Posted: Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm. Filed in Community.
Tags: election, election08, polldaddy, polls, president
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The Votes Are In
Here’s how you voted in our U.S. Presidential Election poll yesterday:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden: 69%
John McCain and Sarah Palin: 24%
Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez: 3%
Robert Barr and Wayne Root: 2%
Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente: 1%
Charles Baldwin and Darrell Castle: 1%
And here are the actual results, as of 12 p.m. PST today:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden: 52%
John McCain and Sarah Palin: 46%
Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez: 1%
Robert Barr and Wayne Root: 1%
Charles Baldwin and Darrell Castle: 0%
Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente: 0%
It looks like while the percentage of WordPress votes varies from the actual election results, the rank of candidates is almost identical. The only exception is the bottom two tickets: You pushed McKinney ahead of Baldwin by the eensy margin of one vote, while Baldwin fared better than McKinney in the real election by about 30,000 votes. But I’m no statistician, so I’ll let you do your own analysis beyond that 
Thanks for casting your votes with us yesterday, and props to those in the U.S. who wore their stickers with pride.
To see a cool graph like the one above for your own polls, along with other extras, log in to PollDaddy.com with the same email address you use for your WordPress.com username.
Note: While comments on this post are open, they will be moderated carefully. Please keep your comments pertinent to the poll process and the relationship between WordPress community results and actual U.S. results. One-word comments and comments that only include statements about a particular candidate will not be approved.
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November 5th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
That’s AWESOME!!
November 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Still, well within the range of percentages around the country. In Santa Fe County, the Obama ticket received 77% of the vote. Here in the 12th precinct – which is almost exactly 50-50 Anglo-Hispanic composition – their margin was over 81%.
No doubt there are WP bloggers in counties with the obverse side of the coin .
November 5th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
but the different is so significant
November 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Interesting, but not surprising. My sense (and this is completely anecdotal), is that blog content like media content seems to have a left of center skew. Do people think this is the cause for the discrepency, or perhaps just self selection by the type of people who usually respond to polls, or some other reason all together?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Wow. Great poll. Too bad I didn’t get to vote in it.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Awesome!
Obama seems to have won by a lot more percent than in the real election.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Hmm… Maybe the next election should be held at WP
November 5th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Very interesting to see that those who blog trend towards Obama vs The actual results which were much closer in number/percentages. Let’s hope for a fruitful future!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Any particular reason why John McCain and Sarah Palin aren’t labelled on the graph?
P.S. I love the new PollDaddy.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
@KA: Nope, fixed!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Just wanted to say that I’ve been having a blast with Poll Daddy on my blog. Thanks WordPress, for making those polls happen so effortlessly for us. WORDPRESS ROCKS!
(and if you haven’t tried doing a poll on your blog, you should! it’s easy and fun!)
November 5th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
@kimoki: Also fixed
November 5th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Yes, polls are great! I can’t figure out how to login to PollDaddy.com with my WordPress info though…?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Thank you WP for this opportunity to vote virtually, while every people were waiting for real results. Nearly 3000 buttons pushed!
I wonder why Ralph Nader, internationally known since his first book — Unsafe at Any Speed — has been customized as “Nadar”. Too much haste in releasing the polling post, Ain’t It ?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
So goes wordpress.com users so goes the nation
November 5th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
you’ve a quick counter blogger
November 5th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I suspect the WordPress population is significantly younger than the general, which would account for the skew.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Hurray for polls, and hurray for a national election where I picked a winner for ONCE!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Just shows the average WordPress blogger is brighter than the average citizen. (An Australian perspective…)
November 5th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Ah… so do here in Indonesia. We’re conducting some polls and the results placed Obama in the first place and McCain second. Looks like we’re, WordPress-er, expecting the same president for US.
Vivat WP!!
November 6th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Give or take some, this is consistent with New York, California and Chicago results. No big surprise.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Well the bad thing was that I only knew Obama and Mccain is I had to choose between the two of them…
I dont live in the US so I dont really know much about the other candidates : (
November 6th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Am I surprised with the landslide.. not at all… i think it’s fantastic.. real or fake…
November 6th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Yeaahh… WP rockss…!!!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:08 am
I wonder if the difference is because the WP poll is international?
November 6th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I think the results are skewed versus the national results because bloggers are generally younger, don’t you think? Certainly an interesting contrast.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Very interesting and, I have to say, revealing as well
November 6th, 2008 at 3:12 am
^_^ Congrat for US, specially for Obama and Biden.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:27 am
Not only America who need a good leader but the whole world does, may God bless Barrack Obama!!!
November 6th, 2008 at 4:01 am
well done US citizens!
November 6th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hmm. I was wondering why so many bloggers are so liberal but then I read Pam’s comment. Could be the age/life experience thing.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:50 am
amazing for that…
November 6th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I guess wordpress bloggers are a more liberal bunch.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I forgot to vote here on WordPress. I voted for John McCain. My vote lost in the main election. McCain Won in the State of Tenn. ( My State ). Tenn doesn`t have enough electorical college votes to put any body in the White House.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Bravo Barack Obama, all around the world pray for you..! God Bless You
November 6th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Looks like I am in good company on WordPress.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:01 am
And the thing is…WordPress.com users are from all over, not just America.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:27 am
CC Farber, you’re right. I’m from New Zealand and I voted in the poll. We have our Election this Saturday the 8th November (or November 8th for the Amercians
) I know I could put a poll on my blog but I’d get a total of maybe 10 visitors to the post 
I have used PollDaddy, I love it.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:58 am
in the end, obama and biden win, right?
go go
i believe whoever win, they’d do their best to the country ^^
November 6th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Hmm… Maybe the next election should be held at WP
November 6th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
In fact, outside America Obama is even more popular than at home.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Thats an incredible correlation! The similarity between WordPress and U.S. Election stats… Astounding! Obviously this is an amazing indicator to the great communal likeness Word Press effectively exemplifies. Its an active and effective Microcosm! Thanks for the info Heather.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I think (if it’s possible) you should provide information about how many voters are the US citizen and how many are not. This would give a better image of this poll.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Probably the strong showing for Obama does have a lot to do with him attracting a lot of the youth vote, and most bloggers being young. And I’ll second the international users theory, too. I know here in Nepal every single Nepali I spoke with in the past few months favored Obama over McCain.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
CC Farber’s point is a good one. Obama actually has much stronger support in the rest of the world than he does in the US. A poll was carried out during the summer in 22 countries (don’t ask me which ones…), and Obama had a 4:1 advantage over McCain. So factor that in along with the US ratio of 52:46, and the figures for WordPress users seem pretty representative.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Hear HEAR. We have now had four US-centric blog posts in a row; one promoting ‘National’ Novel Writing Month, one on changing your settings for Daylight Savings (which had already happened for people outside America, and we don’t all call it Daylight Savings either) then these two Polldaddy-pimping US election posts.
It’s always an uphill struggle getting Americans to recognise the existence of the Rest Of The World, so I don’t really blame you. Just don’t wish us a happy Thanksgiving, that’s all.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:54 am
@that girl again: I won’t argue that DST and the U.S. elections are American, but they are also significant events (in very different ways) for members of the WordPress community. Mainly I’d like to note that, as your scare quotes indicate, National Novel Writing Month is an international initiative.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
SALAM
WOW I VOTED IN THIS
i even have polls on my own blogs about the election,
i think its gd idea 4 all ppl n wordpress users especially as a lot of us dont get to vote.
as we are fromm all over the world
November 6th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
The skew to Obama is really not surprising. As`already noted the media workers are bound to have a liberal bias and overseas folks will be entirely in the tank.
An interesting exercise.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
It’s cool that WordPress is out there with the community! Thanks!
Sebastian
November 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Thanks for the opportunity to vote virtually WP
November 6th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
While the wordpress votes percentages vary greatly from the national poll results in terms of popular vote, they do reflect more closely the electoral college vote which went to Obama by a 2 to 1 ratio (66% Obama-Biden, 33% McCain-Palin)
November 6th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I think the results lean towards Obama because of the international element. I think the world is scared of seeing another republican in the white house after George Bush. I live in Australia, and with my brother being in the army, I always fear that George is going to call for more back up.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:47 am
It iss interesting how Obama fared better in your poll open to users from around the world then in the national results. It just goes to show how well liked Obama is around the world
November 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Thank-you American voters, the rest of the world just exhaled
November 7th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I would have liked to vote for Moore/Alexander of the SPUSA but they were not included in this poll …
… but congratulations for dumping the REPs!
November 7th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I believe America came together to let the establishment know that we are tired of the direction this nation is going.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
it”s bloody amazing
November 7th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
My favorite candidate was Cynthia McKinney. I guess she didn’t fare so well in either contest.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:24 am
On another site (http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/results), three countries were pro McCain at election time; Albania, Macedonia and Niue. Every other country preferred Obama. I think the international skew has much more to do with it then a “media= liberal” skew. I’m pretty sure conservatives own computers too.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Wow, amazing… What a reality result… Obama should be the absolute winner for this poll.
November 8th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Really a brilliant work….. appreciate that you are sharing this with us all…..
Thanks, have a nice time.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Hmmm, did you also play with the numbers in SPSS? I see many statistical drawbacks. In any case, who cares? It is the history already. Now we need to save the world.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
GO OBAMA!!! lol i saw tthe simpsons episode tree house of horror homer was trying to vote for obama but it was rigged LOL!!!!
November 9th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Voting fever has occured…fun!
November 9th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Obama Nation! Woo Hoo!
November 10th, 2008 at 9:32 am
barack and roll!!!!
November 10th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I was not most startled on the victory Obama, but I was startled by the percentage that almost 2 fold times by John McCain and Sarah Palin. Although obama continue to his winner.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I wonder if this polls is representative of the wordpress community. I noticed the number of McCain votes was much less than in the actual poll results. I also think perhaps the Obama votes might be overinflated just slightly due to the international pollsters. Mainly speculation and bias on my part, so I won’t debate other opinions. Thanks Heather for the follow up on the poll results.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
The word press results were probably different for 1 reason only. Study your demographic results and you will know why. Amongst 18-30 year old in the real polls Obama was streets ahead but decreasing with the ages of voters. Maybe word press reflects that in having a younger average user therefore reflecting voter trends quite accurately in it’s readership?
Live long and prosper.
xxx Stan Rogers
November 12th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Regarding your poll results, I think Ceeceejaye’s analysis is pretty accurate.
This past election was the Perfect Storm – FOR the Democrats and AGAINST the Republicans.
An unpopular Presidency such as Bush’s was an unsurmountable obstacle for any Republican candidate – especially for an elderly, polarizing figure such as John McCain. Many Americans couldn’t “get behind” McCain or be excited about supporting him, even though he may have represented their political party and many of their political views.
Obama, on the other hand, had many advantages. First, he was a member of the Party that is NOT currently in power – always an advantage! No matter who is governing at the moment, the grass always looks greener on the other side.
Secondly, Obama’s youthful image resonated with many younger voters – a direct contrast to McCain’s 72 years. Also, Obama’s eloquence in prepared speeches, along with an attractive smile, was warming to many undecided voters, especially compared to McCain’s aged appearance and occasional gloomy demeanor.
Thirdly, the current American economy is in shambles – mostly due to years of poor legislation by both political Parties. The fact that Obama is relatively new to the Senate allowed him to appear as though he had not been involved in those poor decisions, and that he could be the new, fresh face to offer solutions.
Finally, Obama’s racial background was the deciding factor for many voters. CNN’s election night polls showed
that his race was a factor for nearly 65% of the voters, but that it was actually a positive influence. Meaning not only did his ethnicity not hurt him, but it actually helped him.
I believe that a candidate should be voted for solely based on their platform and stance on the issues at hand, no mater what their race happens to be. However, I can certainly appreciate the fact that some racial minorities supported Obama because they felt that they would have a stronger National voice and be more adequately supported on a National level.
Obama is an engaging and charismatic figure in modern politics. Perfect timing for the Democrats, especially in the wake of an administration that even most Republicans would consider a huge disappointment.
In conclusion, I do not believe that Conservatism in America is dead. It does, however, need to rebuild its image. It has been tarnished by 8 years of poor leadership and even poorer decisions. I believe it is up to the next, younger generation of fiscal and moral Conservatives to revive the simple, logical ideals of Conservatism.
They are not based on war, greed or global oppression. Instead, they are based on personal responsibility, traditional family values, and abundant generosity. Unfortunately, many of those values have been tarnished and set aside in the recent past. True conservatives also see large, ruling government as the problem – not the solution.
But, for the incoming Obama administration, I hope and pray that he governs well. That he makes wise, non-partisan decisions that stimulate our economy and global image, and increase individual American’s financial independence, and not a sense of dependency.
While I may not have supported him, I certainly hope that America is better off because of him.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
quite impressive!
November 12th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
The outcome of the election has really made me excited and hopeful, not just because of who our new president is, but the attitudes of people about the election. The outpour of support and the sheer number of voters this year makes me confident that the people in our country are not willing to just roll over to a political power but stand up for progress and community the a passion we haven’t seen since the fifties and sixties. I recently saw the new film Cadillac Records that comes out on December 5th and it’s message is similar. It is about the rise and popularity of blues music in the 1950’s in Chicago that brought black culture to the mainstream and simultaneously, an acceptance of a misunderstood race at the time. (see the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QJyAXfG8NM) Now we as a society, at least a good majority of us, have cast our vote for change and understanding. One step closer to a united American community working towards the greater good.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Yes, it seems WordPress users lean towards the Democratic party. I was really starting to wonder after seeing the fox news blogs consistently at the top of your blog lists prior to the election.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Thanks, for the opportunity to votes virtually WordPress
November 14th, 2008 at 12:11 am
While people can talk about demographic this and demographic that, the bottom line is that to read a blog and vote on it, you have to be LITERATE. Obviously, bloggers THINK. The numbers speak for themselves
November 14th, 2008 at 1:24 am
I missed the vote, but I’m your lone Alan Keyes representative (unless there’s anyone else?
November 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Obama is the best!
November 14th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Did u know that in texas obama got 43% of the vote?Even though mcain won,texas could turn blue if the dems ever start campaining in our state.NEITHER obama nor mcain campained once in texas,nor their vice presidential nominees or wives-or bush.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama
November 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I WISH OBAMA IS THE BEST PRESIDENT FROM USA.. WHO MAKE WORLD ALWAYS PEACE!!!! ^^
November 16th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Obama,
Well done, change we can believe, hope you can bring good things to the world.
November 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
congratuletions for new President Barack Obama from Italy, Calabria sud italia.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
FYI Sarah Palin did come to Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio and she had huge crowds that seemed to adore her…So yes, someone did campaign in Texas…LM
November 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Let’s see what Barak Obama will do for the minorities of the nation.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
A good reflection of what America really wanted. I guess…
November 18th, 2008 at 9:11 am
It seems Obama is the destiny child the US has chosen……. now it is to be seen how far he can take on the things from here.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
obama!!! obama!!!! obama!!!! its like super hero….whoo hooo
November 19th, 2008 at 12:05 am
viva obama
November 19th, 2008 at 1:15 am
nice work America , it’s great to see you made the right decision THIS TIME !!!!!