U.S. presidential election, 2004

The U.S. presidential election of 2004 was won by the incumbent President, Republican George W. Bush, who defeated his main rival, Democratic Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. The election was fought primarily on the issue of the conduct of the War on Terror. Bush defended the actions of his administration, while Kerry contended that the war had been fought incompetently, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from the War on Terror, not a part of it.

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.

Related Topics:
Congressional - Reapportionment - U.S. Electoral College - Senators - Representatives

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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.

Related Topics:
2000 election - Bush - Gore - Kerry - Winner-take-all

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Gained votesLost votes

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• 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)

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• 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)

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

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