LibGuides: POLS 432, Spring 2020: 2008, 2012, and 2016 general election results and exit polls

Election results and Electoral College maps

The first link on this list is an interactive map you can use to create Electoral College predictions. The rest feature results from the 2016, 2012, and 2008 presidential general elections. National and state-by-state results are the norm, most have maps and similar graphical elements, and some have county-level results too. Some of the older links on the list might take some time to load; they appear to have been designed with Flash, which is now deprecated.

270toWin presidential election interactive map Create you own electoral vote predictions with this map. Click states to change them to Democratic or Republican victories and the resulting Electoral College results.
PBS Election Central electoral decoder Electoral College results and maps for every presidential election, from 1789 through 2016.
2016 CNN presidential election results National, state, and county-level results, with maps. State maps are shaded to show counties won by small and large majorities.
2016 Politico presidential election results National, state, and county-level results, with maps.
2016 Electoral-Vote.com election results State-level results, with a national map shaded to show states where the election was close. Additional interesting features like electoral vote graphs, tipping-point states, and "data galore."
2012 CNN presidential election results National and state-level results, with a maps.
2012 NBC News presidential election results National, state, and county-level results, with maps.
2012 Electoral-Vote.com presidential election results State-level results, with a national map shaded to show states where the election was close. Additional interesting features like electoral vote graphs, tipping-point states, and "data galore."
2008 CNN presidential election results National and state-level results. Select states using the "full results by state" pull-down menu. State results can take a minute to load.
2008 New York Times presidential election results National, state, and county-level results with state maps shaded to show counties won by large and small margins.
2008 Electoral-Vote.com presidential election results State-level results, with a national map shaded to show states where the election was close. Additional interesting features like electoral vote graphs, tipping-point states, and "data galore."

Official election results

Election results on news outlets' "election center" web pages are reliable for finding winners and losers, and provide a fairly accurate depiction of how close elections were nationally and in individual states and counties. They might or might not, however, reflect final, official vote totals.

Those seeking something more official might be interested in the FEC's Federal Elections, a biennial compilation of official, certified results for elections to federal office.

Though the presidency, vice presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives are federal entities, elections are conducted by the states and the District of Columbia. Another way to find official results, therefore, is to find them on the websites of individual states and D.C. Google searches such as "Ohio secretary of state 2008 election" or "Indiana secretary of state 2012 election results" will usually do the trick - combine the state you want, with the year of the election, and "secretary of state," the official in most state governments who is responsible for overseeing elections. In the search results, look for sites with a ".gov" or ".us" top-level domain. Each site will be somewhat different, so taking a moment to consider how the page is organized and to look at all the links will help you find the election results.

Exit polls

Official election results reported by secretaries of state and county boards of elections do not include demographic data about voters. When such demographic information is available, such as the share of voters over the age of 60 who supported one candidate or the percentage of African-American voters who supported another, it come from exit polls.

The links below contain exit polls for the three most recent presidential general elections from CNN's website. The exit polls are provided by the National Election Pool, a consortium of news agencies that includes CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC. The links will take you to national exit polling, but each page has a pull-down menu that will let you choose and individual U.S. state.