Republican John McCain defeated Democrat Barack Obama in the state by 15 percentage points.

Prior to the election, 17 news organizations had correctly predicted that McCain would easily carry the state, and virtually all polling indicated the same.

McCain slightly improved upon George W. Bush's performance in 2004, despite the nation as a whole trending significantly Democratic in 2008.

Mike Huckabee narrowly defeated John McCain to win the largest share of Tennessee's delegates to the 2008 Republican National Convention.

* Candidate dropped out of the race before the primary There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election.

Here are their last predictions before election day: McCain won every single pre-election poll, and each by a double-digit margin of victory.

Barack Obama carried the state's 2 congressional districts anchored by the two largest cities of Memphis and Nashville.

All 11 were pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin: Despite narrowly voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 when former Tennessee Senator Al Gore was on the ticket as Vice President, the state, along with neighboring Arkansas has steadily been trending Republican since then.

George W. Bush narrowly carried the state in 2000 over Gore and easily won in 2004 over John Kerry.

For example, Grundy County, in southeastern Tennessee, broke 56%-42% for John Kerry in 2004, but wound up being swept by McCain 55%-42% this year.

[25] This is largely due to a growing social conservative trend in the region, particularly in the Nashville suburbs; some of the most politically active churches in the state are located there.

On the other hand, Barack Obama did improve relatively well upon John Kerry's performances in the traditionally Democratic cities of Nashville and Memphis.