Question

[tmthforu94]

I'm young. I've really only been apart of one Presidential election, and that was this year. Before that, I could care less. Therefore, I don't know a ton about election night.
I remember people talking on CNN on election night how it was important that Indiana was called early for McCain. They said that if it wasn't called right away, it would be a long night for McCain...
Why is it so important when a state is called?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I think because it gives an indicator of how the night will go.

[Holmes]

The polling places in states like Indiana and Virginia are among the first to close, and in past elections, were solidly Republican. I mean, Bush won Indiana with 60%, for example. Because they were so solidly Republican meant that if they weren't called after the polls closed, then McCain didn't perform too well in places a Republican normally should.

[Franzl]

It's important because it indicates an overall trend in the election.

Indiana, as a normally safe Republican state, being "too close to call" was almost a sure sign that McCain would lose in other states that are typically closer.

Swings aren't universal, of course, but if a Bush +20 state can't be called immediately...imagine what that means in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, etc. Indiana did swing quite a bit more than other states this election cycle, but you see what happened in the "swing states".

[Smash255]

Indiana has traditionally been a very Republican state.  The reason it was important for Indiana to be called early is even if he won the state, he would have generally needed to win Indiana by a solid margin in order to have a chance.  This is because if Indiana was close it would have meant other states which were much more of a battleground (such as Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, etc) would have flipped.   He wasn't going to win Indiana by a slim margin and hold onto those states, if Indiana was close it meant those states were gone, and so was the election.  

[tmthforu94]

Got it.
I was thinking, like, it might affect voting on the west coast since polls hadn't closed yet. People would see Obama was going to win, so voted for him.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Indiana and Virginia were both solidly Republican states up to 2008. In fact, they both went Republican ten times in a row, from 1968 to 2004 inclusively. Even in 1976, Virginia went for Ford despite most of the other Southern states voting for Carter. Likewise, Indiana went Republican in both 1992 and 1996, despite all neighboring states voting for Clinton both times.

I second what the previous posts say; the idea was probably that, if such strong Republican states are "too close to call" until the very end, then how would McCain win the real battlegrounds like Ohio and Florida? I remember that Ohio was called rather early, for the record (in comparison to the last states, like Missouri).

Of course, like Franzl said, swings are not universal (ie, a 20 point swing toward the Democrats like Indiana in 2008 does not necessarily suggest similar swings elsewhere). But in general, of course, Obama making inroads into such states was obviously not a good sign for McCain.

One could also speak similarly of other states, like North Carolina, which just 4 years earlier rejected John Kerry by double digits despite having home state senator John Edwards on the ticket. Even McCain's home state of Arizona took more than 3 hours to be called.

[pbrower2a]

Let's start with the common wisdom of the news media on November 4, 2008:

This is how the election shaped up that night before any polls closed:

At 6PM EST on November 4, 2008, the situation so showed:

123 electoral votes seemed likely to go to McCain under any circumstances as shown by polls and the behavior of candidates. Those are in the darker shade of blue shown on the map, and they indicate the states likely to be called as soon as the polls close statewide.

37 electoral votes (in pale blue) had a preponderance of chance of going to McCain; they would if nothing really strange happened.  They might get close, but they showed no strong indication of going to Obama. 

115 electoral votes (in pale green) are shown as swing states and districts -- states or districts that could all go one way or another. If any of them could be called early, then something was fishy about the models for predicting elections. These all include all states that no Democrat had won since 1996, but were up for grabs.

37 electoral votes (in pale red) are shown for states that had split in 1992 and 1996 for Dubya, and Pennsylvania, where McCain made a last-hour blitz of a campaign, were purportedly not likely to be called early -- but Obama was likely to win them. 

227 electoral votes in dark red are known to come from states that few think have any possibility of being called for McCain.

The rest, in green, could supposedly have gone either way -- all 105 of them. 

McCain was a sure winner, or so it seemed, of 123 electoral votes with another 37 having very slight questions that could be answered quickly and thus a near certainty of 160 electoral votes. Obama was seen as a sure winner of 227 electoral votes with 37 likely to be called for him with questions that would be answered fairly quickly and thus seemed very certain to win 264 electoral votes.  270, of course, wins. McCain could conceivably lose Montana and NE-02 and still win... but that was it. Nevada would have made a tie to be determined in the House of Representatives where the Democrats were going to go for Obama.

Of the states in green, Indiana was one of the first to close its polls (statewide at 6PM local time, 7PM EST statewide), and it was seen to be almost evenly split. If McCain lost Indiana he would lose the election because of 264 other electoral votes reasonably certain to go to Obama. Of course if the news media could call  Indiana quickly for McCain, then McCain's chances in some other swing states suddenly became much better because some of the other states have obvious similarities of demographics and political behavior to Indiana.

At 7PM EST the media could make quick calls on two states: Vermont (Obama) and Kentucky (McCain). No surprise there. Instead of darkening them I am going to show them in very pale colors as if lighted for contrast:

At 7:30 PM, West Virginia was an instant call for McCain, South Carolina could be called before an hour was up, and a bunch of states could be called quickly at 8PM EST:

The rest were still open or were counting but uncalled. There were no great surprises.

Polls had closed in Indiana, but the voting was unusually close -- in a state that last voted for the Democratic nominee for President in 1964. They had also closed in Virginia, Ohio, and Florida somewhat later but were still too close to call -- as they would remain.

Pennsylvania was the site of a last-hour campaign blitz by McCain, as was New Hampshire. Those gambles apparently didn't pay off.

Arkansas closed its polls at 8:30 EST, and by 9PM Alabama and Pennsylvania would be called. In any event another group of states were instant calls at 9PM: KS, TX, NY, MI, MN, WI, RI, WY, and a bunch of states that didn't get instant calls. When Pennsylvania was called for Obama, then a McCain victory depended upon everything else going right.

Nothing in green had changed colors, so although McCain still had a chance to win, if a poor one, nobody could write off the 2008 election yet. That would soon change: Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Ohio would be called.   

Obama won Ohio, a state that McCain absolutely could not afford to lose, as the number of outstanding votes approached the difference between McCain and Obama.  Ohio was expected to be close, and it would be, but for McCain it was on the wrong side. At this point Obama had 205 electoral votes sowed up, and even if he didn't win Iowa but won the West Coast other than Alaska, he would pass 270 electoral votes no matter what happened in any of the states still colored green -- swing states still too close to call or still open. Obama, all knew, would win California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii and their 77 electoral votes. 

The next hour or so would be almost anti-climactic, with Obama winning Iowa instantly and McCain getting Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, and four of five electoral votes of Nebraska. At 11 PM EST any suspense about who would win the election came to a swift end:
Idaho would go for McCain, but we all know where the great population centers of the Pacific Coast went:

... Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, and NE-02 were yet to be called. Arizona hadn't been called yet, either. Alaska was not yet closed. Of the states that McCain absolutely had to win, he had lost only one -- but as this election would prove, one would be enough.




   

 

[Alcon]

This meme ignored that exit polls should have been expected to have a Dem bias, as they did.

Indiana polled steadily at 5-10 points more GOP than average.  McCain would need to be up 5-10 points in Indiana to stand a chance.  Either way, this didn't make much sense.  With the tilt of the exit polls, and the competitive-esque race virtually guaranteed in the state, Indiana probably wouldn't have been called immediately even if McCain had pulled an upset.

[pbrower2a]

Are you ready for some anticlimax?

Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and Nevada all went to Obama within an hour, and McCain did get his home state. Alaska went for McCain immediately.

Obama ended up winning Indiana, but by 2 AM EST such mattered little. 

-----

OK. Indiana might have seemed a fluke, but by November 4, everyone knew that that state alone had a chance to decide the election. But if it were really close, then some other states had similar chances to vote for Obama. Obama was unlikely to win Indiana without also winning Ohio because Ohio is fairly similar except that it tends to be more Democratic in its vote than Indiana. Virginia and North Carolina hadn't voted for Democratic candidates for President since 1964 and 1976, respectively. Florida has no good analogue. Colorado had been drifting Democratic.

If Indiana ended up even close in the 2008 election, McCain had no reasonable chance of winning; if Obama didn't win Indiana, then he would likely win some other state that McCain could not afford to lose. Obama had invested much time and effort in Indiana and had a huge ad campaign in place. But such was so elsewhere. Indiana was simply the first state to deliver a vote count of any kind that wasn't a foregone conclusion.

OK, we can now discuss what relevance we have this discussion has for 2012. Suppose that Kentucky, a state that went for McCain by a large margin is unusually close. That would suggest that Obama has been able to attract voters who didn't go for him the first time, and that he has the potential of a landslide win. Suppose that Vermont, instead of being a quick call, is too close to call early. That would suggest that Obama has lost much of the support that he had in 2008 and that he quite possibly could lose in a landslide.  Sure, Vermont has only three electoral votes, but if he can't win Vermont decisively then he will likely lose a bunch of states that aren't so strongly Democratic -- like Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, and perhaps Pennsylvania. 

Indiana? If it is again too close to call early, then Obama stands pick up 52%-55% of the popular vote.  If it is a quick call by a large margin in favor of the Republican candidate and Obama has put much effort into winning the state, then he stands to lose. But should Indiana be a quick call for Obama, then the evening will be over early with Democrats singing "Happy Days are Here Again!" before the votes from the Pacific Coast are reported.