Wisconsin was won by Democratic nominee Barack Obama by a 13.91% margin of victory. Prior to the election, all 17 news organizations considered this a state Obama would win, or otherwise considered as a safe blue state, despite the extremely close margins of victory in the previous two presidential elections. Polling throughout the state began to show a sizable and widening lead for Democrat Barack Obama of neighboring Illinois over Republican John McCain of Arizona. Obama carried Wisconsin with over 56% of the vote, significantly improving upon John Kerry's very narrow margin of victory in 2004. Obama is the only candidate since 1988 to win the state with the majority of the vote, and the only candidate since 1996 to win by a margin of more than 1%, both of which he would go on to do again in 2012.
Whether measured by raw vote margin, percentage of total votes, or two-party percentage, Obama's victory remains the strongest performance for any candidate in the state since the landslide re-election of Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. In fact, Obama carried two of three counties that voted for Barry Goldwater in that election and became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 to carry Waupaca County, and only the second Democratic nominee to carry that county since the Civil War. This is also the last election where Wisconsin was decided by double digits.
3.7%)[1]
