How big a victory can the Republicans get in 2004?

Due to his popularity bump after 9/11, many political commentators felt President Bush would win reelection in 2004 by a substantial margin, if not an outright landslide. As late as mid-2004, many felt Bush would, at the very least, win reelection by carrying states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and others that the Republicans hadn't won since in the 1980's.

Alas, this was not to be. Democratic nominee John Kerry steadily chipped away at Bush's poll numbers until we were left with a very competitive race. Ultimately, Bush won anyway, but Kerry held him to less than 300 electoral votes and a barely two-point margin of victory.

So, how can this be changed? With a point of divergence no earlier than January 1st, how big a victory can the Republicans realistically get in the electoral college? What potential Democrat candidate would be the weakest (John Edwards? Howard Dean?), and how would the campaign need to go? Can Bush win in a 1964/1972/1984 landslide, or realistically would he "only" be able to win with the states he won in 2004, plus Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc?
 
bush could not have to go to Iraq or if he did the go ahead with Iraq, the war could not have been such a screw up or if some of it domestic policy intivatives could have better or instant success or he could have managed Katrina better also the democratic party could have nominated a more liberal candidate that would alienate moderate voters a danger that many political pundits were talking about during the republican nomination of 2012
 
bush could not have to go to Iraq or if he did the go ahead with Iraq, the war could not have been such a screw up or if some of it domestic policy intivatives could have better or instant success or he could have managed Katrina better also the democratic party could have nominated a more liberal candidate that would alienate moderate voters a danger that many political pundits were talking about during the republican nomination of 2012

Katrina happened in 2005.
 
2004 GOP Landslide

The only thing I can think of that would give the GOP a large landslide is if Edwards won the primary and some sort of infidelity was revealed during the general election...but I believe the Rielle Hunter affair did not occur until 2006. Bush's approval ratings weren't high enough in 2004 to support a landslide.

Dean probably does as well as Kerry in the general and doesn't lose in a landslide (but probably loses)

A few thousand votes in Wisconsin (10 EV) and New Hampshire (4 EV) in OTL would have given those states to Bush, giving him an even 300 EV. It's hard to see any other state going GOP (Pennsylvania and Michigan are fool's gold and haven't voted Republican for President since 1988)
 
So, how can this be changed? With a point of divergence no earlier than January 1st, how big a victory can the Republicans realistically get in the electoral college? What potential Democrat candidate would be the weakest (John Edwards? Howard Dean?), and how would the campaign need to go?

It strikes me that Dean has the largest variance of any Democratic candidate (who could actually win) in 2004. In particular, I am not convinced that Joe Trippi could successfully run a national Presidential campaign.

Can Bush win in a 1964/1972/1984 landslide, or realistically would he "only" be able to win with the states he won in 2004, plus Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc?

Under Susan Estrich's inept leadership, Michael Dukakis dropped 25 points in five-and-a-half weeks!
 
The democratic field was relatively weak in comparison to others, Carol Mosley Braun and Al Sharpton were strong enough candidates to get into the debates. For a while Bush seemed unbeatable. Give Bush some more political success and perhaps even more candidates will be discouraged. The Democratic primaries could be a freakshow.
 
Bush doesn't bomb in the first presidential debate. That was a big reason for the race shifting toward Kerry. In fact, Bush had built a pretty consistent lead up until the debate and then found his numbers in a free fall before leveling out in October.

The day of the first presidential debate, Bush led Kerry by an average of six-points nationally. A week later, the lead was just a shade over a point - which is about where it would remain the rest of the race.

So, Bush does better in the first debate, which kills any Kerry momentum, does as strong in the subsequent debates and potentially holds, if not expands, his six-point lead.

Say, on election day, Bush's average lead is six-points.

I think that'd be good enough for an electoral margin like this:

genusmap.php


George W. Bush - 53% PV, 338 EV
John F. Kerry - 47% PV, 200 EV
 
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I am not convinced that Joe Trippi could successfully run a national Presidential campaign.

Isn't there a noble enough history of primary campaign managers being sidelined in the general election, for the DNC to likely do that to Trippi if they had similar concerns?
 
Sure. All they have to do is kill Michael Moore in 2003 and either make it look like an accident, or pin else it on Al Qaeda.
 
Isn't there a noble enough history of primary campaign managers being sidelined in the general election, for the DNC to likely do that to Trippi if they had similar concerns?

The question is whether Dean would go along with it; at this time, he's enough of an "outsider"/"underdog" than I could see him saying to himself, "Hey, these are the buffoons who wrote me off when I was at 1% in the polls, who said nobody could beat John Kerry... why should I listen to them now?"

If Dean wins the Iowa caucuses, and you butterfly away the scream (which, seriously, is just a dude who's unfamiliar with how directional mikes work), I also think he has tremendous upside in 2004 -- this is the guy with an A rating from the NRA, with a history of balancing budgets; he's not so easy to pigeonhole as a doctrinaire liberal. I would think a skilled campaign could much more easily pivot to the center for the general election than Kerry IOTL.
 
What do you all think the absence of the Abu Graib and other PR black eyes would have done for Bush? The War in Iraq was still looking good until after re-election.
 
What do you all think the absence of the Abu Graib and other PR black eyes would have done for Bush? The War in Iraq was still looking good until after re-election.
Except of course for Duelfer and Kay saying the casus belli was invalid- plus more deaths than any military action since Vietnam.
 
If Bush got bin Laden between January 1 and the election, you might get a landslide. Other than that, it's very unlikely. Bush was never a particularly popular President except in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when his approval ratings were in the stratosphere. From there, it was a steady slide downward.

It's worth remembering that a shift of some 150,000 votes or so in Ohio would have thrown the Electoral College to Kerry, who was far from an optimal candidate.
 
The online program for generating that map standardized its colors before the mainstream media did, coincidentally in the opposite direction. That's it.

I did muck up the colors on the names - I have Bush in red and Kerry in blue. I'll fix that.
 

Cyan

Banned
Lets see,
No war on terror
No war on muslims
No war on common sense
No war on environment
No war on research
No war on common sense
No war on UN
No war on diplomacy
No war on choice
No war on basic liberties
No war on drugs

The list goes on.

If we assume that Bush actually had sufficient common sense to avoid doing the worst mistakes of his presidency and probably top 10 worst mistakes of the world, like declaring a "a war on terror" and assume that he looks within at the moment of the conflict what he would do:

Declare 9.11 is a sign that we need a friendly humane world where no one feels the need to commit such acts of violence anymore, starting by reducing US military spending, rising spec-ops spending, sending out assassin teams for specifically the 9.11 masterminds. AFTER its been established who the actual masterminds are to the full satisfaction of the UN, the US population and all global observer groups.

Most cut military spending is directed at general education raising humanitarian work across the world. US supports all attempts to form larger unions of other nation states (Such as supporting the Arab union despite what the Israeli lobby says about it, supporting EU growth, Supporting Chinese(PRC/PROC) and Korean(S/N) unification). etc.

In 4 years we'd have a world that is not at "war on terror" but rather, a world approaching unity and enjoying a period of unprecedented calm as everyone realizes just how much effort it took for the US not to nuke Afghanistan to the stone age.

If done well Bush would have 70-80% approval rating during election.

Over the long term we'd miss war on terror, economic collapse 1 2 and probably the coming 3rd wave, degradation of our political intellect and abilities which is evident in the world and various others fubars that came about as a result of the bush presidency.

If they do those things, they'd probably not only get 80% support rate, they'd get half the world petitioning for a statehood in this new country.
 

d32123

Banned
There are plenty of ways to do this, but one easy way that nobody has mentioned would be to have 9/11 happen a year or two later. OTL it took about two years for the 9/11 boost to wear off for Bush. If 9/11 happens in 2002 or 2003 Bush could win in a landslide.
 
Lets see,
No war on terror
No war on muslims
No war on common sense
No war on environment
No war on research
No war on common sense
No war on UN
No war on diplomacy
No war on choice
No war on basic liberties
No war on drugs

The list goes on.

If we assume that Bush actually had sufficient common sense to avoid doing the worst mistakes of his presidency and probably top 10 worst mistakes of the world, like declaring a "a war on terror" and assume that he looks within at the moment of the conflict what he would do:

Declare 9.11 is a sign that we need a friendly humane world where no one feels the need to commit such acts of violence anymore, starting by reducing US military spending, rising spec-ops spending, sending out assassin teams for specifically the 9.11 masterminds. AFTER its been established who the actual masterminds are to the full satisfaction of the UN, the US population and all global observer groups.

Most cut military spending is directed at general education raising humanitarian work across the world. US supports all attempts to form larger unions of other nation states (Such as supporting the Arab union despite what the Israeli lobby says about it, supporting EU growth, Supporting Chinese(PRC/PROC) and Korean(S/N) unification). etc.

In 4 years we'd have a world that is not at "war on terror" but rather, a world approaching unity and enjoying a period of unprecedented calm as everyone realizes just how much effort it took for the US not to nuke Afghanistan to the stone age.

If done well Bush would have 70-80% approval rating during election.

Over the long term we'd miss war on terror, economic collapse 1 2 and probably the coming 3rd wave, degradation of our political intellect and abilities which is evident in the world and various others fubars that came about as a result of the bush presidency.

If they do those things, they'd probably not only get 80% support rate, they'd get half the world petitioning for a statehood in this new country.

Are you high?
 
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