The 2008 Presidential and Congressional Elections: Anti‐Bush Referendum and Prospects for the Democratic Majority

The 2008 election extended the national trend that had given con­ trol of Congress to the Democrats in the 2006 midterm two years earlier. The election was again essentially a referendum on the George W. Bush adminis­ tration, but this time the referendum also encompassed a presidential election. The Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, capped an improbable journey to the White House by winning the largest share of votes cast for any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, defeating Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona by 52.9 percent to 45.7 percent. Obama took all 19 states John Kerry had won in 2004 plus another 9, including 3 in the South, ending up with a 365-173 electoral vote margin. Democrats picked up 21 seats in the House of Representatives and 8 in the Senate. The House victories, added to the 31 seats they gained in 2006 and some pickups in subsequent special elections, left them holding 257 seats to the Republicans' 178, a gain of 55 seats over the two elections. In the Senate, where for the second consecutive election Democrats retained every seat they defended, their total grew to 59 seats, 14 more than they had held after the 2004 election (Table 1).1 The cumulative results of the congressional elections effectively overturned the verdict of 1994, reducing Republican congressional representation to what it had been before the Party's historic rise to majority status 14 years earlier. On the congressional side, the 2008 elections shared a number of notable similarities with 2006, although important differences were also evident. Like 2006,2008 was a referendum on the Republican Party as well as its leader. For