Overall turnout in the 2008 presidential election didn't reach the towering heights some analysts predicted, but the turnout results in the 50 states show distinctive patterns that hint at potentially significant shifts in the balance of power between the parties.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain demonstrated strikingly different patterns of turnout in the 31 "red" states that voted for President Bush four years ago, and the 19 "blue" states (plus D.C.) that backed Democrat John Kerry.

As the charts that follow show, Obama posted modest to medium increases in most of the blue states over the number of votes that Kerry won four years ago (when comparing the unofficial results available today to 2004 certified results). In Michigan, Obama attracted nearly 400,000 more votes than Kerry did (an increase of almost 16 percent); in Pennsylvania, he beat Kerry's total by nearly 260,000 votes (up 8.8 percent). But in other blue places, Obama's vote increase was more limited. In all, results reported as of Wednesday show that Obama won about 2.9 million more votes than Kerry in the blue states, an increase of 9 percent.

But Obama won a larger share of the vote than Kerry in all of the blue states (except Massachusetts) because McCain's vote total in those states collapsed relative to Bush. Compared to Bush, for instance, McCain won 386,207 fewer votes in New York (down 13 percent), and 200,511 fewer in Pennsylvania (down 7.2 percent). The Arizona senator, with his "maverick" reputation, was supposed to restore the Republican reach into Democratic-leaning states that had recoiled from Bush's forceful conservatism. Instead, as McCain tacked closer to conventional Republican positions and chose Sarah Palin, a polarizing vice-presidential nominee, he won 3.5 million fewer votes than Bush across the 19 blue states, a decline of nearly one-seventh.

See charts below for more.

For both sides, the 31 red states told a very different story. As in the blue states, McCain's vote total in some red states also declined sharply from Bush's: McCain's vote declined from Bush's by 6.8 percent or more in 13 red states. But McCain increased over Bush's vote total by at least 4 percent in seven other red states -- all of them members of the Old Confederacy. In the remaining eleven red states, ranging from Florida and Missouri to Nevada and Texas, McCain's vote total converged with Bush's, differing by about 2 percent or less.

The cumulative effect was something very close to running in place: McCain, according to the latest figures, won 421,214 fewer votes than Bush across the 31 red states, a rounding-error level of decline of just 1.2 percent.

Obama, by contrast, substantially boosted the Democratic vote in the red states that rejected Kerry four years ago. He won more votes than Kerry in all but six of the red states, and generated stunning increases in many of the Bush-won states at the top of the Democrats' 2008 target list. Obama ran nearly 400,000 votes ahead of Kerry in Indiana, around 500,000 ahead in both Virginia and Georgia, almost 600,000 ahead in North Carolina and over 690,000 ahead in Florida. Even in Texas, where Obama did not mount a major campaign but was boosted by an extensive volunteer network that coalesced during last March's primary, Obama increased the Democratic vote by nearly 690,000. (It also helped that favorite son George W. Bush wasn't on the ballot this time.)

The big exception to this pattern was Ohio, where Obama reversed Kerry's defeat in 2004 despite winning about 32,000 fewer votes than the Massachusetts Democrat. (McCain's vote collapsed in Ohio, whose grassroots organization represented the apex of Bush's turnout machine four years ago.) But even so, Obama increased Kerry's vote total by at least 10 percent in 22 of the 31 red states. Overall, Obama won nearly 4.8 million more votes than Kerry through the red states -- a cumulative increase of fully 18 percent, about double the rate of Obama's increase in the blue states.

Jon Carson, Obama's national field director, said in an interview that the Illinois senator increased the Democratic vote in the red states so much more than in the blue states partly because many of the former are growing more quickly than the latter. In some blue states, Carson added, extensive Democratic organizing last time already identified and turned out many of the intermittent Democratic voters.

By contrast, Carson continued, Obama made a much greater organizational effort in red states than previous Democratic nominees. "Nobody was trying to turn out Democratic voters in Virginia or North Carolina in 2004," he said. "When we looked at these red states we saw there was an enormous potential of growth in new voters and we spent our entire summer and early fall pushing registration of those new voters. And then they turned out."

The vast new pool of Democratic voters that Obama mobilized also helped his party gain House or Senate seats in many of his key red state targets, including Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida. And the size of the vote that he mustered in those states should increase his leverage over the remaining Republican legislators who represent them.

McCain, meanwhile, meaningfully increased on Bush's vote only in the South, where lingering racial attitudes appear to have depressed Obama's support. The sharp decline in McCain's vote across the blue states -- even as Democrats added new House and Senate seats from those states -- underscores the deep hole facing Republicans on that Democratic-leaning terrain. All of the 19 states that voted for Kerry in 2004 also voted for Obama in 2008; in fact, except for New Hampshire, all of them have now voted Democratic in at least the last five presidential elections.

State-By-State Comparisons

The charts below compare certified 2004 results against the best available 2008 results as of Nov. 12. Please note that a number of states continue to update unofficial results, including some -- most notably California, Oregon and Washington -- that appear to have many votes yet to count. In addition, a number of states have not released updated vote counts since Nov. 5, including some -- most notably Alaska -- that appear to have many votes outstanding.

UPDATE, Nov. 17: The charts below were updated with the best available data on Nov. 17, so some of the data in the charts will not match the narrative above. The updated numbers to not affect the conclusions. Overall, in red states, Democratic performance increased by almost 5 million votes, or 18.7 percent, while Republican performance declined by just over 200,000 votes, or 0.6 percent. In blue states, Democratic performance increased by 3.3 million votes, or 10.3 percent, while Republican performance dropped by 3.1 million votes, or 11.6 percent.

You may re-sort the states in the chart below by clicking the headings in the table. For example, by clicking on the "Democrat Change" heading, you'll reorder the states by size of Democratic increase (and a second click re-sorts in the opposite order).