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The U.S. presidential election of 2004 was held on Tuesday November 2nd, 2004 and was won by the incumbent President, Republican George W. Bush of Texas, who defeated his main rival, Democratic Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. The election campaign was widely seen as a referendum on Bush's job perfomance to date, in particular his leadership in the prosecution of the "War on Terror". Bush defended the actions of his administration, while Kerry contended that the war had been incompetently executed, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from the "War on Terror", not a part of it.

The election took place on Election Day, November 2, but it was not until the next day that the winner was determined. The election hinged on Ohio, a controversial battleground state which operated black box voting machines, except in some southern Counties, such as Hamilton which used a paper punch card ballot, but at midday the day after the election, Kerry conceded he had lost the Buckeye State, and the election along with it. The final certified count showed 286 votes for Bush, 251 for Kerry, and 1 for Edwards (due to a faithless elector pledged to Kerry voting for Edwards).

The entire House of Representatives (435 members) and approximately one-third of the Senate (34 of 100 members) were also up for election. The Republican Party increased its majorities in both houses of Congress, aided by the strong voting blocs of the religious right. The Democrats failed to gain leverage and suffered the defeat of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

Eleven state constitutional amendments restricting the rights of same-sex couples to marry were overwhelmingly passed in most states and even passed in Democratic Oregon. These amendments are believed to have greatly helped Bush Republicans to gain a majority of the popular vote.

Background

George W. Bush was controversially elected President in 2000 amid serious disputes over recounts in the state of Florida which had involved interventions by the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States. Just eight months into his presidency, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 suddenly transformed Bush into a wartime president. Bush's approval ratings surged to near 90%. Within a month, the forces of a coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan, which had been sheltering Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks. By December, the Taliban had been removed as rulers of Afghanistan, although a long occupation would follow.

The next strategic target in the "War on Terror" became Iraq. The Bush administration argued that the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq had now become urgent. The stated premise was that Saddam's regime had tried to acquire nuclear material and had not properly accounted for biological and chemical material it was known to possess, potential weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of U.N. sanctions. This interpretation has been hotly debated since its proposal, and its basis in U.S. military intelligence has since been compromised with the failure of the U.S. to find the aforementioned W.M.D.'s in Iraq, and the statements of the 9/11 Commission Report denying the idea of an Al-Qaeda/Saddam Hussein connection. This situation escalated to the point that the United States assembled a group of about forty nations, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Poland, which Bush called the “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq.

The coalition invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. The invasion was swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly secured with limited damage in that time. On May 1, George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq war. Bush's approval rating in the month of May rode at 66%, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll. *

However, Bush's high approval ratings did not last. First, while the war itself was popular, the post-war occupation was rather less so. Second, as investigators combed through the country, they failed to find the predicted WMD stockpiles, which led to debate over the rationale for the war. Third, with the war over and September 11th two years in the past, domestic concerns began to rise to the forefront again, and the Bush administration had less approval for its domestic agenda. Additionally, it's typical that extremely high popularity ratings tend towards more typical levels after a crisis has passed.

Nominations

Republican nomination

Bush's popularity as a wartime president helped consolidate his base, and ward off any serious challenge to the nomination. On March 10, 2004, Bush officially clinched the number of delegates needed to be nominated at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. Bush accepted the nomination on September 2, 2004, and selected Vice President Dick Cheney as his running mate. (In New York, the ticket was also on the ballot as candidates of the Conservative Party of New York State.)

Democratic nomination

By the end of February 2003, the following field of candidates had formed exploratory committees and were actively campaigning to be the Democratic nominee:

Notable in his absence was former Vice President and 2000 Presidential candidate Al Gore, who announced he would not run in December 2002.

By summer of 2003, Dean had become the apparent frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, performing strongly in most polls and leading the pack in fundraising. Dean's strength as a fundraiser was attributed mainly to his innovative embrace of the Internet for campaigning. The majority of his donations came from individual Dean supporters, who came to be known as Deanites, or, more commonly, Deaniacs. Generally regarded as a pragmatic centrist during his time as governor, Dean emerged during his presidential campaign as something of a left-wing populist, denouncing the policies of the Bush administration (especially the 2003 invasion of Iraq) as well as fellow Democrats, who, in his view, failed to strongly oppose them. Senator Lieberman, a liberal on domestic issues but a hawk on the "War on Terror", failed to gain traction with liberal democratic primary voters.

In September 2003, retired four-star general Wesley Clark announced his intention to run in the presidential primary election for the Democratic Party nomination. His campaign focused on themes of leadership and patriotism; early campaign ads relied heavily on biography. His late start left him with relatively few detailed policy proposals. This weakness was apparent in his first few debates, although he soon presented a range of position papers, including a major tax-relief plan. Nevertheless, many Democrats did not flock to his campaign.

By the January 2004 Iowa caucuses, the field had dwindled down to nine candidates, as Bob Graham dropped out of the race and Howard Dean was a strong front-runner. However, the Iowa caucuses yielded unexpectedly strong results for Democratic candidates John Kerry, who earned 38% of the state's delegates and John Edwards, who took 32%. Former front-runner Howard Dean slipped to 18% and third place, and Richard Gephardt finished fourth (11%). What hurt Dean even more than his poor performance was a speech he gave at a post-caucus rally; at the end of the speech—which has become known as the "I have a scream" speech or the "Dean scream"—Dean frantically yelled out the names of states and culminated with a yelp. On January 27 Kerry triumphed again, earning first place in the New Hampshire primary. Clark took third place in New Hampshire, behind New Englanders Kerry and Dean.

The following week, John Edwards won the South Carolina primary and finished a strong second in Oklahoma. After Howard Dean's withdrawal from the contest, Edwards became the only major challenger to Kerry for the Democratic nomination. However, Kerry continued to dominate, taking in a string of wins in Michigan, Washington, Maine, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., Nevada, Wisconsin, Utah, Hawaii, and Idaho. Many other candidates dropped out during this time, leaving only Sharpton, Kucinich, and Edwards in the running.

In March's Super Tuesday, Kerry won decisive victories in the California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island primaries and the Minnesota caucuses. Dean, despite having withdrawn from the race two weeks earlier, won his home state of Vermont. Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry in Georgia, but, failing to win a single state other than South Carolina, chose to withdraw from the presidential race.

On July 6, John Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate, shortly before the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, held later that month. Kerry made his Vietnam War experience a prominent theme of the convention. In accepting the nomination, he began his speech with, "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."

Other nominations

There were four other pairs of candidates who were on the ballot in states with enough electoral votes to have a theoretical chance of winning a majority in the Electoral College.

General election: campaign

Campaign issues

President Bush focused his campaign on national security, presenting himself as a decisive leader and contrasted Kerry as a "flip-flopper." Bush's point was that Americans could trust him to be tough on terrorism while Kerry would be "uncertain in the face of danger." One of Kerry's slogans was, "Stronger at home, respected in the world." This advanced the suggestion that Kerry would pay more attention to domestic concerns; it also encapsulated Kerry's contention that Bush had alienated American allies by his foreign policy.

Americans who based their vote on the issues of terrorism or moral values tended to support President Bush. Those who focused on the war in Iraq or economic issues like jobs and health care more often backed Kerry.

Over the course of Bush's first term in office, his extremely high approval ratings immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks steadily dwindled, peaking only during combat operations in Iraq in the Spring of 2003, and again following the capture of Saddam Hussein in December the same year *. Kerry supporters attempted to capitalize on the dwindling popularity to rally anti-war sentiment, symbolized by the box-office success of Fahrenheit 9/11 in the summer of 2004.

However, there was also a surprising focus on events that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This scrutiny was most intense in August and September of 2004. Bush was accused in the Killian documents of failing to fulfill his required service in the Texas Air National Guard, but the focus rapidly became the conduct of CBS News when the documents were revealed to be forgeries.

Meanwhile, Kerry was accused by the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, who averred that "phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward." The group challenged the legitimacy of each of the combat medals awarded to Kerry by the U.S. Navy, and the disposition of his discharge.

In the beginning of September, the successful Republican National Convention along with the allegations by Kerry's former mates gave President Bush his first comfortable margin since Kerry had won the nomination. A post-convention Gallup poll showed the President leading the Senator by 14 points. [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html

Debates

Three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate were organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, and held in autumn of 2004. As expected, these debates set the agenda for the final leg of the political contest. Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik and Green Party candidate David Cobb were arrested while trying to access the debates. Libertarian Michael Badnarik was attempting to serve papers to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

The first debate was held on September 30 at the University of Miami, moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS. Though originally intended to focus on domestic policy, the "War on Terror", questions are asked on the War in Iraq and America's international relations. During the debate John Kerry accused Bush of having failed to gain international support for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, saying the only countries assisting the USA during the invasion were the United Kingdom and Australia. Bush replied to this by saying, "Well, actually, he forgot Poland." (In an almost comical turn of events, Poland announced plans to withdraw its troops from Iraq shortly after the debate.) Later, a consensus formed among mainstream pollsters and pundits that Kerry won the debate decisively, strengthening what had come to be seen as a weak and troubled campaign. * President Bush's tailor later said that the bulge was nothing more than a pucker along the jacket's back seam, according to the Seattle Times newspaper. Kerry was also accused of misconduct, allegedly violating debate rules by removing a pen from his jacket.

On October 5, the Vice Presidential debate was held between Dick Cheney and John Edwards at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and was moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS. It again focused on Iraq and the "War on Terror". An initial poll by ABC indicated a victory for Cheney, while polls by CNN and MSNBC gave it to Edwards.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3716852.stm (BBC), (SF Chronicle) (ABC)

The second presidential debate was held at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri on October 8, moderated by Charles Gibson of ABC. Conducted in a "town meeting" format, less formal than the first Presidential debate, this debate saw President Bush and Senator Kerry taking questions on a variety of subjects from a local audience. Bush attempted to deflect criticism of what was described as his scowling demeanor during the first debate, joking at one point about one of Kerry's remarks, "That answer made me want to scowl." [http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-deb09.html

Bush and Kerry met for the third and final debate at Arizona State University on October 13. Transcript and Video 51 million viewers watched the debate, while only 15.2 million viewers tuned in to watch the Major League Baseball championship games broadcast simultaneously.

Election results

The members of the Electoral College formally voted on December 13, 2004. On January 6, 2005, when Congress met for the official counting of the electoral votes, Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Senator Barbara Boxer made an official objection to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes. As a result, the House and Senate separately debated the inclusion of Ohio's votes. Within four hours of the objection, however, the last effective challenge to the election results ended, when the Senate voted 74–1 and the House voted 267–31 [http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll007.xml to reject the challenge to Ohio's votes. The counting process is detailed in the United States Code (specifically 3 USC §§ 15, 16, 17, and 18).

In the official count, Bush received 286 electoral votes, and Kerry received 251. One vote went to Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, when one of the electors pledged to Kerry voted for John Ewards (sic) instead. It was the first time in U.S. history that an elector had voted the same person for president and vice president. For Vice President, 286 votes went to Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, and 252 to Edwards.

Even if Congress had voted to reject Ohio's 20 electoral votes, the outcome would have been the same. With 518 valid votes cast (instead of 538), the majority necessary for election by the Electoral College under the Twelfth Amendment would have been 260 votes, which Bush and Cheney, each with 266, would have reached. If Ohio's votes had been deemed to have been cast, but not counted, so that no candidate had a majority, Bush and Cheney would have almost certainly been chosen by the House and Senate, respectively, under the Twelfth Amendment's procedures. Only a complete reversal of Ohio's vote count and a new certification for Kerry could have changed the result.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote): 2004 Presidential Election Results. Official website of the National Archives. (August 7, 2005).

(a) In New York, Bush vote was the fusion of Republican and Conservative parties. There, Bush obtained 2,806,993 votes on the Republican ticket and 155,574 on the Conservative ticket.
(b) In New York, Kerry vote was the fusion of Democratic and Working Families parties. There, Kerry obtained 4,180,755 votes on the Democratic ticket and 133,525 votes on the Working Families ticket.
(c) See “‘Faithless elector’ in Minnesota” below.
(d) In Montana, Karen Sanchirico was listed on the ballot as Nader's running mate, not Camejo. In Alabama, Jan D. Pierce was Nader's running mate. In New York, Nader appeared on two distinct tickets, one with Camejo and one with Pierce.
(e)

Finance
  • George W. Bush (R) $367,228,801 / 62,040,610 = $5.92 / vote
  • John Kerry (D) $326,236,288 / 59,028,111 = $5.52
  • Ralph Nader (i) $4,566,037 / 463,653 = $9.85
  • Michael Badnarik (L) $1,093,013 / 397,265 = $2.75
  • Michael Peroutka (C) $709,087 / 144,498 = $4.91

Source: FEC

Members of the 2004 United States Electoral College

Ballot access

Presidential Ticket Party Ballot Access
Bush / Cheney Republican 50+DC
Kerry / Edwards Democrat 50+DC
Badnarik / Campagna Libertarian 48+DC
Peroutka / Baldwin Constitution 36
Nader / Camejo Independent, Reform 34+DC
Cobb / LaMarche Green 27+DC

“Faithless elector” in Minnesota

One elector in Minnesota cast a ballot for president with the name of “John Ewards” * written on it. The Electoral College officials certified this ballot as a vote for John Edwards for president. The remaining nine electors cast ballots for John Kerry. All ten electors in the state cast ballots for John Edwards for Vice President. (John Edwards' name was spelled correctly on all ballots for Vice President.) This was the first time in U.S. history that an elector had cast both of his or her votes for the same person. Electoral balloting in Minnesota was performed by secret ballot, and none of the electors admitted to casting the Edwards vote for President, so it may never be known who the “faithless elector” was. It is not even known whether the vote for Edwards was deliberate or unintentional, although the Republican Secretary of State and several of the Democratic electors have expressed the opinion that this was an accident. It is worth noting that an Independence Party straw poll, which was published in lieu of an endorsement from that party, selected John Edwards for President, though there is no evidence to suggest that this is related to the Edwards electoral vote for President.

Electoral vote error in New York

New York's initial electoral vote certificate indicated that all of its 31 electoral votes for president were cast for “John L. Kerry of Massachusetts” instead of John F. Kerry, who won the popular vote in the state. This was apparently the result of a typographical error, and an amended electoral vote certificate with the correct middle initial was transmitted to the President of the Senate prior to the official electoral vote count.

Presidential results by congressional district

In his successful bid for reelection in 2004, Republican George W. Bush won the popular vote in 255 of the nation's 435 congressional districts, a 75-seat edge over Democrat John Kerry’s 180. At 255, the President won 27 more districts than the 228 he carried in the 2000 election. There were 59 “turnover” or “split” districts, i.e., those represented in the U.S. House by a member of a party other than the winner of the presidential vote in the district. Following the 2004 election, 41 districts of the 109th Congress were carried by Bush yet represented by a Democrat; 18 districts were carried by John Kerry yet represented by a Republican. This represents a continued decrease over recent presidential elections. In 2000 there were 86 turnover districts. In 1996, there were 110 turnover districts. The 2004 presidential election was the first following the 2001–2002 redistricting phase of congressional apportionment.

Caveats: only a handful of states report the results by district. These numbers are estimates based upon results collected from the 400 counties that contain a portion of more than one district. They may include an allocation of absentee/early votes which were not tabulated by district. (Polidata, 2005)

Analysis and trivia

The results produced many interesting features. A partial list is given below, but it is by no means complete.
  • George W. Bush became the first candidate since his father—George H. W. Bush, elected in 1988—to receive a majority of the popular vote.
  • Although Bush received a majority of the popular vote: 50.73% to Kerry's 48.27%, it was, percentage-wise, the closest popular margin ever for a sitting President; Bush received 2.5% more than Kerry; the closest previous margin won by a sitting President was 3.2% for Woodrow Wilson in 1916. In terms of absolute number of popular votes, his victory margin (approximately 3 million votes) was the smallest of any sitting President since Harry S Truman in 1948.
  • At least 12 million more votes were cast than in the 2000 election. Based upon 2000 census figures, 42.45% of the U.S. population voted in the 2004 election. Note that this is a percentage of the entire population, not of just eligible voters. The record turnout—the highest since 1968—was attributed partly to the intensity of the division between the candidates and partly to intensive voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts by both major parties and their allies.
  • Owing to the nation's growing population and large turnout, Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry received more votes than any previous presidential candidate in American history. The previous record was held by Republican Ronald Reagan, who in 1984 received more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history (54.4 million).
  • The counties where Bush led in the popular vote amount to 83% of the geographic area of the U.S. (excluding Alaska, which did not report results by borough/census area, but had all electoral districts but one of the two in Juneau vote for Bush).
  • Between the 2000 and 2004 elections, the House of Representatives (and therefore the Electoral College) had been reapportioned per the results of the 2000 Census. If Bush won exactly the same states as he won in 2000, he would win by a margin of 278-260, a net gain of 7 electoral votes over his performance in 2000.
  • Only three states picked a winner from a different party than they had in 2000. Bush took Iowa and New Mexico (combined 12 electoral votes), both won by Democrat Al Gore in 2000, while Kerry took New Hampshire (4 electoral votes), which Bush had previously won. Bush received a net gain of 8 electoral votes from these switches. All three were very close states in both 2000 and 2004, and none gained or lost electoral votes due to reapportionment.
  • As in 2000, electoral votes split along sharp geographical lines: The west coast, northeast, and most of the Great Lakes region for Kerry, and the South, Great Plains, and Mountain states for Bush. The widespread support for Bush in the southern states continued the transformation of the formerly Democratic Solid South to the Republican South.
  • Minor-party candidates received much fewer votes, dropping from a total of 3.5% in 2000 to approximately one percent. As in 2000, Ralph Nader finished in third place, but his total declined from 2.9 million to 400,000, leaving him with fewer votes than Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan had received in finishing fourth in 2000. The combined minor-party total was the lowest since 1988.
  • The election marked the first time an incumbent president was returned to office while his political party increased its numbers in both houses of Congress since Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election. It was the first time for a Republican since William McKinley in the 1900 election.
  • Without the gains received in Texas, the Republicans would have suffered a net loss of three seats in the House. The number of Republican seats in Texas likely changed significantly due to the controversial and unusual 2003 Texas redistricting.; Unlike most states, the Texas legislature was unable to redistrict prior to the 2002 elections, instead having its districting imposed by a federal judge.
  • Michael Badnarik and David Cobb were arrested in St. Louis, Missouri on October 8, 2004 for an act of civil disobedience. Badnarik and Cobb were protesting their exclusion from the presidential debates between George W. Bush and John Kerry.

Timeline

Newspaper endorsements

The online edition of Editor & Publisher, a journal covering the North American newspaper industry, tabulated newspaper endorsements for the two major candidates. as of November 1, 2004, their tally showed the following:

Endorsements
Bush 189
Kerry 208

A more complete breakdown is also available, including changes between 2000 and 2004.

Electoral College changes from 2000

The U.S. population is continuously shifting, and some states grow in population faster than others. With the completion of the 2000 census, Congressional reapportionment took place, moving some representative districts from the slowest growing states to the fastest growing. As a result, several states had a different number of electors in the U.S. Electoral College in 2004 than in 2000, since the number of electors allotted to each state is equal to the sum of the number of Senators and Representatives from that state.

The following table shows the change in electors from the 2000 election. Red states represent those won by Bush; and Blue states, those won by both Gore and Kerry. All states except Nebraska and Maine use a winner-take-all allocation of electors. Each of these states was won by the same party in 2004 that had won it in 2000; thus, George W. Bush received a net gain of seven electoral votes due to reapportionment.

Gained votesLost votes
  • Arizona (8→10 +2)
  • Florida (25→27 +2)
  • Georgia (13→15 +2)
  • Texas (32→34 +2)
  • California (54→55 +1)
  • Colorado (8→9 +1)
  • North Carolina (14→15 +1)
  • Nevada (4→5 +1)
  • New York (33→31 -2)
  • Pennsylvania (23→21 -2)
  • Connecticut (8→7 -1)
  • Mississippi (7→6 -1)
  • Ohio (21→20 -1)
  • Oklahoma (8→7 -1)
  • Wisconsin (11→10 -1)
  • Illinois (22→21 -1)
  • Indiana (12→11 -1)
  • Michigan (18→17 -1)

(This table uses the currently common Red→Republican, Blue→Democratic color association, as do the maps on this page. Some older party-affiliation maps use the opposite color coding for historical reasons.)

Vote splitting concerns

Some supporters of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry were concerned that the independent candidacy of Ralph Nader would split the vote against the incumbent, thus allowing the Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush to win the 2004 election. Many Democrats blame Ralph Nader for splitting the vote in the 2000 presidential election when he ran as the candidate of the Green Party.

Such splits are of particular concern because most states assign the presidential electors they send to the Electoral College, to the candidate with the most votes (a plurality), even if those votes are less than 50% of the total votes cast—in such a situation, a relatively small number of votes can make a very big difference. For instance, a candidate who won narrow pluralities in a significant number of states could win a majority in the Electoral College even though they did not win a majority or even a plurality of the national popular vote. While Ralph Nader and the Green Party ultimately support replacing the Electoral College with direct popular elections, both have also suggested that states instead use instant-runoff voting to select their presidential electors, which would partially address the issue of vote splitting.

Opponents of Ralph Nader's candidacy often referred to vote splitting as the spoiler effect. Some voters who preferred Ralph Nader's positions over John Kerry's voted for John Kerry to avoid splitting the vote against the incumbent, claiming to be choosing the “lesser of two evils”. These voters used slogans such as, “Anybody but Bush,” and, “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” A group of people who supported Nader in 2000 released a statement entitled Vote to Stop Bush, urging support for Kerry/Edwards in swing states. Whether due to this campaign or other factors, the impact of Nader on the election's outcome ultimately proved inconsequential, as he received less than 1% of the national vote. In fact, all of the independent candidates together polled less votes than Nader had in 2000. Even if all of the independent voters had voted Democrat, Bush would still have won the electoral college by a small margin.

Battleground states

During the campaign and as the results came in on the night of the election there was much focus on Ohio (ordinarily GOP-leaning, but at the time suffering from manufacturing job losses), Florida, and Pennsylvania. These three “swing” states were seen as evenly divided, and with each casting 20 electoral votes or more, they had the power to decide the election. As the final results came in, Kerry took Pennsylvania and then Bush took Florida, focusing all attention on Ohio.

The morning after the election both candidates were virtually neck and neck and it was clear that the result in Ohio, which along with two other states (New Mexico and Iowa) had still not declared, would decide the winner. Bush had established a lead of around 130,000 votes but the Democrats pointed to provisional ballots that had yet to be counted, initially reported to number as high as 200,000. Bush had preliminary leads of less than 5% of the vote in only four states, but even if Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico had all eventually gone to Kerry, a Bush win in Ohio would have created a 269–269 tie in the Electoral College, resulting in the House of Representatives voting to decide the winner, with each state, regardless of its population, casting one vote. That scenario would almost certainly have resulted in a Bush victory, because Republicans control more House delegations. Therefore, the outcome of the election hinged solely on the result in Ohio, regardless of the final totals elsewhere. In the afternoon Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, announced that it was statistically impossible for the Democrats to make up enough valid votes in the provisional ballots, now reportedly numbering 140,000 (and later still estimated to be only 135,000), to win, and John Kerry conceded defeat.

The upper Midwest bloc of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin is also notable, casting a sum of 27 electoral votes. However, all the swing states are important. The following is list of the states considered swing states in the 2004 election by most news organizations and which candidate they eventually went for. The two major parties chose to focus their advertising on these states:

Bush:

Kerry:

New during this campaign

International observers

At the invitation of the United States government, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent a team of observers to monitor the presidential elections in 2004. It was the first time the OSCE had sent observers to a U.S. presidential election, although they had been invited in the past In September 2004 the OSCE issued a [http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/09/3655_en.pdf report (PDF 168K) on U.S. electoral processes and the election final report (PDF 256K).

Earlier, some 13 U.S. Representatives from the Democratic Party had sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking for the UN to monitor the elections. The UN responded that such a request could only come from the official national executive. The move was met by considerable opposition from Republican lawmakers *. The OSCE is not affiliated with the United Nations.

Electronic voting

For 2004, some states expedited the implementation of electronic voting systems for the election. Regarding these new systems, some security analysts warned that computer voting terminals had a significant possibility of voter fraud or data corruption by a software attack. Others said that recounts would be nearly impossible with the machines and criticized the lack of a “paper trail”, which is included in many other trivial events such as grocery shopping or using an ATM. Machines which do not use a paper trail are called Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems. Author Bev Harris, in her book Black Box Voting, describes in detail her opinion of the potential problems created by DRE systems.

One of the largest manufacturers of DRE voting systems is Diebold Election Systems, whose parent company also manufactures ATMs. Diebold's then-CEO, Walden O'Dell, had a distinct conflict of interest since he was a vocal George W. Bush supporter; he made a serious public relations blunder when he pledged in a Republican fundraising letter last year that he was “committed” to delivering the electoral votes of his home state of Ohio to President Bush.

Campaign law changes

The 2004 election was the first to be affected by the campaign finance reforms mandated by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Bill for its sponsors in the United States Senate). Because of the Act's restrictions on candidates' and parties' fundraising, a large number of so-called 527 groups emerged. Named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code, these groups were able to raise large amounts of money for various political causes as long as they do not coordinate their activities with political campaigns. Examples of 527s include Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, MoveOn.org, the Media Fund, and America Coming Together. Many such groups were active throughout the campaign season. (There was some similar activity, although on a much lesser scale, during the 2000 campaign.)

To distinguish official campaigning from independent campaigning, political advertisements on television were required to include a verbal disclaimer identifying the organization responsible for the advertisement. Advertisements produced by political campaigns usually included the statement, “I'm name, and I approve this message.” Advertisements produced by independent organizations usually included the statement, “name is responsible for the content of this advertisement,” and from September 3 (60 days before the general election), such organizations' ads were prohibited from mentioning any candidate by name. Previously, television advertisements only required a written “paid for by” disclaimer on the screen.

This law was not well known or widely publicized at the beginning of the Democratic primary season, which led to some early misperception of Howard Dean, who was the first candidate to buy television advertising in this election cycle. Not realizing that the law required the phrasing, some people viewing the ads reportedly questioned why Dean might say such a thing—such questions were easier to ask because of the maverick nature of Dean's campaign in general.

Colorado's Amendment 36

A ballot initiative in Colorado, known as Amendment 36, would have changed the way in which the state apportions its electoral votes. Rather than assigning all 9 of the state's electors to the candidate with a plurality of popular votes, under the amendment Colorado would have assigned presidential electors proportionally to the statewide vote count, which would be a unique system (Nebraska and Maine assign electoral votes based on vote totals within each congressional district). Detractors claimed that this splitting would diminish Colorado's influence in the Electoral College, and the amendment ultimately failed, receiving only 34% of the vote.

Legal challenges

Election watchers and political analysts forecast a number of contested election results in a manner similar to the Florida voting recount of 2000. Various states grappled with their own legal issues that could have affected the outcome of the vote, while both of the major political parties and a number of independent groups like the ACLU marshaled numbers of lawyers.

In several states including Ohio, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada, there were lawsuits or other disputes about such issues as “voter challenging”, voter registration, and absentee ballots. These were considered unlikely to change the Electoral College result. In Florida, for example, multiple lawsuits were filed even before the election, but few observers expected any of them to change the official result that Bush had outpolled Kerry by roughly 400,000 votes. As of the morning of November 3rd, the deciding state in the electoral vote count was Ohio, where Bush held a 136,000 vote lead. Democrats' hopes rested on the approximately 135,000 provisional ballots that had yet to be counted. Nevertheless, after concluding that a recount would not change the election results, Kerry conceded defeat at about 11:00 EST that morning, and George W. Bush declared victory the afternoon of the same day.

The Green Party and Libertarian Party presidential candidates, David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, filed for a recount of the Ohio vote. After announcing their intention and soliciting donations, they quickly raised $150,000 to cover the state's required fee and other costs. A statewide recount of the presidential vote was completed under the watch of thousands of elections observers organized by the Cobb campaign. Based on reports filed by these observers, some voting rights advocates claim that the recount was conducted improperly, and illegally, and have filed a new lawsuit, which is currently pending. The Congressional Democrats who objected to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes relied on part on information about voting irregularities provided by observers working for the Cobb campaign.

Anybody but Bush

“Anybody but Bush” was an informal political movement during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. It was a group of voters who would vote for “anybody” before they voted for President George W. Bush. The driving force behind the movement was anger at the policies of the Bush Administration. These voters believe that anyone put into the Oval Office would do a better job as President than George W. Bush without regard to the person's record or political views. Another permutation of this was “Anybody but Bush, Except for Kerry”, which gained popularity among disenchanted or secular Republicans, who were unwilling to vote for John Kerry.

Election controversy

After the election, some sources reported indications of possible data irregularities and systematic flaws during the voting process, which are covered in detail by the election controversy articles.

Although the overall result of the election was not challenged by the Kerry campaign, independent presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik obtained a recount in Ohio. This recount was completed December 28, 2004, amid allegations of illegal recount procedures in many counties.

At the official counting of the electoral votes on January 6, a motion was made contesting Ohio's electoral votes. Because the motion was supported by at least one member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, election law mandated that each house retire to debate and vote on the motion. In the House of Representatives, the motion was supported by 31 Democrats. It was opposed by 178 Republicans, 88 Democrats and one independent. Not voting were 52 Republicans and 80 Democrats. * Four people elected to the House had not yet taken office, and one seat was vacant. In the Senate, it was supported only by its maker, Senator Boxer, with 74 Senators opposed and 25 not voting. During the debate, not one Senator, either Democrat or Republican, argued that the outcome of the election should be changed by either court challenge or revote. Senator Boxer claimed that she had made the motion not to challenge the outcome, but to “shed the light of truth on these irregularities.”

See also

Other elections

Sources

External links

Official candidate websites (alphabetical, by last name) Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
David Cobb (Green)
John Kerry (Democrat)
Ralph Nader (Independent)
Michael Peroutka (Constitution)
A website originally existed for George W. Bush's campaign, but after the election it was removed and the URL now redirects to the Republican Party website. The other five candidates continued to run their campaign websites as personal sites.

Official party websites (alphabetical, by political party) Constitution Party
Democratic National Committee
Green Party of the United States
Libertarian Party
Reform Party
Republican National Committee

Election maps & analysis NYTimes.com 2004 Election Results Interactive Graphic
PBS.org Interactive Electoral College Map
Maps and cartograms of the 2004 U.S. presidential election results - Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman, University of Michigan
Electoral College Meta-Analysis - Professor Sam Wang, Princeton University (election.princeton.edu)
Election 2004 Results - Robert J. Vanderbei, Princeton University
Interactive Atlas of the 2004 Presidential Election Results - Dave Liep
Alternate views of the electoral results map
Assessing the Vote and the Roots of American Political Divide
How the 2004 Presidential Election Impacted the Way Americans Speak
U.S. Election 2004 Web Monitor
November 2: Election Day 2004 A chronicle of campaign news & commentary...]

State-by-state forecasts of electoral vote outcome Political Oddsmaker - 98.2% accurate calls in 2,700 races since 1995
Electoral Vote Projection Graph
Probability analysis of Electoral College based on latest poll results by state
Electoral Vote Predictor 2004
Election Projection: Detailed electoral analysis, updated frequently
Federal Review Composite Poll
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball
Professor Pollkatz's Pool of Polls
Wake Up America Election Projections
Running the Numbers: Election 2004
Swing State Project
Hedgehog Report's Bush vs. Kerry
President Elect: swing-state analysis, updated infrequently
Race 2004
Dale's Electoral College Breakdown 2004
USA Today polls
Electoral college simulations

Controversies About.com, Democracy & Voting Rights - Ohio 2004 Election as Lesson in What Can Go Wrong
Analysis of misleading advertising from both Bush and Kerry
"Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Rolling Stone.
  • * A game where you can be elected president.

Election campaign funding 2004 Center for Responsive Politics compiles data about who gives and who receives
Money Maps

Election 2004 global debate and voting Talk to US
The world speaks
The world votes
Globalvote 2004

Minnesota electoral voting snafu Duluth News Tribune
Minnesota Public Radio

Election 2004 news media Associated Press Presidential Elections
BBC Vote USA 2004
CNN America Votes 2004
Fox News You Decide 2004: Election 2004 coverage
The Guardian U.S. Elections 2004
The Washington Post Election 2004 coverage
Yahoo! News Election 2004
Directory of Media Endorsements including links to read them and some 2000 vs. 2004 endorsement analysis.
The journal Science's interview with the 2 candidates regarding their positions on science
Green Party considers 2004 strategy - MSNBC, July 2003

Election video archive Internet Archive's Election 2004 archive has lots of freely downloadable movies

Election 2004 link directories Better World Links - 3000 Links on the U.S. Presidential Election 2004
Better World Links on Electronic Voting
E-Democracy - U.S. Election 2004 Links
Open Directory Project - Presidential Campaign 2004
Yahoo! - 2004 Presidential Election

Navigation

United States presidential election, 2004 | Close United States presidential elections | 2004 elections

Präsidentschaftswahl 2004 (Vereinigte Staaten) | Élection présidentielle des États-Unis d'Amérique 2004 | Pemilihan umum presiden Amerika Serikat 2004 | Elezioni Presidenziali degli Stati Uniti del 2004 | Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen 2004 | 2004年アメリカ合衆国大統領選挙 | Eleições presidenciais americanas de 2004 | Президентские выборы в США (2004) | Yhdysvaltain presidentinvaalit 2004 | ABD Başkanlık seçimleri 2004 | 2004年美国总统选举

 

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