The Difference Two Years Makes

| Tue Nov. 4, 2008 9:33 AM PST

Two years ago yesterday, SurveyUSA interviewed 600 Americans in each state of the union. Those 30,000 voters were asked who they would vote for in 2008 if the candidates were Barack Obama and John McCain. In that (mock) election, Senator McCain won 510 electoral votes. Obama carried his home state of Illinois, his birth state of Hawaii, and the overwhelmingly Democratic District of Columbia. The map looked like this:

ecv-2006.jpg

Even if the polls are wrong and Obama loses, no one thinks the map will look like that tonight. Guess Obama was serious about that "Change" business. Now that's what you call expanding the map.

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Nick Baumann

News Editor

Nick Baumann covers national politics and civil liberties issues for Mother Jones' DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Email tips and insights to nbaumann [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS |

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