Election 2008: what really happened

I was just in Grant Park . . . it was pretty cool but I couldn’t actually hear anything. So I went back to my hotel room and crunched some numbers.

Here are the take-home points:
1. The election was pretty close.
2. As with previous Republican candidates, McCain did better among the rich than the poor. But the pattern has changed among the highest-income categories.
3. The gap between young and old has increased–a lot. But there was no massive turnout among young voters.
4. Obama gained the most among ethnic minorities.
5. The red/blue map was not redrawn; it was more of a national partisan swing.
6. The pre-election polls did well, both for the national vote and for the states.

Here’s the full story (with graphs!).

3 thoughts on “Election 2008: what really happened

  1. I prefer the fixed effects estimator: Matthew Yglesias looks at the same numbers this morning and has this to report:

    A couple of facts:

    * The last time a Democrat got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1964.
    * The last time a non-incumbent got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1952.

    It’s an impressive feat.

    http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/1

  2. I crossed my fingers and hoped Obama would win and the change happened. He introduce a new era of understanding what's happening in the world and maybe he could win against the problems america have. God bless him.

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