Since 1900 twelve of seventeen incumbent presidents have been re-elected and few of
those contests were as close as the 2004 election. On the day before the election public opinion
polls indicated that the two candidates – President Bush and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) – were
essentially tied and an indeterminate result, as had happened in 2000, remained a distinct
possibility. But this time Bush obtained the popular majority (51.2% – 48.7%) that eluded him
four years ago and garnered 286 Electoral College votes (out of 538). The Republican party
added to their majorities in the Senate (55 Rep., 44 Dem., 1 Independent) and the House of
Representatives (232 Rep., 202 Dem. 1 Independent). Bush’s re-election made him the first
president since Franklin Roosevelt to be re-elected while his party also gained seats in both the
House and the Senate. It also made him the first Republican president to win re-election with
majorities in the House and Senate since Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
5
As a consequence, “Bush
holds a level of power not matched perhaps since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.”
6
The global effort to defeat the Al-Qaeda terrorists and the U.S. occupation of Iraq served
as a background for the election. As a consequence, the changing situation on these two fronts
affected the fortunes of both candidates. Reports of progress such as the establishment of an
interim Iraqi government or the capture of another terrorist leader boosted the president’s
popularity, while reports of problems such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and most
especially the daily rise in the number of American soldiers killed tended to aid his challenger.
The war’s general impact on the presidential contest was primarily to reinforce the two camps
into which the public had already divided itself as early as June 2004 when opinion polls
indicated that only 5 percent of likely voters were undecided. Secondarily, the war also diverted
voter attention from domestic issues such as employment, job security / outsourcing, and health
care.
The monetary costs of the invasion and the support of the provisional coalition climbed to
Convention