Talk Elections

He still would've won, but McCain probably would have won Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Nebraska 02. In terms of the popular vote, Obama wins by around 3-4%.

A more interesting question, What if the Financial crisis that happened in 08 yet the job losses continued until 09. Happened in 07 and 08?

What would Obama's margin be by then when the depth of the recession happened around election year than a year after?

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Would 2010 have then been better for Democrats?  Under this scenario, the jobs would have started coming back in early 2009 rather than early 2010, meaning that the unemployment rate would have been dropping for over a year and a half by November 2010 and Dems could have pointed to a year and a half of sustained recovery. 

However, Republicans and talk would still have been able to. whip up opposition to Dems on other issues like healthcare and government spending.  Republicans are just too damn good at the game.

A lot of people talk about Obama's numbers going down in his re-election bid, but Obama's 2008 win was inflated in the first place. People thought the financial collapse was a 1929-level event and wanted to punish the GOP at the time. Obama won by 4% in 2012, because his numbers went up from what they would've been had he won without the financial collapse, which would've been as close as 2000, 1-2%.

He would've had a good chance of losing OH too. His electoral barrier was NV, CO and IA thanks to his ground game in those states. Mccain actually had a very good chance to win if he could've pulled off NH. Palin was picked to help him with consolidating the base and picking off PUMAs in states like NH.

Palin was doing quite fine until the Couric interview about the bailouts, which Mccain himself was confused about supporting, but this again, happened only in the context of the financial crisis.

Mccain had better odds of beating Obama in 2008 than Romney ever did in 2012. Bush/Paulson screwed him over by trusting the UK with Barclays merger, they pulled out at the last minute.

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Obama 285
McCain 253

Dream scenario for Democrats/Nightmare scenario for Republicans...the financial crisis happens in September 2007 instead. Unemployment peaks right around Election Day 2008, and it's clearly dropping by Election Day 2010 (whereas in the real timeline, unemployment didn't drop much in 2010..it was still almost 10 percent when Dems lost the House).

McCain would've won Indiana, NE-02, and North Carolina, and probably Ohio and Florida as well.

No way NH flips for a Republican sooner than Ohio, if Mccain wins NH, then he's already won OH and the election.

In 08 Virginia was more GOP
Than Florida or ohio

Uh, no? Obama won Florida by about 3%, Ohio by about 4.5%, and Virginia by just over 6%.

He might not have won at all.  Keep in mind that McCain was leading nearly every poll between the RNC and the financial crisis.

Well I think obama still would have won ,as  it is very hard for an incumbent party to win a third team .I mean democrats lost 2000 despite very low unemployment, wages up , and a popular president .

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html#polls

A look here shows that Obama started inching back ahead on September 10th, which was five days before the Lehman collapse.  

Palin was the wrong pick for McCain and the country was tired of Bush at that point regardless of the financial crisis. McCain might have carried FL/NC/VA/OH/IN, but Obama would still have won. (Polls over the summer mostly had Obama winning all Kerry states plus IA, NM, CO; considering NV ended up to the left of several of those and polling there is frequently wrong, he would've likely won there as well). Consistent with an overall popular vote margin of about 1%:

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Obama wins, 278-260.

Given Bush's dismal approval rating of around 25%, McCain being a terrible campaigner, the Palin debacle, and a charismatic likable black presidential nominee, Obama would have won comfortably even without the financial crisis. No way the margin would have been similar to 2000.

How would Romney have campaigned in the middle of a financial collapse? Mccain did as well as any republican could have possibly done, Romney would've probably lost Montana and a number of additional states, and it would've been a genuine landslide defeat. As I talked about with Palin, she was doing fine until the Couric interview, which was about the bailouts. Mccain in 2008 before the financial crisis had far better odds than Romney did in 2012, if you compare how Mccain was polling pre-Lehman, to how Romney polled overall v. Obama, it's clear. Mccain also polled better than Romney even in 2008, see the 08 Romney v Obama polls. Part of the reason Mccain did well is because he was seen as a 'maverick', not a generic republican. he had large appeal with independents.

By the way, I don't know why this is so hard to believe, there's a reason why Obama was the only president since FDR to have been re-elected with a lower margin of victory. People thought Obama was going to be FDR in 2008 after the financial crisis. His 2008 win has largely inflated.

When the Lehman collapse broke, McCain was still leading in every poll.

The only thing that kept McCain from being landslided in the year 2008 was

1) Racial voting especially in the east and south.
2) Polarization
3) Obama's lack of experience was a fact plus his perceived association with Islam from the yokels.