Election 2008

California has 370 Democratic and 170 Republican delegates, more delegates than any other state. Half of California’s votes will be cast by mail.

As Super Tuesday begins, voters wonder how long it will be before the Republican and Democratic nominees are decided.

Associated Press Editor Mike Silverman describes exit poll reporting as "a combination of journalism and science." The Columbia Journalism Review looks at how the AP prepares for Super Tuesday.

In the race for the Democratic nomination, superdelegates may prove the deciding factor at the party’s national convention.

Sen. Edward Kennedy joins his niece Caroline Kennedy and his son Rep. Patrick Kennedy in endorsing Barack Obama for the presidency.

After winning the Florida primary, Sen. John McCain becomes the favorite to win the Republication nomination.

Barack Obama praised Ronald Reagan recently, shaking up both the liberal and conservative media. The Gipper’s legacy and its importance consumes the primaries.

Pollsters and journalists can’t stop chewing over the possibility of Bloomberg’s running for president—no matter how often he brushes aside the suggestion.

Obama’s stump speeches have been judged inspirational; but not by everyone. To some the best oratory the primaries offer merely confirms that the days of great political speeches are over.

Despite the non-stop coverage, it can be hard for voters to figure out a candidate's positions among all the sound bites. But online tools can help by matching personal convictions with the right candidate.

Florida, the nation’s fourth biggest state—16 million residents and rising—relies on tourism, federal space programs, development, and agriculture. With a politically conservative, military-centered panhandle, and a politically mixed peninsula of Latin American immigrants, retirees, über-wealthy socialites, a political consensus is nearly impossible. A key presidential election state, Florida’s primary was recently bumped to the crucial month of January—ensuring that it will remain a state to watch.

Senator from Arizona, former prisoner of war and noted author, John McCain is the Republican presidential candidate whose prospects looked bleak only a year ago.

The foreign media show a keener-than-usual interest in the 2008 presidential primaries. Opinions on U.S. electoral system and the candidates vary around the world.

Former governor of Massachusetts, businessman, and the organizer of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Mitt Romney is a front-running Republican presidential candidate currently in heated contention with Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, and Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Every four years Iowa glows in the national spotlight as the first state to host preliminary candidate voting in the form of the caucus. Iowa claims that 90 percent of its 56,000 square miles is dedicated farmland: It delivers more corn, soybeans, and livestock than any other state. But manufacturing brings in twice its agricultural revenue: In the capital city, Des Moines, a financial and high-tech boom is underway that, along with flight from rural areas to urban ones, promises to bring change to the Hawkeye State.

Since his unexpected victory in the Iowa caucus, Illinois senator Barack Obama has become a political sensation, beating Senator Clinton to earn the Democratic nomination.

South Carolina, the first state to declare independence from British rule and the first to secede from the Union, stretches from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Lowcountry, the mythic coastal region that includes Rhett Butler’s hometown. Four million people call South Carolina their home, and nearly one third of them are African American. The southern state hosts the third presidential primary—after New Hampshire, and Michigan—and in the past, has been instrumental in cementing candidates for both parties.

Michael Dale Huckabee was initially regarded as an unlikely contender for the presidential nomination. But his victory at the Iowa caucuses has made him one of the GOP’s leading candidates. Today we take a look at this wisecracking former Arkansas governor as he attempts to ride his newfound popularity through the primaries.

Native American stronghold, French fur-trapping territory, and birthplace of the automotive assembly line: the twin peninsulas of Michigan are now tourist magnets and high-tech hub, with a population divided along economic and political lines. But change—and divisiveness—is nothing new to the U.S.’s fourth most populous state.

If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for president and wins his home state, he could split the Electoral College. In that event, the battle for the presidency might reach a stalemate.

A senator from New York and a former First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton is a leading contender in the 2008 presidential election, standing on a platform of “experience” against relative newcomers and popular contenders, Senator John Edwards of South Carolina, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

New Hampshire’s state motto is famous: “Live free or die.” Residents of America’s 44th most populous state (and host to the nation’s first statewide primary elections) are proponents of living free, unfettered (with no sales or state income tax), and self-sufficient in their New England state full of rivers, mountains, small towns and colonial cities.

A lingering issue from past elections is what goes on behind the curtain of the voting booth. From hanging chads to unreliable technology, vote counting and voting accuracy remain major concerns of all politically minded citizens.

John McCain was consistent and a tearful Hillary Clinton appealed to voters with her apparent frankness. Not so long ago, both candidates were foundering.

Voters and commentators are starting to wonder whether, with a woman and a black man competing in the primaries, minority status is too readily equated with political transformation.

Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee win the first round of caucuses. But there is much to suggest that these early successes are of little use when it comes to forecasting the final result.

As the Iowa caucus approaches, commentators wonder whether it is right that the Hawkeye State has so much sway in choosing the presidential candidates.

The New York Governor who rode into office a year ago on a record-breaking majority now faces comparable levels of disapproval. Spitzer’s allies in the press are hard to find.

Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey praises Barack Obama’s rumored “Muslim heritage,” and then apologizes for his mistake, the latest in a number of election-related retractions. Are such “mistakes” typical of the subtle double-dealing that characterizes contemporary politics?