What happened in Travis County TX (Austin) in 04?

[Arbitrage1980]

Bush won Travis County by 5 points in 2000 but lost it by 14 points in 2004 even though he improved in TX overall by 1%. That's a big shift in just one election cycle. What happened? My guess is the Iraq War alienated the liberals in the county, especially the UT Austin students.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

2000:

George W. Bush (R):  46.9% (141,235)
Albert A. Gore, Jr (D): 41.7% (125,526)
Other: 11.5% (34,502)

2004:

John F. Kerry (D):  56.0% (197,235)
George W. Bush (R): 42.0% (147,685)
Other: 2.0% (6,993)

--

You're right -- Travis County (which has only voted for a Republican Presidential candidate five times since 1932 [1952, 1956, 1972, 1984, and 2000] experienced a pretty massive swing between 2000 and 2004.  In fact, I believe that it was the only Bush-Kerry county in the entire state (by my count, there were six Gore-Bush counties).  

I don't have a definitive answer with regards to demographics, but I'm certain that the third party influence had something to do with it.  While it doesn't cover up the entire deficit, a 9.5% drop in third-party vote (27,905 votes) is pretty significant and indicates that there was something going on there, especially since Nader garnered only 2.15% (137,994) of the overall vote in Texas.  

Also, speaking just as a native Texan myself, we REALLY like our native sons and the Bushes were an icon of the state.  So perhaps there was a level of enthusiasm from soft-Clinton Travis County voters. 

[Calthrina950]

2000:

George W. Bush (R):  46.9% (141,235)
Albert A. Gore, Jr (D): 41.7% (125,526)
Other: 11.5% (34,502)

2004:

John F. Kerry (D):  56.0% (197,235)
George W. Bush (R): 42.0% (147,685)
Other: 2.0% (6,993)

--

You're right -- Travis County (which has only voted for a Republican Presidential candidate five times since 1932 [1952, 1956, 1972, 1984, and 2000] experienced a pretty massive swing between 2000 and 2004.  In fact, I believe that it was the only Bush-Kerry county in the entire state (by my count, there were six Gore-Bush counties).  

I don't have a definitive answer with regards to demographics, but I'm certain that the third party influence had something to do with it.  While it doesn't cover up the entire deficit, a 9.5% drop in third-party vote (27,905 votes) is pretty significant and indicates that there was something going on there, especially since Nader garnered only 2.15% (137,994) of the overall vote in Texas.  

Also, speaking just as a native Texan myself, we REALLY like our native sons and the Bushes were an icon of the state.  So perhaps there was a level of enthusiasm from soft-Clinton Travis County voters. 

Arguably, it can be said that the only reason Bush won Travis County in 2000 was because of Ralph Nader, who as your figures show, got more than 10% of the vote there. In 2004, most of that consolidated behind John Kerry, who also benefited from the huge increase in turnout that took place that year (122 million people voted in 2004, compared to 105 million in 2000).

[Arbitrage1980]

2000:

George W. Bush (R):  46.9% (141,235)
Albert A. Gore, Jr (D): 41.7% (125,526)
Other: 11.5% (34,502)

2004:

John F. Kerry (D):  56.0% (197,235)
George W. Bush (R): 42.0% (147,685)
Other: 2.0% (6,993)

--

You're right -- Travis County (which has only voted for a Republican Presidential candidate five times since 1932 [1952, 1956, 1972, 1984, and 2000] experienced a pretty massive swing between 2000 and 2004.  In fact, I believe that it was the only Bush-Kerry county in the entire state (by my count, there were six Gore-Bush counties).  

I don't have a definitive answer with regards to demographics, but I'm certain that the third party influence had something to do with it.  While it doesn't cover up the entire deficit, a 9.5% drop in third-party vote (27,905 votes) is pretty significant and indicates that there was something going on there, especially since Nader garnered only 2.15% (137,994) of the overall vote in Texas.  

Also, speaking just as a native Texan myself, we REALLY like our native sons and the Bushes were an icon of the state.  So perhaps there was a level of enthusiasm from soft-Clinton Travis County voters. 

Do you know what the six Gore-Bush counties are? I think like 5 of them are in Florida: Osceola, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Flagler.

[Calthrina950]

2000:

George W. Bush (R):  46.9% (141,235)
Albert A. Gore, Jr (D): 41.7% (125,526)
Other: 11.5% (34,502)

2004:

John F. Kerry (D):  56.0% (197,235)
George W. Bush (R): 42.0% (147,685)
Other: 2.0% (6,993)

--

You're right -- Travis County (which has only voted for a Republican Presidential candidate five times since 1932 [1952, 1956, 1972, 1984, and 2000] experienced a pretty massive swing between 2000 and 2004.  In fact, I believe that it was the only Bush-Kerry county in the entire state (by my count, there were six Gore-Bush counties).  

I don't have a definitive answer with regards to demographics, but I'm certain that the third party influence had something to do with it.  While it doesn't cover up the entire deficit, a 9.5% drop in third-party vote (27,905 votes) is pretty significant and indicates that there was something going on there, especially since Nader garnered only 2.15% (137,994) of the overall vote in Texas.  

Also, speaking just as a native Texan myself, we REALLY like our native sons and the Bushes were an icon of the state.  So perhaps there was a level of enthusiasm from soft-Clinton Travis County voters. 

Do you know what the six Gore-Bush counties are? I think like 5 of them are in Florida: Osceola, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Flagler.

I think she meant the six Gore-Bush counties in Texas. There are actually seven of them (she missed one): Cameron, Culberson, Reeves, Robertson, Morris, Newton, and Frio.

[Crumpets]

Just looking at those numbers, it looks like there was a huge increase in turnout. Despite dropping 4.9%, Bush still gained over 6000 votes. I know Austin is a fast-growing city, but I'm not sure if that accounts for all of it. Maybe there was some reason either turnout was held back in 2000 or particularly strong in 2004, and the advantage went almost entirely to the Democrats.

[Indy Texas]

1. Kerry probably got the lion's share of the 2000 third party vote.

2. Travis County has a lot of the sort of socially moderate suburban white people who swung away from Bush nationally in 2004 as he doubled down on culture war issues.

[SenatorCouzens]

My guess would be that it's an area of the state. that was particularly fed up with Bush's handling of the Iraq War

[Del Tachi]

Bush won in 2000 thanks to being a native son and Nader's strong local performance; Austin continued to grow rapidly (mostly thanks to young, highly-educated out-of-state transplants moving-in) between 2000 and 2004, Bush's local appeal wore-off after 4 years as a national politician, and the bulk of Nader's support flipped to Kerry.