California was won by Democratic nominee Barack Obama with a 24.1% margin of victory.

A number of media outlets called Obama for the West coast states including Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington, declared him president-elect.

On February 5, 2008, presidential primaries were held by all parties with ballot access in the state.

The 2008 California Republican primary was held on February 5, 2008, with a total of 173 national delegates at stake.

Polls taken closer to the primary either showed Mitt Romney or John McCain as the favored candidate.

Characterized early on as “The Big Enchilada” by some pundits, ultimately Obama won most opinion polls taken prior to the election.

However, since the 1990s, California has become a reliably Democratic state with a highly diverse ethnic population (mostly Latino) and liberal bastions such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

Most news organizations called California for Obama as soon as the polls in the state closed.

He was projected the winner of the state along with Washington, Hawaii, and Oregon at the same time, whose combined electoral votes caused all news organizations to declare Obama the president-elect.

The last time the margin was higher in the state was in 1936 when Franklin D. Roosevelt won with 66.95% of the vote.

[29] In San Francisco and Alameda County (which includes Oakland and Berkeley), four out of five voters backed the Democratic candidate.

[30] His combined margin in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County would have been more than enough to carry the state.

Obama also made considerable headway in historically Republican areas of the state.

[30] San Bernardino and Riverside went from double-digit Republican victories to narrow Democratic wins.

[31] Despite the Democratic landslide in California, during the same election, a ballot proposition to ban same-sex marriage narrowly passed.

In California the 55 electors meet in the State Capitol building in Sacramento to cast their ballots.