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Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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How McCain Won (or Could Have)
November 14, 2008 2:40 PM
According to the totals so far, Barack Obama won the election by something more than 8.4 million votes. But Mike Sheppard says the margin that really matters was only 445,912.
Sheppard, you may recall from a previous post, is a grad student in statistics at Michigan State who became interested in the interplay between the popular and electoral vote in history, and calculated how many votes it would have taken in each race to change the outcome.
Sheppard has refrained from telling me what his own political leanings are; his interest is in how well (or not) the electoral process works.
He showed that more than half our presidential elections since 1824 could have come out differently if fewer than two percent of voters -- the right two percent -- had voted differently and swung the electoral college totals to the losers. In 1976, for instance, Gerald Ford could have beaten Jimmy Carter if Ohio and Hawaii had gone his way -- and it would only have taken 9,246 voters to make the difference.
David Chalian, our political director, has supplied the total popular votes for 2008 as of today:
- Obama: 66,624,447
- McCain: 58,182,368
Take a look at Sheppard's analysis HERE. It was not a close election by his standards; John McCain needed at least seven more states to win the electoral vote. But the most efficient way, mathematically, for that to have happened would only have taken 444,121 popular votes (out of 126 million cast), since North Carolina, Indiana, New Hampshire, etc., were so close.
In other words, Mr. McCain could have become president by winning in the electoral college, 270-268 -- though still losing by 7.6 million votes.
November 14, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (48)
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What a stupid analysis. Thanks for wasting my time with it.
Posted by: rbyanes | Nov 14, 2008 2:57:03 PM
rbyanes: The facts are the facts. If you see looking at them as a waste of time, then you're just choosing to live in a fantasy world. If you don't like reality, then perhaps you should look into changing it (there are numerous efforts afoot to remove the "win presidency but lose popular vote" aspect of our nation).
Posted by: jhw539 | Nov 14, 2008 2:59:52 PM
This is like saying John Daly could have won his last major if only he had 7 hole-in-ones.
Posted by: pt | Nov 14, 2008 3:01:57 PM
Very good analysis.
McCain lost because his stragist are idiots.
Posted by: adam | Nov 14, 2008 3:13:52 PM
Note from Ned Potter--
Rbaynes, sorry you didn't like it. I think Sheppard's exercise raises useful questions about the electoral college. Even if you favored George Bush in 2000, do you like the way he won -- losing by half a million popular votes but getting the White House because of a two-month court battle over 500 votes in Florida? Sheppard's point is that even this year, despite a clear margin, the electoral college means it wouldn't have taken all that much to deprive Mr. Obama his victory.
Posted by: Ned Potter | Nov 14, 2008 3:18:44 PM
The old adage, "figures don't lie, but liars figure,' applies here.
Posted by: unshrub | Nov 14, 2008 3:18:52 PM
This analysis may not be stupid since it's based on factual numbers. However I think it's ridiculous for the fact that it ignores that sometimes a victory with 5 thousand votes could be as hard if not harder than one with 200 thousand votes.
Posted by: D | Nov 14, 2008 3:22:27 PM
The day will come when a president is elected and loses the popular vote by several million votes. It may not happen in our lifetime, but it will happen. The electoral college system is antiquated and does not give each state fair and equal representation as it was designed to do.
Posted by: JRS | Nov 14, 2008 3:29:21 PM
McCain had too many things againist him:
His age
His party
His President
His VP Candidate
His financial condition
His negative advertising
His campaign staff
His temper
There are more but the enough is sufficient.
Posted by: Beto | Nov 14, 2008 3:38:48 PM
Fae: What possible relevance does that meanspirted insult of a man who just lost a beloved family member have to this subject? Are you just trying to cement the Republican's image of being heartless out-of-touch jerks?
Posted by: jhw539 | Nov 14, 2008 3:50:31 PM
McCain's failure was mainly campaigning without any thought through of smart calculations.
Can anyone tell me why McCain
wasted time and money campaigning in Pennsylvania!
Posted by: FM | Nov 14, 2008 3:54:03 PM
Pointless.
Posted by: dem in chicago | Nov 14, 2008 3:56:40 PM
How long until al states go the way of Nebraska and Maine? Dividing the elctoral votes along each states popular vote lines, rather than winner takes all, would be a step in the right direction.
Posted by: BooMan | Nov 14, 2008 3:59:30 PM
Instead of dissecting something in the past with no vaue....send some journalistic time and research finding out the underbelly of our potential 2012 candidate Ms. Palin. Spare us the tidbits day to day and do some honest work...there is enough here to keep you busy till...geez, maybe 2012. She needs to be "outed" with all her shortcomings and her family dynamics made public, so we can put her 2012 energy away for good. If you had spent as much time outing Palin (on a variety of significant issues) as you journalists did on Edwards or Clinton....maybe she would have been dropped from the ticket. But maybe that doesn't sell news...
Posted by: scooterfoot | Nov 14, 2008 3:59:59 PM
Who cares? Get over it. He lost....Let's move forward.
Posted by: Miki | Nov 14, 2008 4:04:40 PM
So McCain (or Obama) could have lost the popular vote by over 5 million votes and still won the election? Reform the Electoral College system now!
Posted by: helloworld | Nov 14, 2008 4:12:16 PM
I guess it is like the difference between an *** whoopin'and a spanking?
Posted by: Figures Count | Nov 14, 2008 4:14:12 PM
On the other hand, doesn't this show the great weakness of the electoral college system? It's the only form of voting I know of--aside from perhaps sham elections run by unscrupulous dictators--in which the person with the most votes doesn't necessarily win.
Posted by: Enough | Nov 14, 2008 4:21:33 PM
Well, that says it all!
Posted by: oliver | Nov 14, 2008 4:21:58 PM
All this is saying is that the Electoral College doesn't always reflect the national popular vote. We knew that. The real question is: what do we do about it?
Posted by: jock59801 | Nov 14, 2008 4:22:26 PM
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