Obama Won Without Record Turnout

Bloomberg:

President-elect Barack Obama bet on an unprecedented surge of new voters to carry him to victory last month. He won without the record turnout.

About 130 million Americans voted, up from 122 million four years ago. Still, turnout fell short of the 140 million voters many experts had forecast. With a little more than 61 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, the 2008 results also didn't match the record 63.8 percent turnout rate that helped propel President John F. Kennedy to victory in 1960.

"I was very surprised on election night as I was seeing the totals as they were mounting," said Rhodes Cook, a turnout and voting-behavior expert in Virginia.

Read the whole story: Bloomberg

Comments

[BarackstarObama]

Daily Kos has the unofficial vote total at 130.6 million and counting... Obama may pass 70 million votes when the final numbers are available.

[cdub1991]

The article tries to bury the most important information. First, the efforts of the Obama campaign caused a 12 million vote shift from 2004--for whatever reason. Also, there was a significant increase in turnout in most of the states where the battle was hardest fault. In other words, positive effort yielded positive results. The one point that is highlighted, however, is that youth is wasted on the young--especially if they are undereducated.

[Tommygun2146]

Give it up, guys. First, we were supposed to believe Obama, who had falsely been touted "the most liberal member of the Senate", a "Socialist" perhaps even a "Marxist" really won in a landslide because he had run like a center-right pub; then we were told there was no landslide victory for Obama; then the same people who told us in 2004 that Bush's victory by the thinnest majority ever was a mandate; but Obama's close to 7 point victory was not enough to be classified as a mandate. Now there was no surge of new voters for Obama in the election. I have no doubt that the lemming hoards who consider Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh credible sources will parrot this double speak, just as the have done every time; we in the reality based community who engage in critical thought ain't buying it. Please, stop now before you embarrass yourselves any further. It's pathetic.

[DeniseD]

It seems to me that the Republicans knew Obama was going to win, so they didn't go to the polls. If it had been a tighter race between the two candidates, we would have seen a higher turnout.

[Citizen-Jane]

Hey Bloomberg what was the total amount of voters who cast their votes in 1960? I need more information here. Also in the state of Ohio did the voter numbers increase or decrease since 2004.
This isn't the whole picture....So the voter turnout fail short by some 10 million. But 63% is nothing to wrinkle your nose at. What was the percentage of voter turn out with respect to population in 2000,2004,1996,etc.
Where are you going with this? Nevermind Obama won.

Is this what dey call hateration journalism?

[SunshineDaydream]

i waited in line (for the first time in my voting life) for over twenty minutes - the week before election day. the ladies at the library said it had been like that since early voting had begun. i campaigned there on election day and it was a steady stream of voters coming and going for the couple of hours i was there. i just don't see how the numbers weren't higher.

[BlackWidowPilot]

Easy: vote caging, Diebold voting machines, ballots rejected on flimsy pretexts...

During the election I stated more than once that if I was given a free hand in choosing the sample population, sample size, and wording the questions, I could put the Idi Amin/Shiro Ishii ticket 20 points ahead of both candidates.

There are lies, damn lies, and Diebold voting machines and the GOP partisan hacks who promote them.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[Georgia1992]

The media and the GOP just refuse to give this man credit for his intelligence and accomplishments. President-elect is a mistery to them and they are scratching their b u t t s to find out what the mistery is. Still licking their wounds after their tremendous election b u t t kicking.

[benndissed]

too many repubs stayed home because mccain didn't offer them much. they were replaced by new and first-time voter's for barack ,more than likely.

[mcantwell]

Obama won. Many Republicans stayed home instead of voting. This article is more of an indictment of the Repub Party than anything else. I'm a Repub and my family of four voted for Obama/Biden.

[harriscrl3]

I'm little confused by the logic here. Obama won despite not having a very high turnout. Many republicans stayed home. Was Obama responsible for turning out republicans? SO why frame the issue that way. What they should have said was that McCain lost because he failed to turn out his base. I find this article insulting its goal is to denigrate what Obama has managed to accomplish. Obama found a way to win like he found a way to win in the primary without winning the big industrial states. They need to stop dimish that fact especially taking into account that he was a virtual unknown and a Freshman senator not to mention he is AA.

Stop belittling his accomplisments.

Carol

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

You nailed it. There is a lot of belittling going on out there by some very little people.

[robXdion]

Their egos won't let them stop. They have to justify how a black man won by so much and beat the best political names in the country. It's psychologically damaging for some people and this is their way of coping.

[standforpeace]

Perhaps the most relevant fact in the full story on Bloomberg is that Obama and McCain only competed in about one third of the states. As long as we cling to the archaic Electoral College, we will continue to see large numbers of disengaged Americans who have figured out that they are irrelevant to the outcomes in presidential elections based merely on the fact that they happen to live in noncompetitive states.

[be4obamain09]

this is the dumbest statement ever, he won who cares how many votes he got.

[hortonhearsawho]

Those of us off the "record" elected him, nonetheless!

[Charmed]

OMG.....somebody is out of something to write about.

[Roll451]

Voter turnout is actually more significant than much of the speculation that is reported here as news. It is one measure of the health of our democracy.