U S presidential election

Presidential electoral votes by state. Red denotes Bush/Cheney wins, Blue denotes Kerry/Edwards wins.

The U.S. presidential election of 2004 took place on Election Day, Tuesday, November 2. The Republican candidate, George W. Bush won re-election to the presidency, based on the uncertified returns from the several states. After formal election by counting the votes of the U.S. Electoral College on January 6, 2005, Bush will be inaugurated to a second four-year term on Thursday, January 20, 2005.

Among the features of the results (based on the currently available, uncertified vote totals as of November 5, 2004) were the following:

• Bush became the first candidate since his father – George H. W. Bush, in winning election in 1988 – to receive a majority (that is, over 50%) of the popular vote; it also marked the seventh consecutive election in which the Democratic nominee failed to reach that threshold.
• At least 10 million more votes were cast than in the 2000 election. The record turnout 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.
• The large turnout enabled each major-party candidate to set a record. Bush received the largest number of votes of any Presidential candidate in U.S. history. Kerry, however, also received more votes than any candidate in any previous U.S. election, though not as many as Bush in this election.
• Bush won with the smallest margin of victory for a sitting president in U.S. history in terms of the percentage of the popular vote. (Bush received 3.0% 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 was the smallest of any sitting President since Harry S. Truman in 1948.
• Aside from the 2000 election (which Bush won by just 5 votes in the Electoral College), it was the smallest margin of victory won in the Electoral College since 1916, when Woodrow Wilson beat Charles Evans Hughes by 23 votes, 277 to 254.
• 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 county).
• Only three states picked a winner from a different party than they had in 2000. Bush took Iowa and New Mexico, both won by Democrat Al Gore in 2000, while Kerry took New Hampshire, which Bush had won.
• Minor-party candidates received many fewer votes, dropping from a total of 3.5 per cent in 2000 to less than 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 Pat Buchanan had received in finishing fourth in 2000.

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 maintained control of both houses of Congress and increased their control in the process by a few seats. (See the U.S. House election, 2004 and the U.S. Senate election, 2004 for more information.)

• Note: The following figures are preliminary. In many states, the final official figures will be different after the counting of absentee ballots and provisional ballots. Charges of voter suppression or corrupt voting machines are not reflected in the totals provided by election officials or reported here. The figure for "Electoral Vote" is the number of each candidate's proposed electors who were chosen for the Electoral College. They are not required by federal law to vote for that candidate; some state laws require them to do so, but the constitutionality of these laws has never been tested. These "faithless electors" are very rare in U.S. history.

For members of the 2004 United States Electoral College, see United States presidential electors, 2004.

Presidential/Vice Presidential candidates (alphabetical by political party)

There were six 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. See also List of candidates in the U.S. presidential election, 2004.

Michael Peroutka/Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party
The Constitution Party nominated Peroutka for President on June 25, 2004 and Baldwin for Vice President on the 26th. Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore did not attend the convention. The Peroutka/Baldwin ticket was on the ballot in 36 states.

John F. Kerry/John R. Edwards, Democratic Party
On March 11, after meetings with Democratic superdelegates in Washington, D.C. and former primary election opponents, Massachusetts Senator Kerry accumulated the 2,162 delegates required to clinch the nomination. The Democratic National Committee's website acknowledged him as the party's nominee at that time, almost three months prior to the party convention. Had something happened to Kerry before the election, the DNC would likely have been the main body involved in choosing an alternate nominee—most likely Kerry's running mate, U.S. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, announced on July 6. Senators Kerry and Edwards were formally nominated by the Democratic Party at the July 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. The Kerry/Edwards ticket was on the ballot in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. In New York, the ticket was also on the ballot as candidates of the Working Families Party. See also the John Kerry presidential campaign, 2004 and U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination, 2004.

David Cobb/Pat LaMarche, Green Party
Cobb was chosen as the Presidential candidate of the Green Party on the second ballot at the Green National Convention on June 25, 2004; LaMarche was nominated as the party's Vice Presidential candidate. The Cobb/LaMarche ticket was on the ballot in 27 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Michael Badnarik/Richard Campagna, Libertarian Party
Badnarik was nominated by delegates to the Libertarian Party National Convention on May 30, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia. In the closest presidential race in Libertarian Party history, Badnarik beat Talk radio host Gary Nolan and Emmy and Tony award-winning producer Aaron Russo on the third ballot. The three candidates were separated by only a handful of votes on the first two ballots. The candidates debated each other at various state Libertarian Party conventions leading up to the national convention. The debate held at the Libertarian Party of California convention (this year March 12-14 in San Jose) was aired by C-SPAN and PBS. State parties often conduct non-binding straw polls following their debate and may then vote to endorse a candidate. However, as is normal practice, delegates to the national convention voted freely for the candidate of their choice. The Badnarik/Campagna ticket was on the ballot in 48 states and the District of Columbia, the largest number of states and number of electoral votes for any third party. The Libertarian Party failed to gain ballot access in New Hampshire and Oklahoma. See also Michael Badnarik presidential campaign, 2004 and U.S. Libertarian Party presidential nomination, 2004.

Ralph Nader/Peter Camejo, independent (also Reform Party)
Nader appeared on the 2004 presidential ballot in several states as the Reform Party candidate and in several states as an independent. In other states he was not a candidate because he did not meet the requirements in those states for ballot access. He was endorsed by the Reform Party; however, the Reform Party had earlier split into multiple parties, and in many states what used to be the Reform Party is now the America First Party, which did not endorse Nader.

Nader was on the ballot in 34 states plus DC.

On September 18, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court ordered that Nader be included on the ballot in Florida for the election. The court rejected arguments that the Reform Party did not meet the requirements of the Florida election code for access to the ballot — that the party must be a "national party" and that it must have nominated its candidate in a "national convention" — and therefore Nader should have attempted to file as an independent candidate. Specifically, the court ruled that the term "national party" must be interpreted as broadly as possible. Florida is a swing state that was the subject of much controversy in the previous election.

George W. Bush/Richard B. Cheney, Republican Party
On March 10, 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 Cheney as his running mate. Bush faced only token opposition in Republican primaries. The Bush/Cheney ticket appeared on the ballot in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. (In New York, the ticket was also on the ballot as candidates of the Conservative Party of New York State.) See also George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2004 and U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination, 2004.

Timeline

See U.S. presidential election, 2004 timeline

Debates

See U.S. presidential election debates, 2004

Three presidential debates were organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates:

1. September 30 at the University of Miami, with questions from moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS. Topics were foreign policy and homeland security.
2. October 8 at Washington University in St. Louis, in a town-hall format moderated by Charles Gibson of ABC.
3. October 13 at Arizona State University, with questions from moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS. Topics were domestic and economic policy.

One vice-presidential debate was held:

• October 5 at Case Western Reserve University, moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS.

Newspaper endorsements

The online edition of Editor & Publisher (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/), 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:

Main article: Newspaper endorsements in the U.S. presidential election, 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 re-apportionment took place, moving some representative districts from the slowest growing states to the fastest growing. As a result, some states will send a different number of electors to the U.S. Electoral College, since the number of electors allotted to a 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 the states listed use a winner-take-all allocation of electors. Each of these states was won by the same party in 2000 that won it in 2004; thus, George W. Bush won a net gain of seven votes due to reapportionment, reflecting changes in poplulation.

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 often 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 have released a statement, entitled Vote to Stop Bush, urging support for Kerry/Edwards in swing states.

Battleground states

See 2004 swing state section in Swing states.

During the campaign and as the results came in on the night of the election there was much focus on Ohio, 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 200,000 provisional ballots that had yet to be counted. 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 those 200,000 provisional ballots 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. The two major parties chose to focus their advertising on these states.

• Colorado
• Florida
• Iowa
• Maine
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• Nevada
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

New during this campaign

International observers

At the request of the United States government, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (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 US presidential election, although they had been invited in the past [1] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/interactive/wilkinson_osce.html). In September 2004 The OSCE issued a report (http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/09/3655_en.pdf) (PDF 168K) on US electoral processes.[2] (http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/election.observers.ap/)[3] (http://www.aicgs.org/c/renvertc.shtml)

Earlier, some 13 US 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 [4] (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040806-115723-1192r.htm). The OSCE is not affiliated with the United Nations.

International observers faced a number of hurdles. Because US electoral law is largely state law, individual US states could refuse to allow them to observe the elections on various grounds; for instance, a state law may require observers to be registered voters from the area [5] (http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comment0928.html).

Electronic voting

Some states rushed to have new electronic voting systems operational for the 2004 election. Many 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 criticised the lack of a "paper trail". Proponents of computer voting say that the intent of the voter can be recorded with greater certainty and accuracy than using paper ballots. Better World Links on Electronic Voting (http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book109h.htm)

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 [candidate's name], and I approve this message." Advertisements produced by independent organizations usually included the statement "[Organization 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.

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). As Colorado was expected to lean towards Bush, the passage of this amendment (generally favored by Democrats), could have taken some electoral votes from Bush and assigned them to Kerry. Had such an apportionment been in place in 2000, Gore would have won the electoral college vote and become president. The applicability of this amendment to a presidential vote being conducted simultaneously was questioned and might have been the subject of a legal dispute had the amendment passed. The amenedment failed, getting 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 marshalled 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 150,000 provisional ballots that had yet to be counted. Nevertheless, after concluding that a recount would not likely change the election results, Kerry conceded defeat at about 11:00 EST that morning. The Republican Party declared victory on the afternoon of November 3rd.

Election Controversy

Main Article: Allegations of Voting Irregularities and Misrepresentations in US Presidential Election 2004

There are many items of contention in the voting results that lead some to believe that there is a significant probability that massive voter fraud occured in key swing states.

See also

• Canada and the 2004 U.S. presidential election
• 2004 U.S. election in progress

External links and references

Official Candidate Websites (Alphabetical, by Last Name)

• Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) (http://www.badnarik.org/)
• George W. Bush (Republican) (http://www.georgewbush.com/) (Note: not currently accessible outside the U.S.)
• David Cobb (Green) (http://www.votecobb.org/)
• John Kerry (Democrat) (http://www.johnkerry.com/)
• Ralph Nader (Independent) (http://www.votenader.org/)
• Michael Peroutka (Constitution) (http://www.peroutka2004.com/)

Official Party Websites (Alphabetical, by Political Party)

• Constitution Party (http://www.constitutionparty.com/)
• Democratic National Committee (http://www.democrats.org/)
• Green Party of the United States (http://www.gp.org/)
• Libertarian Party (http://www.lp.org/)
• Reform Party (http://www.reformparty.org/cgi-bin/hcgmain.cgi)
• Republican National Committee (http://www.rnc.org/)

Election video archive

• Internet Archive's Election 2004 archive (http://www.archive.org/movies/collection.php?collection=election_2004) has lots of freely downloadable movies

Election 2004 link directories

• Over 3000 Links on the U.S. Presidential Election 2004 (http://www.betterworldlinks.org/president.htm)
• Open Directory Project - Presidential Campaign 2004 category (http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Society_and_Culture/Politics/Candidates_and_Campaigns/Presidential/2004/)
• Yahoo! - 2004 Presidential Election (http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Politics/Elections/Presidential_Elections/2004_Presidential_Election/)
• Looksmart - US Presidential Election 2004 (http://search.looksmart.com/p/browse/us1/us317836/us552286/us53384/us10151908/us10118664/)
• E-Democracy.US Election 2004 Links (http://www.e-democracy.us)

State-by-state forecasts of electoral vote outcome

• Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 (http://www.electoral-vote.com)
• Election Projection: Detailed electoral analysis, updated frequently (http://www.electionprojection.com/)
• Coldheartedtruth Battleground States Election Projection (http://www.coldheartedtruth.com/states.html)
• Federal Review Composite Poll (http://www.federalreview.com/compositepoll.htm)
• Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2004/president/electoratemap.php)
• Professor Pollkatz's Pool of Polls (http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com)
• Wake Up America Election Projections (http://www.geocities.com/79bandit/usa1.html)
• Running the Numbers: Election 2004 (http://www.geocities.com/numbers_04)
• Swing State Project (http://www.swingstateproject.com)
• Hedgehog Report's Bush vs. Kerry (http://www.davidwissing.com/bushkerrystate2004.php)
• President Elect: swing-state analysis, updated infrequently (http://www.presidentelect.org/e2004.html)
• Race 2004 (http://www.race2004.net)
• Dale's Electoral College Breakdown 2004 (http://www.dalythoughts.com/ecb.htm)
• http://polls.ontheweb.nl/
• USA Today polls (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/usatodaypolls.htm)
• Electoral college simulations (http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Research/presprobs.html)

Analysis of the Election

• Prof. Sam Wang's Electoral College Meta-Analysis (http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html)
• Gallup Poll: LATEST SNAPSHOT Based on Likely Voters (http://www.gallup.com/election2004/)
• US Election 2004 Web Monitor (http://www.ecoresearch.net/election2004/)
• Estimated odds of various election outcomes (http://www.campaignline.com/oddsmaker/index.cfm)
• Analysis of misleading advertising from both Bush and Kerry (http://www.factcheck.org/)
• Coldhearted analysis of the election (http://www.coldheartedtruth.com/)
• Hedgehog Report (http://www.davidwissing.com/)
• Electoral Vote Predictor (http://www.electoral-vote.com/)

Election 2004 global debate and voting

• Talk to US (http://www.talktoUS.org)
• The world speaks (http://www.theworldspeaks.net)
• The world votes (http://www.theworldvotes.org)
• Globalvote 2004 (http://www.globalvote2004.org)

Election 2004 protests

• CounterConvention.org: Information on groups protesting the 2004 Republican National Convention (http://www.counterconvention.org/)

Election 2004 news media

• Better World Links on Election News (http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book109e.htm)
• Associated Press Presidential Elections (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=694)
• BBC Vote USA 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2004/vote_usa_2004/)
• CNN America Votes 2004 (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/)
• Fox News You Decide 2004: Election 2004 coverage (http://www.foxnews.com/youdecide2004/index.html)
• The Guardian US Elections 2004 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/)
• The Washington Post Election 2004 coverage (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/elections/2004/)
• Yahoo! News Election 2004 (http://news.yahoo.com/elections)
• Directory of Media Endorsements (http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/2004_Media_Endorsements) including links to read them and some 2000 vs. 2004 endorsement analysis.

News articles

• Green Party considers 2004 strategy (http://www.msnbc.com/news/941276.asp?vts=072120031525&cp1=1#BODY) - MSNBC, July 2003

Election campaign funding

• 2004 Center for Responsive Politics (http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/index.asp) compiles data about who gives and who receives
• Money Maps (http://www.fundrace.org/)

Interactives

• AOL/TIME Presidential Match (http://www.presidentmatch.com)
• Interactive electoral college map (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/politics101/politics101_ecmap.html)

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