2004 United States presidential election in Oklahoma

2004 United States presidential election in Oklahoma
Turnout	68.3% (of registered voters) ; 55.6% (of voting age population)
County Results Bush 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% 80-90%
President before election; George W. Bush; Republican	Elected President ; George W. Bush; Republican

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

Oklahoma was won by incumbent President George W. Bush by a 31.14% margin of victory. Prior to the election, all 12 news organizations considered this a state Bush would win, or otherwise considered a safe red state. Bush won this state, every single county, and congressional district. Giving Bush 65.57% of the vote, it was the most Republican state in the south and Bush's fifth best performance in the country after Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Nebraska.^[1]

Oklahoma has been a Republican-leaning state since 1952 and a Republican stronghold since 1980. This was the first of five consecutive elections to date in which every county in the state was won by the Republican candidate.

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Primaries

Campaign

Predictions

There were 12 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day.^[2]

D.C. Political Report: Solid Republican
Associated Press: Solid Bush
CNN: Bush
Cook Political Report: Solid Republican
Newsweek: Solid Bush
New York Times: Solid Bush
Rasmussen Reports: Bush
Research 2000: Solid Bush
Washington Post: Bush
Washington Times: Solid Bush
Zogby International: Bush
Washington Dispatch: Bush

Polling

Bush won every single pre-election poll, each with a double-digit margin and with at least 53% of the vote, except for the first poll. Many polls had Bush winning with a 30% margin or even higher. The final 3 poll average had Bush leading 63% to 32%.^[3]

Fundraising

Bush raised $1,194,549.^[4] Kerry raised $357,038.^[5]

Advertising and visits

Neither campaign advertised or visited this state during the fall campaign.^[6]^[7]

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Analysis

By 2000, Oklahoma had long been one of the more Republican-leaning states in the South, having been one of only two Southern states to have voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976, and having been one of a handful of Southern states never to vote for Bill Clinton. In 2000, George W. Bush, then the governor of the neighboring state of Texas, carried the Sooner State with a little over 60% of the vote, making it his sixth-best state nationally and his best state in the South that year. However, Al Gore did manage to carry a cluster of traditionally Democratic rural counties in the eastern part of the state.

In 2004, Bush improved his percentage in Oklahoma by a little over 5% and carried every county in the state, the first of five consecutive elections (as of 2020) in which the Republican has swept the state's counties. He performed strongly in both the state's rural areas, and in its two main population centers, getting 64% of the vote in both Oklahoma and Tulsa Counties. Only in six counties was Kerry so much as able to hold Bush to a single-digit margin: Cherokee, Choctaw, Coal, McIntosh, Muskogee, and Okmulgee. None of these cast over 30,000 votes. However, in McIntosh County, John Kerry held Bush to a margin of just 2%, which would be the closest any Democrat since Gore came to carrying any Oklahoma county until Joe Biden came within 1.5% of carrying Oklahoma County in 2020. In addition, McIntosh County voted marginally more Democratic than the nation at-large, the last time any county in the state has voted as such as of 2022.

The third-party vote, which had amounted to 1.26% of the total state vote in 2000, disappeared in 2004, as no independent obtained ballot access in the state in 2004. Oklahoma has the toughest laws regarding third-party ballot access,^[8] and 2004 was the first of three elections in a row in which only the Democrat and the Republican appeared on the ballot (with write-in votes not allowed).

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Results

2004 United States presidential election in Oklahoma^[9]
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	George W. Bush	Dick Cheney	959,792	65.57%	7
	Democratic	John Kerry	John Edwards	503,966	34.43%	0
Voter turnout (Voting age population)						55.6%

By county

County	Bush#	Bush%	Kerry#	Kerry%
Adair	4,970	66%	2,560	34%
Alfalfa	2,201	82%	470	18%
Atoka	3,140	62%	1,946	38%
Beaver	2,271	88%	297	12%
Beckham	5,454	74%	1,931	26%
Blaine	3,199	72%	1,222	28%
Bryan	8,614	60%	5,742	40%
Caddo	6,491	62%	3,916	38%
Canadian	33,297	77%	9,712	23%
Carter	12,173	65%	6,464	35%
Cherokee	9,563	53%	8,622	47%
Choctaw	3,168	55%	2,639	45%
Cimarron	1,242	87%	184	13%
Cleveland	65,666	66%	33,984	34%
Coal	1,396	54%	1,203	46%
Comanche	21,163	64%	12,020	36%
Cotton	1,742	66%	898	34%
Craig	3,894	61%	2,504	39%
Creek	18,845	66%	9,927	35%
Custer	7,839	74%	2,801	26%
Delaware	10,016	64%	5,591	36%
Dewey	1,843	82%	408	18%
Ellis	1,685	81%	395	19%
Garfield	17,685	76%	5,586	24%
Garvin	7,610	67%	3,706	33%
Grady	14,129	70%	5,969	30%
Grant	1,950	77%	571	23%
Greer	1,529	68%	719	32%
Harmon	838	70%	354	30%
Harper	1,397	84%	268	16%
Haskell	2,946	55%	2,378	45%
Hughes	3,066	57%	2,286	43%
Jackson	7,024	76%	2,232	24%
Jefferson	1,546	59%	1,057	41%
Johnston	2,634	61%	1,711	39%
Kay	14,177	70%	5,956	30%
Kingfisher	5,629	85%	1,022	15%
Kiowa	2,608	65%	1,413	35%
Latimer	2,535	57%	1,945	43%
LeFlore	10,681	61%	6,740	39%
Lincoln	10,149	72%	4,041	28%
Logan	11,467	70%	4,869	30%
Love	2,295	60%	1,538	40%
Major	3,120	85%	537	15%
Marshall	3,363	62%	2,088	38%
Mayes	9,946	59%	6,933	41%
McClain	10,038	73%	3,742	27%
McCurtain	7,472	67%	3,684	33%
McIntosh	4,692	51%	4,488	49%
Murray	3,665	61%	2,310	39%
Muskogee	15,121	55%	12,585	45%
Noble	3,993	75%	1,335	25%
Nowata	2,805	63%	1,659	37%
Okfuskee	2,542	59%	1,743	41%
Oklahoma	174,707	64%	97,283	36%
Okmulgee	8,363	53%	7,367	47%
Osage	11,467	59%	8,068	41%
Ottawa	7,439	59%	5,084	41%
Pawnee	4,412	63%	2,563	37%
Payne	19,560	66%	10,101	34%
Pittsburg	11,134	60%	7,452	40%
Pontotoc	9,642	65%	5,165	35%
Pottawatomie	17,212	67%	8,636	33%
Pushmataha	2,862	60%	1,934	40%
Roger	1,388	78%	382	22%
Rogers	24,981	68%	11,917	32%
Seminole	5,623	61%	3,648	39%
Sequoyah	8,865	60%	5,910	40%
Stephens	13,645	71%	5,514	29%
Texas	5,449	84%	1,016	16%
Tillman	2,273	66%	1,175	34%
Tulsa	163,434	64%	90,204	36%
Wagoner	19,081	68%	9,157	32%
Washington	16,551	71%	6,862	29%
Washita	3,705	73%	1,340	27%
Woods	3,165	77%	930	23%
Woodward	6,188	81%	1,457	19%

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

Cherokee (Largest city: Tahlequah)
Choctaw (Largest city: Hugo)
Haskell (Largest city: Stigler)
Hughes (Largest city: Holdenville)
Latimer (Largest city: Wilburton)
McIntosh (Largest city: Checotah)
Muskogee (Largest city: Muskogee)
Okmulgee (Largest city: Okmulgee)
Ottawa (Largest city: Miami)

By congressional district

Bush won all 5 congressional districts, including one held by a Democrat.^[10]

District	Bush	Kerry	Representative
1st	65%	35%	John Sullivan
2nd	59%	41%	Brad Carson
2nd	59%	41%	Dan Boren
3rd	72%	28%	Frank Lucas
4th	67%	33%	Tom Cole
5th	64%	36%	Ernest Istook

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Electors

Technically the voters of Oklahoma cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Oklahoma is allocated 7 electors because it has 5 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 7 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 7 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 13, 2004, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All 7 were pledged for Bush/Cheney:

George Wiland
Paul Hollrah
Colby Schwartz
Diana Gunther
Ken Bartlett
Donald Burdick
Bob Hudspeth

The slate for the Democrats, which was not elected, consisted of George Krumme, Edwynne Krumme, Maxine Horner, Jim Hamilton, Bernice Mitchell, Betty McElderry, Bob Lemon^[11]