Obama's 2008 Victory May Have Been Narrower Than It Seems
Posted Mar 30, 2009 at 10:03 AM by Maurice Berger
According to a new analysis, in which the 2008 presidential election
was re-run using a district-based system of awarding electoral
votes, used only in two states (ME and NE), instead of the winner-take-all Barack Obama still would have defeated John McCain, though the Electoral College tally would have been closer than the actual 365-173 margin of victory.
The CQ Politics analysis concludes that
Obama would have beaten McCain 301-237 "using a district-based system,
under which a candidate receives two electoral votes for winning a
state and one electoral vote for every congressional district he or she
wins. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes in this fashion. The
analysis found that Obama won 242 districts and McCain won 193
districts. Obama also posted another 59 electoral votes by carrying 28
states and the District of Columbia, which is entitled to three
electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment. McCain would have received
another 44 electoral votes as a result of winning 22 states." PollTrack observes that such results suggest the country remains more politically divided than the initial 2008 results suggest, divisions that now appear to be playing out in the polling that gauges political sentiment in the upcoming congressional elections of 2010. Such surveys now indicate an electorate evenly divided between support for Democrtic and Republican congressional candidates.
