Why 2004 wasnt as winnable for the Democrats as people assume

[OSR stands with Israel]

People assume 2004 was a 50/50 election due to how close it was but instead I believe that election was very difficult for the Democrats and one that required them to basically run an inside straight to win(even then that depending on the candidate might not be enough really). First here is how 2004 would have looked like if you give Bush and Kerry all the states they won by more than 5





To illustrate how hard winning the white house is from there , if you give Colorado to Bush which he won by 4.67 points he gets to 249 electoral votes and then just winning Ohio gets him to 269 which is all Bush needed to be reelected.

Now some people might argue Ohio was absolutely winnable as Bush only won it by 2 point but the problem with that is in the core Democratic counties its hard to see where Kerry could have really done better. Kerry for example was the first Democrat to get over 60% in Trumbull County since 1964, in Mahoning the second democrat since 1964 to get over 62%, in Cuyahoga not only did he get a higher share of the vote than any democrat since LBJ but it was the best performance margin wise since then as well. In Lorain again the same was true with him getting a higher share of the Democratic vote than any Dem since LBJ , so in those core Democratic areas Kerry you could argue maxed out for a Dem.

The reason why Kerry did bad in Ohio wasnt cause he did badly with WWC in NE Ohio but the fact that Appalachia by 2004 was trending hard against the Democratic party and places like Cincinnati/Columbus were not as Democratic as they needed to be(and in the case of Hamilton county it was straight up a Republican county then). Basically for a Democrat to win Ohio they need to perform really well in NE Ohio plus either do really well in the Appalachian parts like Carter and Clinton did or do really well in Cincinnati/Columbus like Obama did and even for Clinton he likely loses Ohio in 1992 if Perot wasnt on the Ballot(he won it by less than 2 points). 

Now the problem is even if you could win Ohio through doing better in SE OH could easily cost the Dems NH which would mean Bush still wins. This map kinda shows why it was extremely difficult for a non southern dem to win from 1968-2004 and how much VA/CO becoming Dem alone made it much easier for the Dems to win the white house.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

Kerry (Michael Dukakis 2.0, without the advantage of an open White House) keeping it as close as he did was a sign that the Democrats were becoming the dominant presidential party in the post Cold War era.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I do agree with you that Kerry did a lot better than he probably "should" have, and this, along with the 2000 election being the extremely controversial squeaker it was as opposed to the stomping it was shaping up to be is why I think Karl Rove and the Bush Adminstration's political skill in general is extremely overrated.

[Bootes Void]

Oregon and Minnesota weren't really seen as swing states in 2004 or atleast ones where Kerry should win. I would Florida in the tossup category everyone did at the time

[OSR stands with Israel]

Oregon and Minnesota weren't really seen as swing states in 2004 or atleast ones where Kerry should win. I would Florida in the tossup category everyone did at the time

This isn’t a battleground map but rather a map of the states decided by 5 points or less

[South Dakota Democrat]

Oregon and Minnesota weren't really seen as swing states in 2004 or atleast ones where Kerry should win. I would Florida in the tossup category everyone did at the time

Minnesota legit was seen as a swing state at the time.

[dw93]

I think 2004 is a lot like 2012 in a sense that while the incumbent party had a slight advantage (speaking totally from the perspective of hindsight) the right candidate and the right campaign could've, abet narrowly, unseated the incumbent. I think, the damage flip flopping on Iraq did aside, Kerry ran a pretty solid campaign and could've just as easily fared worse than he did, so I do tend to give him some credit despite losing, as at least he wasn't in a situation were defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory like it was in 2016 and arguably 2000, and at least didn't get the ass whooping Romney got 8 years later despite being in a similar position to Kerry.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think 2004 is a lot like 2012 in a sense that while the incumbent party had a slight advantage (speaking totally from the perspective of hindsight) the right candidate and the right campaign could've, abet narrowly, unseated the incumbent. I think, the damage flip flopping on Iraq did aside, Kerry ran a pretty solid campaign and could've just as easily fared worse than he did, so I do tend to give him some credit despite losing, as at least he wasn't in a situation were defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory like it was in 2016 and arguably 2000, and at least didn't get the ass whooping Romney got 8 years later despite being in a similar position to Kerry.

Well I think for a democrat to win in 2004 they would have had to nominate a southerner so maybe someone like Mark Warner or Bob Graham could have done it as it opens up a larger path to 270 . The problem with nominating someone like Kerry was he was never gonna win a state like Florida which Bush won by over 5 points or really any southern state so that made the path to victory really narrow as it requires the democrats to have to run an inside straight to win the White House.


Even then I don’t really think it involves Ohio as like I said Kerry had basically maxed out all the democratic areas and the Appalachian parts were already to far gone and Cincinnati and Columbus weren’t there yet for Kerry to win Ohio . So imo the inside straight for a dem in 2004 would have been winning all the states Kerry did plus IA, NM , NV and CO and if Kerry did that he wouldn’t require any southern state or Ohio to win .


Just like Trump needs an unconventional path to get to 270 , so did Kerry imo

[dw93]

I think 2004 is a lot like 2012 in a sense that while the incumbent party had a slight advantage (speaking totally from the perspective of hindsight) the right candidate and the right campaign could've, abet narrowly, unseated the incumbent. I think, the damage flip flopping on Iraq did aside, Kerry ran a pretty solid campaign and could've just as easily fared worse than he did, so I do tend to give him some credit despite losing, as at least he wasn't in a situation were defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory like it was in 2016 and arguably 2000, and at least didn't get the ass whooping Romney got 8 years later despite being in a similar position to Kerry.

Well I think for a democrat to win in 2004 they would have had to nominate a southerner so maybe someone like Mark Warner or Bob Graham could have done it as it opens up a larger path to 270 . The problem with nominating someone like Kerry was he was never gonna win a state like Florida which Bush won by over 5 points or really any southern state so that made the path to victory really narrow as it requires the democrats to have to run an inside straight to win the White House.


Even then I don’t really think it involves Ohio as like I said Kerry had basically maxed out all the democratic areas and the Appalachian parts were already to far gone and Cincinnati and Columbus weren’t there yet for Kerry to win Ohio . So imo the inside straight for a dem in 2004 would have been winning all the states Kerry did plus IA, NM , NV and CO and if Kerry did that he wouldn’t require any southern state or Ohio to win .


Just like Trump needs an unconventional path to get to 270 , so did Kerry imo

I don't think they needed a southerner, though someone like Graham would give Bush a run for his money. What they needed was someone who could run against the Iraq War without being called a flip flopper and do so from a position of credibility, Kerry couldn't due to his flip flopping on the War as well as the stupid "controversies" (lies) surrounding his war record, Wesley Clark was the only one off the top of my head that possibly could have. They also needed someone to successfully exploit the weak recovery from the "Dot Com" recession as well as Bush being the first President since Hoover to preside over a net job loss, which Kerry somewhat did given the leftward trend in Ohio as well as his holding onto the Rust Belt, but he didn't go far enough with it.

I just don't know who that candidate was, but again given how close it was in the end, I don't think Kerry did a terrible job, and it says a lot about Bush that despite 2004 being much more favorable to him than 2000 was, the election was still decided by under 300 electoral votes.

[sting in the rafters]

Similar to 2012, I would say the incumbent started off with a slight advantage, however over the course of the campaign they won by having the advantage on the ground (e.g. Kerry having to play defense in PA, Romney being tied down in Florida+OH and having misleading internals, etc.) Also there was one big issue dominating the campaign in both presidentials (economy in 2012, national security in 04).

Even then I don’t really think it involves Ohio as like I said Kerry had basically maxed out all the democratic areas and the Appalachian parts were already to far gone and Cincinnati and Columbus weren’t there yet for Kerry to win Ohio . So imo the inside straight for a dem in 2004 would have been winning all the states Kerry did plus IA, NM , NV and CO and if Kerry did that he wouldn’t require any southern state or Ohio to win .


Just like Trump needs an unconventional path to get to 270 , so did Kerry imo

By virtue of being in elementary school at the time I wasn't politically cognizant, though my understanding in hindsight is that Kerry completely blew New Mexico and Iowa as winnable states and that the issue in Ohio was that while Kerry hit his targets, Dubya got turnout above what anyone was expecting from his socially conservative base. Do you think that Kerry could've blunted Dubya's ground game with a different campaign, or was it just never in the cards?

[TML]

By virtue of being in elementary school at the time I wasn't politically cognizant, though my understanding in hindsight is that Kerry completely blew New Mexico and Iowa as winnable states and that the issue in Ohio was that while Kerry hit his targets, Dubya got turnout above what anyone was expecting from his socially conservative base. Do you think that Kerry could've blunted Dubya's ground game with a different campaign, or was it just never in the cards?

Some people have said that if Kerry had picked Dick Gephardt as his running mate instead of John Edwards, it may have helped him win states like IA/MO/OH due to Gephardt's ability to connect with unionized working class voters (Kerry's attempts to make inroads into the South with Edwards failed to materialize at all).

[OSR stands with Israel]

By virtue of being in elementary school at the time I wasn't politically cognizant, though my understanding in hindsight is that Kerry completely blew New Mexico and Iowa as winnable states and that the issue in Ohio was that while Kerry hit his targets, Dubya got turnout above what anyone was expecting from his socially conservative base. Do you think that Kerry could've blunted Dubya's ground game with a different campaign, or was it just never in the cards?

Some people have said that if Kerry had picked Dick Gephardt as his running mate instead of John Edwards, it may have helped him win states like IA/MO/OH due to Gephardt's ability to connect with unionized working class voters (Kerry's attempts to make inroads into the South with Edwards failed to materialize at all).

It’s a myth that Kerry didn’t do good with working class voters in Ohio as in many of those counties (particularly in NE Ohio) his share of the vote was higher than any dem there since 1964.

The problem with Kerry in Ohio was Appalachia and that had begun to massively trend republican in 2000 and that’s why the math really just wasn’t there for Kerry to win in Ohio . It’s one of the situations where you can reduce the margins down to a percent even but that final percent is very very difficult to break as the math just doenst add up at that point , and it didn’t for Kerry .

[Chips]

I think 2004 is a lot like 2012 in a sense that while the incumbent party had a slight advantage (speaking totally from the perspective of hindsight) the right candidate and the right campaign could've, abet narrowly, unseated the incumbent. I think, the damage flip flopping on Iraq did aside, Kerry ran a pretty solid campaign and could've just as easily fared worse than he did, so I do tend to give him some credit despite losing, as at least he wasn't in a situation were defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory like it was in 2016 and arguably 2000, and at least didn't get the ass whooping Romney got 8 years later despite being in a similar position to Kerry.

Well I think for a democrat to win in 2004 they would have had to nominate a southerner so maybe someone like Mark Warner or Bob Graham could have done it as it opens up a larger path to 270 . The problem with nominating someone like Kerry was he was never gonna win a state like Florida which Bush won by over 5 points or really any southern state so that made the path to victory really narrow as it requires the democrats to have to run an inside straight to win the White House.


Even then I don’t really think it involves Ohio as like I said Kerry had basically maxed out all the democratic areas and the Appalachian parts were already to far gone and Cincinnati and Columbus weren’t there yet for Kerry to win Ohio . So imo the inside straight for a dem in 2004 would have been winning all the states Kerry did plus IA, NM , NV and CO and if Kerry did that he wouldn’t require any southern state or Ohio to win .


Just like Trump needs an unconventional path to get to 270 , so did Kerry imo

I actually theorized this scenario. In this scenario, Kerry picks Warner as his running mate and puts time and money into Fairfax, Virginia Beach and Richmond. If he put enough effort in VA....



VA and NM would've been all that was needed. Bush could've won NV, CO, IA, OH and FL and still lost. It's a 274-264 R win under 2010 allocations but it's also actually a 270-268 D win under 2000 allocations. It would've been a longshot but it could've paid off bigtime for Kerry.