2004 United States presidential election in Oklahoma

Primaries

• 2004 Oklahoma Democratic presidential primary
• 2004 Oklahoma Republican presidential primary

Campaign

Predictions

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

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%.

Fundraising

Bush raised $1,194,549. Kerry raised $357,038.

Advertising and visits

Neither campaign advertised or visited this state during the fall campaign.

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 Oklahoma 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 six consecutive elections (as of 2024) 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.

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, 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).

Results

By county

Republican ]]

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 five congressional districts, including one held by a Democrat.

Electors

Main article: List of 2004 United States presidential 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:

1. George Wiland
2. Paul Hollrah
3. Colby Schwartz
4. Diana Gunther
5. Ken Bartlett
6. Donald Burdick
7. 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, and Bob Lemon.

References

References

1. "2004 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.
2. [http://www.dcpoliticalreport.com/members/2004/Pred2.htm#NW Article title] {{dead link. (July 2016)
3. "2004 Presidential Election Polls".
4. "George W Bush - $374,659,453 raised, '04 election cycle, Republican Party, President".
5. "John F Kerry - $345,826,176 raised, '04 election cycle, Democrat Party, President".
6. "America votes 2004: Candidate tracker". [[CNN]].
7. "America votes 2004: Campaign ad buys". CNN.
8. (2012-10-09). "Third-party Oklahoma voters seek easier ballot access".
9. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections".
10. "Presidential Results by Congressional District, 2000-2008 – Swing State Project".
11. "PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS".