Polling throughout the state showed McCain consistently and substantially leading Obama.

On Election Day, McCain easily won the state, although his margin of victory was significantly less than that of George W. Bush in 2000 or 2004.

Here are their last predictions before election day: McCain won every single pre-election poll.

Economically and racially diverse, Texas includes a very large swath of the Bible Belt, a region in which many voters, especially those in rural areas, identify as born-again or evangelical Christians, and tend to vote Republican due to their socially conservative views.

Although once part of the Solid South, Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

McCain did well throughout the state, winning the vast majority of counties by double digits.

Despite the expected loss, Obama improved substantially upon John Kerry's performance in 2004, narrowing the margin of victory from 22.83% down to 11.77%.

Dallas and Harris had been among the first areas of the state to turn Republican, largely due to an influx of Northern expatriates in the 1940s and 1950s.

[20] A strong turnout of minority voters gave Obama the edge in these three counties.

Obama also performed strongly in Travis County, which contains the state capital and liberal bastion of Austin; El Paso County, which contains the city of El Paso, due in large part to heavy support by Hispanics; and many of the Latino-majority counties in the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, which have strongly supported Democrats for decades.