What happened to John Kerry in Florida?

[EJ24]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

[UWS]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

[2016]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

That's only partly a Reason. If you look at the County-by-County Map Bush significantly outperformed in the I4-Corridor from 2000 to 2004. He won every single County in the I4 except for Orange where he lost by 1.7 Points. He won Pinellas, H'Borough, Polk (which is more Republican now), Osceola (which was a true Swing County back then but is a Democratic County today)

The Memo still holds true: You win the I4 in Florida you probably end up winning the State as a whole.

[UWS]

As the article below indicated, Kerry was among the 22 senators who voted against tthe Helms-Burton Act which tightened economic sanctions on Cuba in March 1996. Kerry's vote on that legislature has been the source of another attack ad by the Bush campaign in Spanish, which surely resonated among Florida's Cuban-American voters (a group that massively supported Bush) and explain why Bush's margin of victory in Florida is so comfortable.

https://www.latimes.com/la-102204ads_lat-story.html

[South Dakota Democrat]

A big part of it was the overall national picture.  Florida is often around R+3, and since Bush won the popular vote by around 2 points, you'd expect Florida to end up this way.

This was of course different from 2000, though, where it was the tipping point state, so I'm sure it was shocking at the time (I was only an 8th grader so I don't remember, even though this was the beginning of my political nerdiness).

[Arbitrage1980]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

That's only partly a Reason. If you look at the County-by-County Map Bush significantly outperformed in the I4-Corridor from 2000 to 2004. He won every single County in the I4 except for Orange where he lost by 1.7 Points. He won Pinellas, H'Borough, Polk (which is more Republican now), Osceola (which was a true Swing County back then but is a Democratic County today)

The Memo still holds true: You win the I4 in Florida you probably end up winning the State as a whole.

This is correct. Bush did extremely well with suburban and exurban whites in I-4 corridor and Tampa and did very well with Latinos. He lost Miami-Dade county by just 6.3%. Trump lost it by nearly 30%!

[MARGINS6729]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

That's only partly a Reason. If you look at the County-by-County Map Bush significantly outperformed in the I4-Corridor from 2000 to 2004. He won every single County in the I4 except for Orange where he lost by 1.7 Points. He won Pinellas, H'Borough, Polk (which is more Republican now), Osceola (which was a true Swing County back then but is a Democratic County today)

The Memo still holds true: You win the I4 in Florida you probably end up winning the State as a whole.

This is correct. Bush did extremely well with suburban and exurban whites in I-4 corridor and Tampa and did very well with Latinos. He lost Miami-Dade county by just 6.3%. Trump lost it by nearly 30%!

However, Kerry did better than Gore in Miami-Dade County in terms of raw votes while a bit worse than Gore in Palm Beach and Broward.

[MARGINS6729]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

That's only partly a Reason. If you look at the County-by-County Map Bush significantly outperformed in the I4-Corridor from 2000 to 2004. He won every single County in the I4 except for Orange where he lost by 1.7 Points. He won Pinellas, H'Borough, Polk (which is more Republican now), Osceola (which was a true Swing County back then but is a Democratic County today)

The Memo still holds true: You win the I4 in Florida you probably end up winning the State as a whole.

All true except Pinellas is not in the I-4 corridor. This is one of my nitpicky things because the term is so misused. The I-4 Corridor is comprised of Hillsborough, Polk, Osceola, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia counties. It doesn't include Pinellas, Pasco, etc. People used to say I-4  alone decided the state because a good chunk of  those six counties were more purple in the past  like you said but that isn't the case today. They obviously still play an extremely important role but as demographic shifts have occurred inside the counties and in the counties that surround them (Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Lake, Sumter, Marion, Brevard, and maybe Flagler) which makes  Central Florida the more accurate term.

Political operatives  use "I-4"  as a misnomer term for the Tampa Bay/Orlando media markets being the key areas which is almost accurate but is incorrect too because  counties like Taylor, Hardee,  Suwanee, and Wakulla(all included in the Tampa Bay media market) are NOT tossup counties or remotely competitive in any way. The term should just be changed to Central Florida and be limited to the counties I mentioned above with the possible exception of Flagler.

[Arbitrage1980]

Polls were extremely close and Bush ended up winning 52-47, a comfortable 5 point margin. What happened?

Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of that state at the time and so it likely helps. And Bush won 44 % of the national Hispanic vote and with numbers like that likely propels Bush to victory in Florida where he benefited from massive Cuban American support.

That's only partly a Reason. If you look at the County-by-County Map Bush significantly outperformed in the I4-Corridor from 2000 to 2004. He won every single County in the I4 except for Orange where he lost by 1.7 Points. He won Pinellas, H'Borough, Polk (which is more Republican now), Osceola (which was a true Swing County back then but is a Democratic County today)

The Memo still holds true: You win the I4 in Florida you probably end up winning the State as a whole.

This is correct. Bush did extremely well with suburban and exurban whites in I-4 corridor and Tampa and did very well with Latinos. He lost Miami-Dade county by just 6.3%. Trump lost it by nearly 30%!

However, Kerry did better than Gore in Miami-Dade County in terms of raw votes while a bit worse than Gore in Palm Beach and Broward.

Gore and Kerry's win margins in Miami-Dade county were the same: 6.3%. You are indeed correct on raw vote count. Kerry got 81K more votes in the county than Gore did while Bush got 72K more votes than in 2000. Not a big difference.

[UWS]

I'd also say that this attack ad on Kerry's national security record played a role in making Florida so comfortable for Bush. In fact, this ad titled "Weapons" enumerated the weapons systems that Kerry opposed, including Apache helicopters, C-130 Hercules, F-16 Fighter Jets, components of which are all built in Florida, which likely resonated in Florida voters' minds by convincing them that without those weapons systems America's ability to defend itself against terror would have been drastically undermined and that Kerry's record on national security is troubling.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2004

[Progressive Pessimist]

New Jersey/New York transplants coming out strong for Bush?

Or wait, maybe it was Florida just being Florida that we should have recognized way back then. 2000 was a fluke and Obama got lucky when he won it in both of his elections.

[Schiff for Senate]

A big part of it was the overall national picture.  Florida is often around R+3, and since Bush won the popular vote by around 2 points, you'd expect Florida to end up this way.

This was of course different from 2000, though, where it was the tipping point state, so I'm sure it was shocking at the time (I was only an 8th grader so I don't remember, even though this was the beginning of my political nerdiness).

Yeah, it's understated that 2004 was the first and last time after 1988 the GOP won the popular vote. For perspective, in 1988, FL went red by north of 20 points. In 2008, 2012 and 2016 FL voted about the same to the right of the country as it did in 2004, only the Democrats won the popular vote by at least 2 points in each election, keeping the state very competitive.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Only one incumbent GOP president after Hoover has lost the state and that was to someone from a border state...

[Pericles]

New Jersey/New York transplants coming out strong for Bush?

Or wait, maybe it was Florida just being Florida that we should have recognized way back then. 2000 was a fluke and Obama got lucky when he won it in both of his elections.

It's hardly a fluke if it happens 3/6 times.

[Mr. Smith]

Bush won the popular vote by 2.

Until 2020, the state was consistently R+3

[kwabbit]

Miami Dade was actually Dem +6.3 in both 2000 and 2004. Cubans were already extremely R in 2000 because of the Elian Gonzalez saga, so they couldn't swing more to Bush.

Bush won through a further rural decline for Democrats in Northern Florida as Dixiecrats died out, as well as domination in the I-4 Corridor in the central part of the state.

[UWS]

What has also helped Dubya to win FL so comfortably is that FL was hit by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne throughout 2004. And FL voters appreciated the way Dubya handled the recovery of FL after these hurricanes.

[UWS]

During an election in which national security and the War on Terror were the most important issues, I guess that voters also noted that FL was also the place where several of the hijacking pilots of the 9/11 attacks trained

https://www.floridamemory.com/learn/exhibits/photo_exhibits/bushyears/bushyears3.php

[Agonized-Statism]

A major factor like in Ohio that year was conservative turnout against gay marriage. Thousands of marriage licenses had been issued in February and March in San Francisco under the direction of Mayor Newsom, prompting a wave of similar attempts at same-sex marriage in Florida. Ash v. Forman, a lawsuit in Broward County on behalf of 170 gay men and lesbians, represented the first formal legal challenge to the state's 1977 ban on gay marriage. Other cases were then filed throughout Florida ahead of the election and sparked a backlash.