2008: Tie in the Electoral College

[sportydude]

Congress wouldn't be any different from the actual 2008 results, and in order to make it a little bit more difficult, Obama and McCain both received the same amount of votes.

[SingingAnalyst]

Assuming Obama and McCain tied 269-269, with McCain getting say half a million more PVs than Obama, there would be no reason I can see why the Dem House and the Dem Senate would not vote on party lines to make Obama and Biden Pres and VP, especially with the memory of how the Dems were "robbed" in 2000 (at least in many people's views).

[sportydude]

Assuming Obama and McCain tied 269-269, with McCain getting say half a million more PVs than Obama, there would be no reason I can see why the Dem House and the Dem Senate would not vote on party lines to make Obama and Biden Pres and VP, especially with the memory of how the Dems were "robbed" in 2000 (at least in many people's views).

The most interesting question is if Biden would already have been elected by the Electoral College.
It's also interesting to know if House Democrats from McCain states would refuse Obama their votes.
I could also imagine some angry New York woman in the EC supporting McCain.

[SingingAnalyst]

Assuming Obama and McCain tied 269-269, with McCain getting say half a million more PVs than Obama, there would be no reason I can see why the Dem House and the Dem Senate would not vote on party lines to make Obama and Biden Pres and VP, especially with the memory of how the Dems were "robbed" in 2000 (at least in many people's views).

The most interesting question is if Biden would already have been elected by the Electoral College.
It's also interesting to know if House Democrats from McCain states would refuse Obama their votes.
I could also imagine some angry New York woman in the EC supporting McCain.

Why would Biden have been elected by the EC already? As for faithless electors, you never know. If Ford had carried OH and HI in '76, he would have earned 270 EVs to Carter's 268-- but the faithless WA elector would have ruined things, and the House would have chosen Carter.

[sportydude]

Why would Biden have been elected by the EC already? As for faithless electors, you never know. If Ford had carried OH and HI in '76, he would have earned 270 EVs to Carter's 268-- but the faithless WA elector would have ruined things, and the House would have chosen Carter.

I couldn't imagine in the slightest why anybody would want someone like Palin as their vice president, especially under a 72-year-old president who has had cancer...

[SingingAnalyst]

Why would Biden have been elected by the EC already? As for faithless electors, you never know. If Ford had carried OH and HI in '76, he would have earned 270 EVs to Carter's 268-- but the faithless WA elector would have ruined things, and the House would have chosen Carter.

I couldn't imagine in the slightest why anybody would want someone like Palin as their vice president, especially under a 72-year-old president who has had cancer...

Good point. All it would take is one Republican elector to vote McCain-Biden.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The house is 1 vote for state delegation. This was the breakdown after '08:

R Majority Delegations: AL, AK, DE, FL, GA, KS, KY, LA, MO, MT, NE, OK, SC, TX, UT, WY

D Majority Delegations: AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, IN, IA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI

Tie: ID

So the D's had a pretty significant advantage and would elect Obama. Yeah, DINO Walter Minnick would probably vote for McCain, allowing Idaho to join the R category, and there are a bunch of the democratic majorities that would become Ties or R majorities if just one D voted with the R's when the state delegation met to decide its vote. But there would have to be a lot of defections for the vote to actually go the other way. (If the vote ends up being an exact tie, then the VP takes office until the tie is broken)

The senate votes normally, so an easy Biden win there. It would be 58-41 on party lines. (Specter was still a republican at this point and Franken wasn't sworn in until June '09.)

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However, if we assume the Senate swings uniformly with the presidential popular vote (7 point swing to R's), the following republicans would have survived re-election:

Norm Coleman
Gordon Smith
Ted Stevens
John Sununu

Plus, Mary Landrieu (D) would have lost re-election. However, Biden would still be safe - a vote on party lines would be 54 D - 46 R. I'll leave it to someone else to figure out whether Obama would be safe in the house, but I imagine he would.

[James Bond 007]

McCain won 49 Democratic districts.  That's a lot of seats to automatically lose.  Their party would've done better in those districts in 2010 by letting the GOP run unopposed.