2008 Election

National Student/Parent Mock Election

The National Student/Parent Mock Election seeks to turn the sense of powerlessness that keeps young Americans and their parents from going to the polls into a sense of the power of participation in our democracy. One of the most important ways to increase students' sense of significance – and power – is to use the Mock Election to take them out of the classroom and into the real world.

Electoral Vote Interactive Map

Welcome to Electoral Vote Predictor, which tracks political polls for U.S. federal elections. The site was immensely popular in 2004, ranking in the top 1000 Websites in the world and the top 10 blogs in the world, with about 700,000 visitors a day. In some surveys, it was the most popular election site in the country. In 2006, it tracked the Senate and House elections. Now it is back tracking the presidential, Senate, and House elections for 2008.

How the Electoral College Works

Every four years, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, millions of U.S. citizens go to local voting booths to elect, among other officials, the next president and vice president of their country. Their votes will be recorded and counted, and winners will be declared. But the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand because the Electoral College has not cast its vote.

Democrat Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech

Some 84,000 people packed Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High to see Barack Obama make history. The Illinois senator has become the first black American to accept the presidential nomination of a major political party.

Republican John McCain's Acceptance Speech

McCain lost his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. He ran again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, gained enough delegates to become the party's presumptive nominee in March 2008 and was formally nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention on September 3.

Simple Interactive Electoral Map

On election day, it will take at least 270 of the possible 538 electoral votes for John McCain or Barack Obama to win the Presidency. Use this map to predict possible state combinations each candidate needs to win the election. Clicking on a state will change the total electoral vote count per candidate.