United States presidential election in Florida, 2004

2004 United States presidential election in Florida
Turnout	74%
Bush 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80%	Kerry 40-50% 50-60% 60-70%
President before election; George W. Bush; Republican	Elected President ; George W. Bush; Republican

The 2004 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 2, 2004, as part of the 2004 United States presidential election. Voters chose 27 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Florida was won by incumbent President George W. Bush by a 5.01% margin of victory. Prior to the election, most news organizations considered this a swing state that was leaning towards Bush. Once again, Florida was under the national spotlight due to its high number of electoral votes and the fresh memory of the controversy surrounding the 2000 Florida vote. Turnout was much higher, going from an estimated 6 million voters in 2000 to over 7.5 million voters showing up to vote in 2004.^[2] This remains the last time that any candidate won Florida by a greater than 5% margin and the last time a Republican won a majority of the state's popular vote until 2020.

Campaign

Predictions

There were 12 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day.^[3]


Source	Ranking
D.C. Political Report	Lean R
Associated Press	Toss-up
CNN	Likely R
Cook Political Report	Toss-up
Newsweek	Toss-up
New York Times	Toss-up
Rasmussen Reports	Toss-up
Research 2000	Toss-up
Washington Post	Toss-up
Washington Times	Toss-up
Zogby International	Toss-up
Washington Dispatch	Likely R

Polling

Poll source	Date(s) administered	Sample size	Margin of error	John Kerry (D)	George W. Bush (R)	Ralph Nader (I)	Other	Undecided
Quinnipiac	October 27–31, 2004	1,098	± 3.3	43%	51%	1%	0%	4%
Quinnipiac	October 22–26, 2004	944	± 3.2	46%	49%	1%	0%	4%
Quinnipiac	October 15–19, 2004	808	± 3.5	47%	48%	1%	0%	4%
Quinnipiac	October 1–5, 2004	717	± 3.7	44%	51%	0%	0%	5%
Quinnipiac	September 18–21, 2004	819	± 3.4	41%	49%	5%	0%	5%
Quinnipiac	August 5–10, 2004	1,094	± 3.0	47%	41%	4%	0%	7%
Quinnipiac	June 23–27, 2004	1,209	± 2.8	43%	43%	5%	1%	9%

Throughout the general election, candidates exchanged narrow leads in the state. The final 3 poll averaged showed Bush leading with 49% to Kerry's 47%.^[4]

Fundraising

Bush raised $16,956,510.^[5] Kerry raised $7,285,151.^[6]

Advertising and visits

This state was heavily targeted as a swing state. Over the course of the election, Bush visited the state 15 times to Kerry's 18 times. Also, both candidates spent heavily on television advertisements, spending an estimated $3 million each week.^[7]

Analysis

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, numerous allegations of irregularities were made concerning the voting process in Florida. These allegations included missing and uncounted votes, machine malfunction, and a lack of correlation between the vote count and exit polling.

In the prior election, Ralph Nader obtained over 2% of the vote, thus Bush won with less than 50% of the vote, making his approval rating and his brother's approval ratings the deciding factor of the state. Polls throughout the campaign indicated that Florida was too close to call, prompting concerns about a repeat of the 2000 fiasco. However, the high popularity of George W. Bush's brother, Republican Governor Jeb Bush, contributed to a relatively comfortable victory for Bush, by a margin of 5% over his Democratic rival, John Kerry. Despite this, Florida remained the most Democratic of the 11 states of the former Confederacy, and Kerry's 5% loss in Florida was the closest he came to carrying any Confederate state.

While the South Florida metropolitan area mostly voted for Kerry, the other parts of the state mainly supported Bush, being culturally closer to the rest of the southern United States than to Miami, home to large Hispanic and Jewish populations, as well as retirees and transplants from the largely liberal Northeastern United States.

Key to Bush's victory was increased turnout in Republican areas. Bush's margin of victory in several counties topped 70%, particularly in the Florida Panhandle. Bush also won a significant number of heavily populated and fast-growing areas including Jacksonville, the entire Tampa Bay area, Southwest Florida, Orlando, the Space Coast, and Ocala.

As of the 2020 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in which Hillsborough County and Osceola County voted for the Republican candidate. This is also the last time that the cities of Orlando, Tampa, and Kissimmee have voted Republican in a presidential election.

Results

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]