
Matt Blunt
Matthew Roy Blunt served as the 54th Governor of Missouri from 2005 to 2009. Before his election as governor, Blunt served ten years in the United States Navy, was elected to serve in the Missouri General Assembly in 1998 and as Missouri's Secretary of State in 2000.A Republican, Blunt was elected...

, who decide to retire instead of run for a second term.

The major theme during the campaign was the American public's general desire of change and reform from both Washington and the policies of outgoing Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 (Bush was term limit
Term limit
A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...

ed out of office per the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-second Amendment of the United States Constitution sets a term limit for the President of the United States. The Congress passed the amendment on March 21, 1947...

). The economy and other domestic policies were also dominant issues, especially during the last months of the campaign after the onset of the 2008 economic crisis.

President

Then-Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 was the Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 nominee, and Senator John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

 of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 was the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 nominee. Incumbent President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 was ineligible for re-election per the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms, and incumbent Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

 Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....

 declined to run for the office.

The 2008 presidential election was the first since 1928
United States presidential election, 1928
The United States presidential election of 1928 pitted Republican Herbert Hoover against Democrat Al Smith. The Republicans were identified with the booming economy of the 1920s, whereas Smith, a Roman Catholic, suffered politically from Anti-Catholic prejudice, his anti-prohibitionist stance, and...

 in which neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice president was a candidate (nor had been president or vice president), and the first since 1952
United States presidential election, 1952
The United States presidential election of 1952 took place in an era when Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was escalating rapidly. In the United States Senate, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had become a national figure after chairing congressional...

 in which neither was nominated by his party as a candidate in the general election and the first since 1976
United States presidential election, 1976
The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It pitted incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic...

 in which the incumbent vice-president was not a candidate for president or vice-president.

Senator Obama won the number of electors necessary to be elected President and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.

United States Senate

The 33 seats in the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Class 2
Classes of United States Senators
The three classes of United States Senators are currently made up of 33 or 34 Senate seats. The purpose of the classes is to determine which Senate seats will be up for election in a given year. The three groups are staggered so that one of them is up for election every two years.A senator's...

 were up for election, plus special Senate elections in Mississippi
United States Senate elections in Mississippi, 2008
The 2008 United States Senate election in Mississippi was held on November 4, 2008. The seat was regularly scheduled for election, unlike the special election taking place on the same day. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Thad Cochran won re-election to a sixth term.-Predictions:CQ Politics rated...

 and Wyoming
United States Senate elections in Wyoming, 2008
The 2008 United States Senate election in Wyoming was held November 4, 2008. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Mike Enzi won re-election to a third term.-Candidates:*Chris Rothfuss, chemical engineer and university professor...

. The resignation of Mississippi Senator Trent Lott
Trent Lott
Chester Trent Lott, Sr. , is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate....

, and the death of Wyoming Senator Craig L. Thomas, both Class 1 senators, meant that both of those states' senate seats were up for election. The Democrats won 8 seats while the Republicans did not gain a seat.

United States House of Representatives

All seats in the House were up for election, including seats of the 435 voting representatives from the states and the 6 non-voting delegates
Delegate (United States Congress)
A delegate to Congress is a non-voting member of the United States House of Representatives who is elected from a U.S. territory and from Washington, D.C. to a two-year term. While unable to vote in the full House, a non-voting delegate may vote in a House committee of which the delegate is a member...

 from the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. This marked the first time that the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Northern Mariana Islands
The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines...

 selected a delegate to Congress, as per new legislation, , enacted in May 2008.

Of the 435 voting members of the House, the Democrats gained 21 seats, increasing their majority from 54.3% to 59.1%.

Governors

Eleven of the fifty United States governors were up for re-election, as were the governorships of two U.S. territories. Eight incumbent state governors were running for re-election, while the retirements of Ruth Ann Minner
Ruth Ann Minner
Ruth Ann Minner is an American politician and businesswoman from Milford, in Kent County, Delaware. She is a member of the Democratic Party who served in the Delaware General Assembly, as the 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Delaware and two terms as the first female Governor of Delaware.-Early life...

 of Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

, Matt Blunt
Matt Blunt
Matthew Roy Blunt served as the 54th Governor of Missouri from 2005 to 2009. Before his election as governor, Blunt served ten years in the United States Navy, was elected to serve in the Missouri General Assembly in 1998 and as Missouri's Secretary of State in 2000.A Republican, Blunt was elected...

 of Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, and Mike Easley
Mike Easley
Michael Francis "Mike" Easley is an American politician who served as the 72nd Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina, from 2001 to 2009. He is member of the North Carolina Democratic Party and became the first North Carolina governor to admit to a felony in a deal that halted a lengthy...

 of North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 left those gubernatorial positions open. The incumbent governors of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá
Aníbal Acevedo Vilá
Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He served as the eighth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a Commonwealth of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. He is a Harvard University alumnus and a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law,...

, and American Samoa
American Samoa
American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa...

, Togiola Tulafono
Togiola Tulafono
Togiola Talalelei A. Tulafono is the Governor of American Samoa. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He had previously served as Lieutenant Governor, taking this position on January 3, 1997....

, were also up for re-election.

The only governorship that changed party hands was in Missouri: Democrat Jay Nixon
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon, Sr. is the 55th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Missouri's Attorney General before his election in 2008.-Political career:...

 was elected to replace the retiring Republican Blunt.

State legislatures

The New Hampshire Senate
New Hampshire Senate
The New Hampshire Senate has been meeting since 1784. It is the upper house of the New Hampshire General Court. It consists of 24 members representing Senate districts based on population...

 saw the election of the first ever female majority. This is first time this has occurred in any chamber of any state legislature in United States history.

The New York State Assembly
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...

, New York State Senate
New York State Senate
The New York State Senate is one of two houses in the New York State Legislature and has members each elected to two-year terms. There are no limits on the number of terms one may serve...

, and Governor's mansion were controlled by the Democrats for the first time since the Great Depression.

Overall, the Democrats took control of six legislative bodies to the Republicans' four. Democrats took control of the Delaware House of Representatives
Delaware House of Representatives
The Delaware House of Representatives is the lower house of the Delaware General Assembly; the state legislature of the U.S. State of Delaware. It is composed of 41 Representatives from an equal amount of constituencies, each of whom is elected to a two year term. The Delaware General Assembly...

, Montana House of Representatives
Montana House of Representatives
The Montana House of Representatives is, with the Montana Senate, one of the two houses of the Montana Legislature. Composed of 100 members, the House elects its leadership every two years.-Composition of the House:...

, Nevada Senate
Nevada Senate
The Nevada Senate is the upper house of the Nevada Legislature, the state legislature of U.S. state of Nevada. The Senate consists of 21 members from 19 districts, two of which are multimember. Each senator represented approximately 94,700 people as of the 2000 census, although 2006 Census Bureau...

, New York State Senate, Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio House of Representatives
The Ohio House of Representatives is the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio; the other house of the bicameral legislature being the Ohio Senate....

, and Wisconsin State Assembly
Wisconsin State Assembly
The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin....

. Republicans took control of the Montana Senate
Montana Senate
The Montana Senate is the upper house of the Montana State Legislature, the state legislative branch of the U.S. state of Montana. The body is composed of 50 senators.-Composition of the Senate:-Officers:*Majority Whip: Greg Barkus...

; Oklahoma Senate
Oklahoma Senate
The Oklahoma Senate is the upper house of the two houses of the Legislature of Oklahoma, the other being the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The total number of Senators is set at 48 by the Oklahoma Constitution....

, for the first time in state history; Tennessee House of Representatives
Tennessee House of Representatives
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.-Constitutional requirements:...

, and Tennessee Senate
Tennessee Senate
The Tennessee Senate is the upper house of the Tennessee state legislature, which is known formally as the Tennessee General Assembly.The Tennessee Senate, according to the state constitution of 1870, is composed of 33 members, one-third the size of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Senators...

.

After the election, Democrats controlled both houses in the state legislatures of 27 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Republicans controlled both houses in the state legislatures of 14 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

Eight states had divided legislatures: Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Nebraska has a unicameral non-partisan legislature.
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