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Center for American
Politics and Citizenship
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University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

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University of Maryland/News Release
February 20, 2009

CAPC hosts 2008 Election Postmortem along with Honors Dept.

College Park, Md. ? The Center for American Politics and Citizenship hosted an election postmortem on November 11, 2008 in front of a crowd of nearly 60 students, staff and university faculty in Anne Arundel Hall. The event, hosted in conjunction with the university?s Honors Department, allowed a panel composed of Government and Politics professors, including CAPC Director Paul Herrnson, the opportunity to offer their insight and analysis on Barack Obama?s historic win on November 2.

Coming just a week after the election, the distinguished panelists discussed topics ranging from the impact of the youth vote to how the election will impact future generations and answered audience questions.

This election was not unpredictable, said CAPC Senior Research Fellow Irwin Morris. In fact, he added, the median of nine scholars? pre-election predictions was 53 percent for Obama. The actual result was 53.3 percent of the popular vote for Obama.

Although Obama won a convincing victory, the result did not give him a strong mandate. According to Morris, the average number of Electoral College votes in past elections has been as high as 400. Obama only received 365.

But how did Obama win? What factors played a role in his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain? Professor Ron Walters, who is frequently quoted in national media outlets such as CNN and National Public Radio, rebuffed the notion that Obama got the black vote simply because he was black: ?Obama got the black vote because he was credible, not because he was black.?

For more information on the CAPC election postmortem, look forward to the CAPC spring newsletter.