Kerry VS. McCain

[Nutmeg]

All along I thought the loser of this election would perform better than the last one. Does this suprise anyone that Kerry did better than McCain did?

As did I; it definitely surprises me.

[Nutmeg]

Top popular vote totals:

1. Obama (D)   2008   65,834,626 (and counting)
2. Bush (R)   2004   62,040,610
3. Kerry (D)   2004   59,028,439
4. McCain (R)   2008   57,709,772 (and counting)
5. Reagan (R)   1984   54,455,472

[Nutmeg]

The nation is growing you know, of course the turnout this year was nice, but the real list you should look at is that:

What are those figures - turnout as a percentage of what?  I imagine non-citizens and felon populations are higher than ever, although how is earlier disenfranchisement taken into account?

[Nutmeg]

The nation is growing you know, of course the turnout this year was nice, but the real list you should look at is that:

What are those figures - turnout as a percentage of what?  I imagine non-citizens and felon populations are higher than ever, although how is earlier disenfranchisement taken into account?

That's just the percentage of popular vote each candidate got.

Exectly

Oh, I see.  But how is that more relevant than raw vote figures?  Peculiarities of the campaign and, especially, weak opponents (1964, for example) really affect the margins.

The original thought exercise in this topic was to consider 2008 vote totals as compared to 2004 vote totals, to consider that McCain received fewer votes than Kerry even as the population grew slightly.