Full results: state by state

Updated on 05 November 2008

By Alice Tarleton

How Barack Obama won the US presidency.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gained 52 per cent of the vote, five points ahead of rival John McCain's 46 per cent.

The US voting system means the election is won by a state-by-state battleground rather than a national poll.



Watch our political editor Gary Gibbon analyse the results

With two states still too close to call, Obama won at least 349 of the possible 538 electoral college votes, far more than the the 270 he needed. McCain has just 163.

The Democrats took the key large states of Florida and Ohio from the Republicans.

John McCain failed to wrest Pennsylvania, on which he had focused campaign efforts in an attempt to woo blue-collar workers, from the Democrats.

Redrawing the map

Then... Republican = red; Democrat = blue

... and now Republican = red; Democrat = blue. Shaded states have yet to declare; colour indicates the expected result

Democrat gains

• Ohio
• Virginia
• Florida
• Nevada
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Iowa
• Indiana

Democrat holds

• Washington
• Oregon
• California
• Minnesota
• Hawaii
• Wisconsin
• Illinois
• Michigan
• Pennsylvania
• New York
• Maine
• Vermont
• New Hampshire
• Massachusetts
• Connecticut
• Rhode Island
• New Jersey
• Delaware
• Maryland
• District of Columbia

Republican gains

• None

Republican holds

• Alaska
• Idaho
• Utah
• Arizona
• Montana
• Wyoming
• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Nebraska
• Kansas
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• Arkansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• Georgia
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• West Virginia

Still to declare

• Missouri
• North Carolina

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