2004 United States Senate election in Oklahoma, General election, Campaign
Coburn was aided in this effort by the fact that the Kerry campaign did not contest the state of Oklahoma and that incumbent President George W. Bush was expected to win Oklahoma comfortably. This was compounded by the fact that Vice-President Dick Cheney campaigned for Coburn and appeared in several television advertisements for him. Carson countered by emphasizing his Stilwell roots and his moderation, specifically, bringing attention to the fact that he fought for greater governmental oversight of nursing home care for the elderly.


2004 United States Senate election in Oklahoma, General election, Campaign
Carson responded to the attacks against him by countering that his opponent had committed Medicaid fraud years prior, in an event that reportedly left a woman sterilized without her consent. Ultimately, however, Carson was not able to overcome Oklahoma's conservative nature and Senator Kerry's abysmal performance in Oklahoma, and he was defeated by Coburn by 11.5%. As of 2019, the result remains the closest the Democrats have come to winning a Senate election in Oklahoma since David Boren won a landslide reelection victory in 1990.


2004 United States Senate election in Oregon
The 2004 United States Senate election in Oregon was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden won re-election to a second full term.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania
The 2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter won re-election to a fifth term. As of 2021, this is the last time a Republican statewide candidate won Montgomery and Delaware Counties.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Democratic primary, Campaign
Democrats had difficulty recruiting top tier candidates against the popular Specter. Among the Democrats to decline to run for the nomination were Treasurer (and former Republican) Barbara Hafer, Public Utilities Commissioner John Hanger, real estate mogul Howard Hanna, State Representative (and also former Republican) John Lawless, and State Senator (and future Congresswoman) Allyson Schwartz.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Democratic primary, Campaign
Congressman Hoeffel ended up running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Software businessman Charlie Crystle was considered a strong possible candidate, but he dropped out before the election.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Republican primary, Campaign
Specter faced a primary challenge from Representative Pat Toomey. Despite the state Republican Party's strong history of embracing a moderate philosophy, the influence of conservatism among rank-and-file members had been steadily growing for decades; because of his liberal social views, Specter was often considered to be a "Republican in Name Only" by the right. Although Specter had a huge fundraising advantage, Toomey was aided by $2 million of advertising from the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that focuses on fiscal issues and targets moderate Republican incumbents.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Republican primary, Campaign
Toomey criticized Specter as a spendthrift on economic policy and as out of touch with his own party on social issues. Although Toomey had difficulty with name recognition early in the campaign, he built huge momentum over the final weeks preceding the primary, and Specter appeared to have transitioned from having a comfortable lead to being behind his challenger.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Republican primary, Campaign
Specter received a huge boost from the vocal support of President George W. Bush; most of the state's Republican establishment also closed ranks behind Specter. This included Pennsylvania's other U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum, who was noted for his social conservative views. Many Republicans at the state and national level feared that if Toomey beat Specter, he wouldn't be able to defend the seat against his Democratic opponent.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, General election, Campaign
For Democrats, hope of winning the election centered on Toomey's defeat of Specter. However, after the challenge from the right failed, enthusiasm from the party establishment waned and Hoeffel had difficulty matching the name recognition and fundraising power of his opponent    Despite contempt from conservatives, Specter enjoyed high levels of support from independent voters and, as in previous elections, a surprisingly large crossover from Democratic voters. Even in the areas in which Toomey performed best in the Republican primary (mainly the state's conservative, rural center), Specter performed well.


2004 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, General election, Campaign
Except for his large margin of victory in almost uniformly Democratic Philadelphia, Hoeffel was crushed at the polls; his only other wins came by close margins in three metro Pittsburgh counties; although President Bush proved to be unpopular in the state, voters were not willing to abandon Specter over party affiliation. Incidentally, Toomey was elected to the seat in 2010, after Specter switched to the Democratic Party in 2009 and subsequently lost renomination to U.S. Congressman and former Navy Admiral Joe Sestak.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina
The 2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina  was held on November 2, 2004. Longtime incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings retired, and Republican U.S. Representative Jim DeMint won the open seat. DeMint was the first Republican to hold this Senate seat since Reconstruction.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina, Republican primary, Campaign
The Senate election two years earlier in 2002 did not have a primary election because the South Carolina Republicans were more preoccupied with the gubernatorial contest, despite having the first open senate seat in 40 years. The retirement of Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings gave the Republicans an opportunity to pick up the seat and with no other interesting positions up for election in 2004, a crowded field developed in the Republican primary. Furthermore, the Republicans were motivated by having President Bush at the top of the ticket enabling them to ride his coattails to victory.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina, Republican primary, Campaign
Former Governor David Beasley, from the Pee Dee, entered the race and quickly emerged as the frontrunner because of his support from the evangelical voters. However, during his term as governor from 1994 to 1998 he had greatly angered the electorate by proposing to remove the Confederate Naval Jack from the dome of the statehouse and by being against the adoption of a state lottery to provide for college scholarships. Both positions led to the loss of his re-election in 1998 and the issues continued to trouble him in the Senate race.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina, Republican primary, Campaign
The battle for second place in the primary was between Upstate congressman, Jim DeMint, and Charleston developer Thomas Ravenel. DeMint was able to squeak out a second-place finish because Charlie Condon, a former Attorney General of South Carolina, split the Lowcountry vote with Ravenel thus providing DeMint the margin he needed. In addition, while many voters were attracted to the Ravenel campaign and felt that he had a future in politics, they believed that he should set his sights on a less high-profile office first before trying to become senator. Resigned to defeat, Ravenel endorsed DeMint in the runoff election.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina, Republican primary, Campaign
In the runoff election on June 22, 2004, DeMint scored a surprising victory over Beasley. Ravenel's endorsement of DeMint proved crucial as the Lowcountry counties heavily went for the Representative from the Upstate. Also, Beasley had burnt too many bridges while governor and was unable to increase his share of the vote in the runoff.


2004 United States Senate election in South Carolina, General election, Campaign
DeMint entered the general election campaign severely weakened from the primary fight, having spent most of his campaign funds. He stressed to the voters that he would follow conservative principles and provide an important Republican vote in the closely divided Senate. Democrats fared poorly in statewide elections in South Carolina, so Tenenbaum tried to make the race about issues rather than party identification. She attacked DeMint's support of the FairTax proposal because it would increase the sales tax by 23%. The election victory by DeMint merely cemented South Carolina's shift to the Republican column as the best candidate the Democrats could offer was soundly defeated by the typical 10 point margin.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota
The 2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle ran for re-election to a fourth term, but was narrowly defeated by Republican John Thune.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota
Daschle was the only incumbent U.S. Senator to lose re-election in the 2004 election cycle. His defeat also marked the first time a Senate party leader lost a bid for reelection since 1952, when Barry Goldwater defeated Ernest McFarland in Arizona. With a margin of 1.2%, this election was the second-closest race of the 2004 Senate election cycle, behind only the election in Florida.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
In the 2004 congressional elections, Daschle lost his seat to Republican challenger and former U.S. Representative John Thune in a bitterly contested battle. Thune prevailed by a narrow 50.6–49.4% margin, of 4,508 votes. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist visited South Dakota to campaign for Thune, breaking an unwritten tradition that one party's leader in the Senate would not campaign directly for the other's defeat. Daschle's loss resulted in the first ousting of a majority or minority leader since 1952 when Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland lost his seat to Barry Goldwater. He was the only incumbent Senator from either party to lose reelection in 2004.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Throughout the campaign, Thune, along with Frist, President George W. Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney, frequently accused Daschle of being the "chief obstructionist" of Bush's agenda and charged him with using filibusters to block confirmation of several of Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary. Thune also used moral values such as issues surrounding same-sex marriage and abortion to convince South Dakota voters that Daschle's positions on such topics were out-of-sync with the state's residents. The Republican candidate also drove home his strong support for the President while blasting Daschle for his vehement opposition to Bush. He attempted to sway voters by remembering that Bush won South Dakota in a landslide in 2000 and had a very high job-approval rating among South Dakotans. His opponent, the Minority Leader, repeatedly argued that he was funneling money into South Dakota for vital federal highway and water pet projects.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Daschle responded to Thune's claim that he was a partisan anti-Bush obstructionist by pointing to his action just nine days after the September 11 attacks when he hugged President Bush on the Senate floor following Bush's address to Congress and the nation. He also hit back by alleging that Thune wanted to "rubber stamp what the administration is doing." Daschle's use of the video of his embrace of Bush forced the Republican National Committee to demand that the ad be pulled, claiming that it suggests that Bush endorses Daschle. Shortly following the airing of the ad, in a nationally televised debate on NBC's Meet the Press, Thune accused Daschle of "emboldening the enemy" in his skepticism of the Iraq War.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Daschle also noticeably relied very heavily on the power of incumbency to win a fourth term. Some also argued that Stephanie Herseth's election to the state's only House seat hurt Daschle, as voters may not have been comfortable sending an all-Democratic delegation to Congress for the first time in many decades. Accusations that Daschle was possibly considering no longer being an official resident of South Dakota was believed to have offended voters there. Others have analyzed that Daschle's lengthy consideration and eventual rejection of a potential run for the presidency in 2004 took a toll on South Dakotans, who felt betrayed and used by Daschle as a result.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7 points in January and February. By May, his lead minimized to just 2 points and into the summer polls showed a varying number of trends: either Daschle held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or Thune held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or the race was tied right down the middle.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Throughout September, Daschle led Thune by margins of 2 to 5 percent while during the entire month of October into the November 2 election, most polls showed that Thune and Daschle were dead even, usually tied 49-49 among likely voters. Some polls showed either Thune or Daschle leading by extremely slim margins.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Thune was an aide to former Senator James Abdnor, the man Daschle defeated in 1986 to gain his seat in the Senate.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
Daschle spent a great deal of time and energy campaigning for his fellow Democrat Tim Johnson in 2002, who barely defeated Thune by 524 votes. He argued that by re-electing Johnson, South Dakota would be better off because Johnson would help to keep Daschle Majority Leader. However, in the end, while Johnson won, other states voted for enough Republicans that Daschle was no longer majority leader. Furthermore, Thune's whisker-close defeat in 2002 freed him up to run against Daschle in 2004. Had Daschle not put his considerable weight to re-electing Johnson, it seems very likely that Thune would have beaten Johnson, leaving Daschle without a strong challenger for the upcoming election and making his re-election a certainty.


2004 United States Senate election in South Dakota, General election, Campaign
During Daschle's farewell Address on November 19, 2004, he received a standing ovation from the Senate floor. His term as South Dakota's senator expired on January 3, 2005, with the commencement of the 109th Congress. Harry Reid took over as Minority Leader, and became Majority Leader in 2007.


2004 United States Senate election in Utah
The 2004 United States Senate election in Utah was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Bob Bennett won re-election to a third term.


2004 United States Senate election in Vermont
The 2004 United States Senate election in Vermont was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy won reelection to a sixth term.


2004 United States Senate election in Washington
The 2004 United States Senate election in Washington was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Patty Murray won re-election to a third term, defeating Republican U.S. Representative George Nethercutt. She became only the fourth Washington senator to win 3 consecutive terms, just after fellow Democrats Warren G. Magnuson and Scoop Jackson. Nethercutt was known for having defeated Tom Foley, the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives, as part of the 1994 Republican wave.


2004 United States Senate election in Washington
Term limits became an issue in the campaign, as Democrats seized on Nethercutt's broken term-limits pledge that he had made when he had unseated Foley in 1994. Geography was also against Nethercutt, who was severely hampered by his lack of name recognition in the more densely populated western part of the state, home to two-thirds of the state's population. Washington has not elected a Senator from east of the Cascades since Clarence Dill in 1928. Other important issues included national security and the war in Iraq. Nethercutt supported the invasion of Iraq, while Murray opposed it.


2004 United States Senate election in Washington
Nethercutt was considered a heavy underdog from the start, and his campaign never gained much traction. In November, he lost by 12 points, receiving 43 percent of the vote to Murray's 55 percent. He only carried two counties west of the Cascades.


2004 United States Senate election in Wisconsin
The 2004 United States Senate election in Wisconsin was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold won re-election to a third term. As of 2021, this is the last time the Democrats won the Class 3 Senate seat from Wisconsin.


2004 United States Senate election in Wisconsin, General election, Campaign
Michels insisted he has more real world experience than Feingold, someone he called an "extreme liberal" who was out of touch with Wisconsin voters. Feingold attacked back by saying that any Republican would be a rubber stamp for President Bush. The incumbent had $2.2 million in the bank, while Michels had already spent $1 million in the primary and had only about $150,000 left.


2004 United States Senate election in Wisconsin, General election, Campaign
When the NRSC was convinced in October that Michels had a chance of victory, they pledged $600,000 for him. However, they quickly rescinded this support as a result of negative press garnered by Michels' ads, which were widely viewed as extremely negative and misleading, and due to Feingold's continued large margin over Michels in the polls.


2004 United States Senate election in Wisconsin, General election, Campaign
On October 1, a poll showed Feingold leading 52% to 39%. In mid October, another poll showed Feingold winning 48% to 43%. A poll at the end of the month showed him leading 51% to 36%.


2004 United States Senate elections
The 2004 United States Senate elections were held on November 2, 2004, with all Class 3 Senate seats being contested. They coincided with the re-election of George W. Bush as president and the United States House election, as well as many state and local elections. Senators who were elected in 1998, known as Senate Class 3, were seeking re-election or retiring in 2004. This was the third consecutive election for Senate Class 3 where the Democrats either broke even or lost seats.


2004 United States Senate elections
This also marked the first time since 1980 in which a presidential candidate from either party won with coattails in the Senate. As of 2021, these are the last elections held during a Presidential election year in which the Republicans made a net gain of seats. Furthermore, this was the most recent election in which a Senate party leader lost reelection.


2004 United States Senate elections, Gains and losses
Republicans won six seats but lost two themselves, giving them a net gain of four seats. Five of the six gains came from Southern states.


2004 United States Senate elections, Gains and losses
Conservative Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia, who campaigned for President Bush, chose not to run for re-election and Republican Johnny Isakson won his seat; Democrat Fritz Hollings of South Carolina chose not to run for re-election and was succeeded by Republican Jim DeMint; Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards did not run for re-election and Republican Richard Burr won his North Carolina seat; Democrat Bob Graham of Florida chose not to run for re-election, and his seat went to Republican Mel Martinez; Louisiana Democrat John Breaux chose not to run for re-election and Republican David Vitter won his seat, and in South Dakota, Republican John Thune defeated the incumbent Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, the first time since 1952 that a sitting party leader lost re-election.


2004 United States Senate elections, Gains and losses
Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois chose not to run for re-election and Democrat Barack Obama won in a landslide, becoming the Senate's only black member and only the third popularly elected since Reconstruction. Also, Republican Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado chose not to run for re-election and Democrat Ken Salazar won the open seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties
The Senate, as of the pre-election 108th Congress, was composed of 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 1 independent. (The independent, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, was allied with the Democratic caucus and had voted with Democrats to give them the majority in the past.) The Democrats, therefore, needed to make a net gain of at least two seats from retiring or incumbent Republicans to gain control of the Senate (one seat if Kerry won the presidency). In the election, incumbent senators won reelection in all races but one (Democratic leader Tom Daschle, in South Dakota, lost to Republican John Thune). The seats of retiring senators were taken by the opposing party in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In fact, the only retiring senator whose seat was taken by a member of his party was Republican Don Nickles of Oklahoma, who was succeeded by Tom Coburn.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties
Republicans gained four seats in the 2004 elections, and entered the 109th Congress with a 55–44–1 lead. While such a majority is formidable, it is still less than the 60 seats needed to override a filibuster and completely control the body's agenda and procedures.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties, Major parties
One Republican seat, that of retiring Senator Peter Fitzgerald in Illinois, was easily taken by Democrat Barack Obama, who would be elected President of the United States four years later. In Colorado, retiring Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell's seat was narrowly taken by Democrat Ken Salazar. In Alaska, Republican Lisa Murkowski won reelection in a tight race. In Oklahoma, Tom Coburn kept Don Nickles' seat in Republican hands, while in Kentucky, Republican Jim Bunning won a second term by a very narrow margin.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties, Major parties
The Democrats' prospects were weakened by the fact that five of their six incumbent senators in Southern states were retiring (the sixth, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, easily won reelection). Retiring Georgia Sen. Zell Miller's seat, contested by Denise Majette, was lost in a landslide, as was that of South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings. In North Carolina, Democrat Erskine Bowles lost John Edwards's seat to Republican Richard Burr. Especially close races in Florida, Louisiana, and South Dakota all resulted in turnovers to the Republicans.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties, Third and minor parties
The Libertarian, Constitution, and Green parties contested many of the seats. No candidate from any of these parties received sufficient support to achieve election, but some may have affected the outcome of the Alaska and Florida races by drawing votes away from the major party candidates. Of the 34 senate seats up for grabs, the Libertarians ran candidates in 20 of the races, the Constitutionalists ran 10 candidates, and the Greens ran 7 candidates.


2004 United States Senate elections, Political parties, Third and minor parties
Minor parties in a number of states contested one or more Senate seats. Examples include the America First Party, the Labor Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the Socialist Workers Party. None of these parties gained a seat in this election nor received a significant number of votes.


2004 United States Senate elections, Race summary, Elections leading to the next Congress
In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 2005; ordered by state.


2004 United States Senate elections, Closest races
In seven races the margin of victory was under 10%.


2004 United States Senate elections, Alabama
Incumbent Republican Richard Shelby won re-election to a fourth term over Democratic perennial candidate Wayne Sowell


2004 United States Senate elections, Alabama
Shelby, who switched parties ten years prior, had over $11 million cash on hand. Shelby was chairman of the Banking Committee. Wayne Sowell became the first black U.S. Senate nominee of a major party in Alabama.


2004 United States Senate elections, Alaska
Incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski of Anchorage, sought election to her first full term after being appointed to serve out the rest of her father's unexpired term when he resigned in December 2002 to become Governor of Alaska. Her main challenger was Democratic former Governor Tony Knowles, her father's predecessor as governor. Murkowski won by a slight margin.


2004 United States Senate elections, Alaska
Although Alaska is heavily Republican, popular opinion had swung against the Murkowski family because of a tax increase passed by Governor Frank Murkowski, Lisa Murkowski's father. In addition, many voters disapproved of apparent nepotism in the appointment of Lisa Murkowski to the Senate. Knowles, who as mentioned above preceded Frank Murkowski as governor, had enlisted extensive out-of-state support for his bid to take over Lisa Murkowski's Senate seat. However, veteran Republican Senator Ted Stevens taped advertisements warning Alaskans that electing a Democrat could result in less federal dollars for Alaska.


2004 United States Senate elections, Alaska
Lisa Murkowski had very low approval ratings as senator due to her father, Frank Murkowski, who at the time was the Governor of Alaska with extremely low approval ratings himself. Former Governor Tony Knowles ran against Murkowski. He ran as a Democrat who supported drilling in ANWR, in contrast to most Democrats. Ted Stevens tried to "rescue" her campaign and help her maintain her seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arizona
Incumbent Republican John McCain won re-election to a fourth term with his largest victory over Democratic teacher Stuart Starky.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arizona
Since 1998, McCain challenged Texas Governor George W. Bush in the Presidential primary and despite winning the New Hampshire primary, he lost the nomination. Solidifying his image as a maverick, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. He supported limits on stem cell research. He had a lopsided favorable ratings of 39% to 9% unfavorable in the most recent The New York Times/CBS News poll.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arizona
Stuart Starky, an eighth-grade teacher in South Phoenix, was widely known as a long-shot challenger. Starky stated that "I truly believe he's going to run for president again." Starky was called by The Arizona Republic a "sacrificial lamb" put on ballot because there were no chances to beat McCain. During his campaign, he debated McCain twice, once in Tucson and once in Flagstaff. He was also featured on the cover of Teacher Magazine, dubbed the "Unsinkable Stu Starky." Starky was defeated in a landslide. But, despite the relatively low percentage, he gained the highest vote per dollar amount in the country, spending only about $15,000 for his campaign (Starky's campaign may have been aided by John Kerry running for president).


2004 United States Senate elections, Arkansas
Incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln ran for re-election. Lincoln won re-election over Republican State Senator Jim Holt while President George W. Bush carried the state with almost the same margin of victory.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arkansas
The Democratic Party held super-majority status in the Arkansas General Assembly. A majority of local and statewide offices were also held by Democrats. This was rare even for the time in the South, where a majority of statewide offices were and still are held by Republicans. Arkansas had the distinction in 1992 of being the only state in the country to give the majority of its vote to a single candidate in the presidential election—native son Bill Clinton—while every other state's electoral votes were won by pluralities of the vote among the three candidates. Arkansas had since become more reliably Republican in presidential elections. The state voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004. Lincoln won by 2% less than she had in 1998.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arkansas
Democrats at the time had an overwhelming majority of registered voters, and the Democratic Party of Arkansas was more conservative than the national entity. Two of Arkansas' three Democratic Representatives at the time were members of the Blue Dog Coalition, which tends to be more pro-business, pro-military spending, and socially conservative than the Democratic mainstream.


2004 United States Senate elections, Arkansas
Lincoln was a popular incumbent. In March, she an approval rating of 55%. Lincoln calls herself an advocate for rural America, having grown up on a farm herself. Holt is from Northwest Arkansas, who also lives on a farm. Holt was widely perceived as a long shot. By the end of June, he only raised $29,000, while Lincoln had over $5 million cash on hand. Lincoln won re-election by over 11%.


2004 United States Senate elections, California
Incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer defeated Republican former Secretary of State Bill Jones. Boxer's 6.96 million votes set the record for the most votes cast for one candidate in one state in one election, until it was surpassed by Senator Dianne Feinstein's 7.75 million votes in 2012.


2004 United States Senate elections, California
Boxer originally had decided to retire in 2004 but changed her mind to "fight for the right to dissent" against conservatives like Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Jones was widely considered as the underdog. Jones got a major endorsement from the popular Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two major candidates had a debate. Pre -election polling had Boxer leading in double digits. But he never released a single TV ad. Boxer portrayed Jones as too conservative for California, citing his votes in the California Assembly (1982 to 1994) against gun control, increased minimum wage, support for offshore drilling, and a loosening of environmental regulations.


2004 United States Senate elections, California
Jones raised about $700,000 more than Boxer during the third quarter, pulling in $2.5 million to Boxer's $1.8 million. But overall, Boxer has raised $16 million to Jones' $6.2 million. And Boxer has spent about $7 million on radio and television ads alone.


2004 United States Senate elections, California
The election was not close, with Boxer winning by an authoritative 20 point margin. Jones only performed well in rural parts of the state. Boxer on the other hand won almost all major metropolitan areas in the state. The race was called right when the polls closed at 11:00 P.M. EST, and 7:00 P.M. PTZ. Jones conceded defeat to Boxer at 11:12 P.M. EST, and 7:12 PTZ.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
Incumbent Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell decided to retire instead of seeking a third term. The Democratic Attorney General of Colorado Ken Salazar won the open seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
Before Campbell's retirement, no prominent Democrat had entered the race, with educator Mike Miles and businessman Rutt Bridges pursuing the Democratic nomination. After Campbell's retirement, many expected popular Republican Governor Bill Owens to enter the race, however he declined to run. Campbell's retirement and Owens' decision not to run prompted a number of prominent Democrats to reexamine the race.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
On March 10, the same day Owens announced he would not run, U.S. Congressman Mark Udall entered the race. The next day, state Attorney General Ken Salazar entered the race, leading Udall to immediately withdraw and endorse him. Salazar lost to Mike Miles at the State nominating convention. In spite of this loss, the national Democratic Party backed Salazar with contributions from the DSCC and promotion of Salazar as the only primary candidate.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
The two candidates got into an ideological battle, as U.S. Representative Bob Schaffer attacked Pete Coors, former CEO and chairman of Coors Brewing Company, because his company had provided benefits to the partners of its gay and lesbian employees, in addition to promoting its beer in gay bars. Coors defended himself by saying that he was opposed to same-sex marriage, and supported a constitutional amendment to ban it, although he noted that he supported civil unions for gay couples. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Coors described his company's pro-LGBT practices as "good business, separate from politics." Coors defeated Schaffer with 61% of the vote in the primary, with many analysts citing his high name recognition in the state as a primary factor.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
Pete Coors ran as a moderate conservative. However, Salazar was also a moderate and a highly popular State Attorney General. Coors is also a great-grandson of Adolph Coors, founder of the brewing company. His father is Joseph Coors, president of the company and founding member of the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Salazar narrowly won the open seat. It was one of only two Democratic pickups in the 2004 Senate elections (Illinois was the other).


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (CPS), Coors gave his own campaign $1,213,657 and received individual donations of $60,550 from other Coors family members.


2004 United States Senate elections, Colorado
A state record of over $11 million was raised during the election.


2004 United States Senate elections, Connecticut
Incumbent Democrat Chris Dodd won re-election for a fifth term, beating Republican Jack Orchulli, CEO and co-founder of a Michael Kors's apparel company


2004 United States Senate elections, Connecticut
Chris Dodd was one of the most powerful senators in congress. In the election cycle, Dodd raised over $7 million. His top five contributors were Bear Stearns, Citigroup, National Westminster Bank, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs.


2004 United States Senate elections, Connecticut
Republican nominee, Jack Orchulli, ran as fiscal conservative and social moderate. He broke ranks with his party on gay marriage and abortion. That put him on the same side as most voters in the blue state of Connecticut. He often talked about a "broken education system." He argued that Dodd hasn't done anything in his 30 years in congress to fix such issues as traffic problems in Fairfield County.


2004 United States Senate elections, Connecticut
Orchulli launched a statewide TV ad campaign in September, as he spent over $1.1 million and pledged to spend "whatever it takes" if polls show he is gaining ground on Dodd.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
Incumbent Democrat Bob Graham retired after three terms. The primary elections were held on August 31, 2004. Republican Mel Martínez won the open seat, beating Democrat Betty Castor, former president of the University of South Florida, former Education Commissioner of Florida, and former state senator. Martínez, a former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was supported by the Bush Administration.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
Until the spring of 2004, Castor's fundraising was much slower than her Democratic and Republican rivals. In the spring, the campaign hired fundraising staff from the defunct presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and Bob Graham, and subsequently posted much higher fundraising numbers over the summer.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
Online grassroots techniques devised for the Dean campaign (Castor became a Dean Dozen candidate in August) were one contributing factor: another was the support of EMILY's List, which named Castor as its highest-rated candidate for the 2004 election cycle, even when her support for banning intact dilation and extraction (D&X) abortions was not in line with the EMILY's List support for woman's issues. The latter was a source of criticism during the August primary heat - a complaint was filed by a Deutsch supporter with the Federal Election Commission accusing inappropriate coordination with EMILY's List. The complaint was dismissed by the Federal Election Commission in 2005.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
Castor's handling of Sami Al-Arian became another source of criticism during the campaign. In June, The American Democracy Project, a 527 group founded by Bernie Friedman, began attacking Castor's handling of the incident, alleging that she had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian in the mid-1990s. Castor responded by stating that she never had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian, who was a tenured professor at the time.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
On June 29, Senator Graham, who had previously remained outside of the Al-Arian controversy, released a statement that "Betty Castor acted appropriately as President of the University of South Florida to deal with Sami Al-Arian": later, Graham and Senator Bill Nelson brokered an agreement between the Democratic candidates to refrain from negative campaigning against each other, although this agreement appeared to break down in the final weeks of the race, when Deutsch launched attack ads on television.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
Despite these controversies, Castor won the Democratic nomination on August 31. She was defeated, however, by Republican candidate Mel Martínez in a close race on November 2, 2004. The overwhelming support for Martínez among Latinos effectively counterbalanced Castor's relatively high popularity among swing voters throughout the state.


2004 United States Senate elections, Florida
There was some speculation that Castor would run for Governor of Florida in 2006 to replace Jeb Bush, who was ineligible for re-election due to term limits, but she announced in 2005 that she would not be a candidate.


2004 United States Senate elections, Georgia
Incumbent Democrat Zell Miller retired. Democratic U.S. Representative Denise Majette became both the first African American and the first woman to be nominated for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Republican U.S. Representative Johnny Isakson won the open seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, Georgia
The results were almost a complete reversal from the previous election in 2000.


2004 United States Senate elections, Georgia
Majette's announcement that she would seek to replace Miller also caught Democrats by surprise, as she was not on anyone's call list when Democrats began seeking a candidate to replace Miller. Further skepticism among Democrats about the viability of her candidacy surfaced when she announced that "God" had told her to run for the Senate. She received important endorsements from U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, along with many others in Washington who campaigned and raised money for Majette. Her Senate campaign slogan was "I'll be nobody's Senator, but yours."


2004 United States Senate elections, Georgia
A number of factors led to Majette's loss. These include her late start, her valuable time and money spent in the runoff, larger conservative turnout from a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages (which Majette opposed), the popularity of President George W. Bush in Georgia, and her lack of experience (being a one-term congresswoman).


2004 United States Senate elections, Hawaii
Incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye won re-election to an eighth term over Republican, Campbell Cavasso, a former state representative.


2004 United States Senate elections, Hawaii
Inouye won every single county with at least 70% of the vote. His best performance was in Kauai County, where he won with an estimated 80%; also was Cavasso's weakest performance, getting just 16.5% of the vote there.


2004 United States Senate elections, Idaho
Incumbent Republican Mike Crapo won a second term in a landslide after no one filed for the Democratic nomination. Democrat Scott McClure conducted a write-in campaign but only received 4,136 votes, or about 1% of those cast.


2004 United States Senate elections, Idaho
Crapo won every county with over 95% of the vote. His weakest performance by far was in Latah County, where he got 95.6% of the vote to McClure's 4.4%.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Incumbent Republican Peter Fitzgerald decided to retire after one term. The Democratic and Republican primary elections were held in March, which included a total of 15 candidates who combined to spend a record total of over $60 million seeking the open seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
State Senator and future President Barack Obama won the Democratic primary and Jack Ryan won the Republican primary. Ryan later withdrew from the race four days after the Chicago Tribune persuaded a California court to release child custody records. The Illinois Republican State Central Committee chose former Diplomat Alan Keyes to replace Ryan as the Republican candidate.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
The election was the first for the U.S. Senate in which both major party candidates were African American. Obama's 43% margin of victory was the largest in the state history of U.S. Senate elections. The inequality in the candidates spending for the fall elections – $14,244,768 by Obama and $2,545,325 by Keyes – is also among the largest in history in both absolute and relative terms.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Fitzgerald's predecessor, Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, declined to run. Barack Obama, a member of the Illinois Senate since 1997 and an unsuccessful 2000 Democratic primary challenger to four-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for Rush's U.S House seat, launched a campaign committee at the beginning of July 2002 to run for the U.S. Senate, 21 months before the March 2004 primary, and two months later had David Axelrod lined up to do his campaign media. Obama formally announced his candidacy on January 21, 2003, four days after former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun announced she would not seek a rematch with U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
On April 15, 2003, with six Democrats already running and three Republicans threatening to run against him, incumbent Fitzgerald announced he would not seek a second term in 2004, and three weeks later popular Republican former Governor Jim Edgar declined to run, leading to wide open Democratic and Republican primary races with 15 candidates, including 7 millionaires (triggering the first application of the Millionaires' Amendment of the 2002 McCain–Feingold Act), in the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Obama touted his legislative experience and early public opposition to the Iraq War to distinguish himself from his Democratic primary rivals. Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes won the endorsement of the AFL-CIO. Obama succeeded in obtaining the support of three of the state's largest and most active member unions: AFSCME, SEIU, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Hynes and multimillionaire former securities trader Blair Hull each won the endorsements of two of the nine Democratic Illinois members of the US House of Representatives. Obama had the endorsements of four: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis, Lane Evans, and Jan Schakowsky.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Obama surged into the lead after he finally began television advertising in Chicago in the final three weeks of the campaign, which was expanded to downstate Illinois during the last six days of the campaign. The ads included strong endorsements by the five largest newspapers in Illinois—the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, The Rockford Register Star, and Peoria Journal Star—and a testimonial by Sheila Simon that Obama was "cut from that same cloth" as her father, the late former U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who had planned to endorse and campaign for Obama before his unexpected death in December 2003.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
On March 16, 2004, Obama won the Democratic primary by an unexpected landslide—receiving 53% of the vote, 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival, with a vote total that nearly equaled that of all eight Republican candidates combined—which overnight made him a rising star in the national Democratic Party, started speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams from My Father. The Democratic primary election, including seven candidates who combined to spend over $46 million, was the most expensive U.S. Senate primary election in history.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
GOP frontrunner Jack Ryan had divorced actress Jeri Ryan in 1999, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged Ryan to release the records. Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the child custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. Ryan went on to win the GOP primary on March 16, 2004 defeating his nearest competitor, Jim Oberweis, by twelve percentage points.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Ryan was a proponent of across-the-board tax cuts and tort reform, an effort to limit payout in medical malpractice lawsuits. He was also a proponent of school choice and supported vouchers for private school students.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Oberweis's 2004 campaign was notable for a television commercial where he flew in a helicopter over Chicago's Soldier Field, and claimed enough illegal immigrants came into America in a week (10,000 a day) to fill the stadium's 61,500 seats. Oberweis was also fined $21,000 by the Federal Election Commission for a commercial for his dairy that ran during his 2004 Senate campaign. The FEC ruled that the commercial wrongly benefited his campaign and constituted a corporate contribution, thus violating campaign law.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
As a result of the GOP and Democratic primaries, Democrat Barack Obama was pitted against Republican Jack Ryan.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Ryan trailed Obama in early polls, after the media reported that Ryan had assigned Justin Warfel, a Ryan campaign worker, to track Obama's appearances. The tactic backfired when many people, including Ryan's supporters, criticized this activity. Ryan's spokesman apologized, and promised that Warfel would give Obama more space. Obama acknowledged that it is standard practice to film an opponent in public, and Obama said he was satisfied with Ryan's decision to have Warfel back off.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
As the campaign progressed, the lawsuit brought by the Chicago Tribune to open child custody files from Ryan's divorce was still continuing. Barack Obama's backers emailed reporters about the divorce controversy, but refrained from on-the-record commentary. On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' divorce records should be opened to the public, and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of Ryan's young child. A few days later, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama changed his position about the Ryans' soon-to-be-released divorce records, and called on Democrats to not inject them into the campaign.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
On June 22, 2004, after receiving the report from the court appointed referee, the judge released the files that were deemed consistent with the interests of Ryan's young child. In those files, Jeri Ryan alleged that Jack Ryan had taken her to sex clubs in several cities, intending for them to have sex in public.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
The decision to release the files generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request, and because it reversed the earlier decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child. Jim Oberweis, Ryan's defeated GOP opponent, commented that "these are allegations made in a divorce hearing, and we all know people tend to say things that aren't necessarily true in divorce proceedings when there is money involved and custody of children involved."


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Although their sensational nature made the revelations fodder for tabloid and television programs specializing in such stories, the files were also newsworthy because of questions about whether Ryan had accurately described the documents to GOP party leaders. Prior to release of the documents, Ryan had told leading Republicans that five percent of the divorce file could cause problems for his campaign. But after the documents were released, GOP officials including state GOP Chair Judy Baar Topinka said they felt Ryan had misleadingly indicated the divorce records would not be embarrassing.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
That charge of dishonesty led to intensifying calls for Ryan's withdrawal, though Topinka, who was considering running herself, said after the June 25 withdrawal that Ryan's "decision was a personal one" and that the state GOP had not pressured Ryan to drop out. Ryan's campaign ended less than a week after the custody records were opened, and Ryan officially filed the documentation to withdraw on July 29, 2004. Obama was left without an opponent.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
The Illinois Republican State Central Committee chose former diplomat Alan Keyes to replace Ryan as the Republican candidate. Keyes, a conservative Republican from Maryland, faced an uphill battle. First, Keyes had few ties to Illinois political leaders. Second, the lack of an opponent allowed Obama to campaign throughout the more conservative downstate regions to build up name recognition. Third, Keyes was seen as a carpetbagger, only establishing legal residency in Calumet City, Illinois days before running.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
The Chicago Tribune in an editorial, stated that "Mr. Keyes may have noticed a large body of water as he flew into O'Hare. That is called Lake Michigan." In 2000, Keyes attacked Hillary Clinton for running for US Senator from New York even though she had never lived there, calling her a carpetbagger. Keyes attacked Barack Obama for voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Obama ran the most successful Senate campaign in 2004, and was so far ahead in polls that he soon began to campaign outside of Illinois in support of other Democratic candidates. He gave large sums of campaign funds to other candidates and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and sent many of his volunteers to work on other races, including that of eventual three-term Congresswoman Melissa Bean who defeated then-Congressman Phil Crane in that year's election. Obama and Keyes differed on many issues including school vouchers and tax cuts, both of which Keyes supported and Obama opposed.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
The Obama-Keyes race was one of the first to be called on Election Day, November 2, 2004.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
At the start of Keyes's candidacy in August, Keyes had 24% support in the polls. He received 27% of the vote in the November general election to Obama's 70%.


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
Following the election, Keyes refused to call Obama to congratulate him. Media reports claimed that Keyes also failed to concede the race to Obama. Two days after the election, a  Two days after the electionradio interviewer asked Keyes whether he had conceded the race. Keyes replied, "Of course I've conceded the race. I mean, I gave my speech to that effect."


2004 United States Senate elections, Illinois
On the radio program, Keyes explained that his refusal to congratulate Obama was "not anything personal," but was meant to make a statement against "extend[ing] false congratulations to the triumph of what we have declared to be across the line." He said that Obama's position on moral issues regarding life and the family had crossed that line. "I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for... a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country? I can't do this. And I will not make a false gesture," Keyes said.


2004 United States Senate elections, Indiana
Incumbent Democrat Evan Bayh won re-election to a second term, beating Republican Marvin Scott, a professor at Butler University.


2004 United States Senate elections, Indiana
In September, Bayh had $6.5 million cash on hand. Scott's strategy of trying to paint Bayh as too liberal failed to gain traction. Bayh was viewed early in 2004 as a serious vice presidential candidate for John Kerry. Bayh was on the final shortlist for a Kerry running mate, but North Carolina Senator John Edwards was chosen as Kerry's running mate.


2004 United States Senate elections, Indiana
Bayh won 86 of Indiana's counties compared to 6 for Scott.


2004 United States Senate elections, Iowa
Incumbent Republican Chuck Grassley won a fifth term, beating former Democratic Iowa State Senator Arthur A. Small. Though this election coincided with the highly competitive presidential election in Iowa, Grassley was in little danger of losing his seat and defeated Small handily.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kansas
Incumbent Republican Sam Brownback won re-election to a second term over Democratic railroad engineer Lee Jones.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kansas
Though Robert Conroy won the Democratic nomination, he dropped out of the race shortly after becoming the nominee, noting that he expected Jones to win and was tired of campaigning. The Kansas Democratic Party selected Lee Jones as the replacement candidate.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kansas
Brownback raised $2.5 million for his re-election campaign, while Jones raised only $90,000. Kansas last elected a Democratic senator in 1932. Brownback was very popular in the state.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kentucky
Incumbent Republican Jim Bunning won re-election to a second term. Democratic primary front runner Paul E. Patton, the governor, saw his career implode in a scandal over an extramarital affair. Eventually, the Democrats settled on Daniel Mongiardo, a relatively unknown doctor and state senator from Hazard, Kentucky.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kentucky
During his re-election bid in 2004, controversy erupted when Bunning described Mongiardo as looking "like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." Bunning apologized, then later went on to declare that Mongiardo's "thugs" had assaulted his wife.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kentucky
Bunning had an estimated $4 million campaign war chest, while Mongiardo had only $600,000. The Democrats began increasing financial support to Mongiardo when it became apparent that Bunning's bizarre behavior was costing him votes, purchasing more than $800,000 worth of additional television airtime on his behalf.


2004 United States Senate elections, Kentucky
The November 2 election was one of the closest in Kentucky history. The race turned out to be very close, with Mongiardo leading with as many as 80% of the returns coming in. However, Bunning eventually won by just over one percentage point. Some analysts felt that because of President George Bush's 20% margin of victory in the state, Bunning was able to effectively ride the President's coattails to victory.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
Incumbent Democrat John Breaux retired. Republican U.S. Representative David Vitter won the jungle primary over Democratic U.S. Representative Chris John with 51% of the vote and avoided a runoff.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
During the campaign, Vitter was accused by a member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee of having had a lengthy affair with a prostitute in New Orleans. Vitter responded that the allegation was "absolutely and completely untrue" and that it was "just crass Louisiana politics." The allegation later turned out to be true.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
Vitter won the Louisiana jungle primary with 51% of the vote, avoiding the need for a runoff. John received 29.2% of the vote and Kennedy (no relation to the Massachusetts Kennedys), took 14.9%.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
Vitter won at least a plurality in 56 of Louisiana's 64 parishes. John carried nine parishes, all but two of which (Iberville and Orleans) are part of the House district he represented.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
Kennedy changed parties and ran as Republican in 2008 against Louisiana's senior senator, Democrat Mary Landrieu. Landrieu was re-elected. Kennedy succeeded Vitter when he won the 2016 election for the seat over Democrat Foster Campbell.


2004 United States Senate elections, Louisiana
Vitter was the first Republican in Louisiana to be popularly elected as a U.S. Senator. The previous Republican Senator, William Pitt Kellogg, was chosen by the state legislature in 1876, in accordance with the process used before the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect in 1914.


2004 United States Senate elections, Maryland
Incumbent Democrat Barbara Mikulski won re-election to a fourth term over Republican State Senator E. J. Pipkin.


2004 United States Senate elections, Missouri
Incumbent Republican Kit Bond won re-election to a fourth term over Nancy Farmer, State Treasurer of Missouri and  former Missouri State Representative


2004 United States Senate elections, Nevada
Incumbent Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Whip, won re-election to a fourth term over Republican anti-gay marriage activist Richard Ziser.


2004 United States Senate elections, New Hampshire
Incumbent Republican Judd Gregg won re-election to his third term, easily beating Democratic activist Doris Haddock.


2004 United States Senate elections, New York
Incumbent Democrat Chuck Schumer won re-election to his second term, easily beating Republican Howard Mills.


2004 United States Senate elections, North Carolina
Incumbent Democrat John Edwards decided to retire from the Senate, ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination, and became his party's vice presidential nominee. Republican Richard Burr won the open seat.


2004 United States Senate elections, North Carolina
Erskine Bowles won the Democratic Party's nomination unopposed. He had been the party's nominee for the state's other Senate seat in 2002.


2004 United States Senate elections, North Carolina
Both major-party candidates engaged in negative campaign tactics, with Bowles' campaign attacking Burr for special interest donations and his positions on trade legislation, and Burr's campaign attacking Bowles for his connections to the Clinton administration. Both attacks had basis in reality: Burr's campaign raised funds from numerous political action committees and at least 72 of the 100 largest Fortune 500 companies, while Bowles departed from the Clinton administration in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.


2004 United States Senate elections, North Carolina
Burr won the election by 4%. He joined the Senate in January 2005. Bowles went on to become the president of the UNC system.


2004 United States Senate elections, North Dakota
Incumbent Dem-NPL-er Byron Dorgan won re-election to a third term over Republican attorney Mike Liffrig


2004 United States Senate elections, Ohio
Incumbent Republican George Voinovich won re-election to a second term over Democrat Eric Fingerhut, state senator and former U.S. Representative from Ohio's 19th congressional district.


2004 United States Senate elections, Ohio
A popular U.S. Senator, Voinovich was the heavy favorite to win the election. He had over $9 million in the bank, while his opponent barely had $1.5 million. Fingerhut's campaign was overshadowed by the possible campaign of Democrat and former mayor of Cincinnati Jerry Springer, who eventually declined to run.


2004 United States Senate elections, Ohio
Voinovich was considered a moderate on some issues. He supported gun control and amnesty for illegal immigrants.


2004 United States Senate elections, Ohio
Surprisingly, Voinovich's biggest advantage was getting support from the most Democratic-leaning county in the state, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Kerry carried it with almost 67% of the vote, by far his best performance in the state in 2004. It is the home of Cleveland and it is also most populous county in the state. Voinovich was a former mayor of Cleveland. In addition, he catered to Cleveland's large Jewish population by visiting Israel six times as a first-term U.S. Senator. He also consistently voted for aid to Israel through foreign appropriations bills. He's supported resolutions reaffirming Israel's right to self-defense and condemned Palestinian terrorist attacks. In addition, Fingerhut's home base was in the Cleveland area, and therefore he had to cut in through the incumbent's home base in order to even make the election close.


2004 United States Senate elections, Ohio
In a September University of Cincinnati poll, the incumbent lead 64% to 34%. In an October ABC News poll, Voinovich was winning 60% to 35%. He led across almost all demographic groups Only among Democrats, non-whites, liberals, and those who pick health care as #1 issue favor Fingerhut. It should be noted that the election coincided with the presidential election, where Ohio was a swing state. 27% of Voinovich's supporters preferred U.S. Senator John Kerry for president.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Incumbent Republican Don Nickles decided to retire instead of seeking a fifth term. Republican nominee Tom Coburn won the open seat, beating Brad Carson, a Democratic U.S. Representative


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Kirk Humphreys, the former mayor of Oklahoma City, ran for the United States Senate with institutional conservative support, namely from Senators Don Nickles and Jim Inhofe, as well as former Congressman J. C. Watts. However, Coburn received support from the Club for Growth and conservative activists within Oklahoma. Humphreys noted, "[Coburn  is] kind of a cult hero in the conservative portion of our party, not just in Oklahoma. You can't get right of the guy."


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Much of Coburn's celebrity within the Republican Party came from his tenure in Congress, where he battled House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who he argued was moving the party to the center of the political spectrum due to their excessive federal spending. Coburn's maverick nature culminated itself in 2000 when he backed conservative activist Alan Keyes for President rather than George W. Bush or John McCain.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Ultimately, Coburn triumphed over Humphreys, Anthony, and Hunt in the primary, winning every county in Oklahoma except for tiny Harmon County.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Carson and Coburn engaged each other head-on in one of the year's most brutal Senate contests. Coburn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee attacked Carson for being too liberal for Oklahoma and for being a vote in lockstep with John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy. To drive the point home, one television advertisement aired by the Coburn campaign accused Carson of being "dangerously liberal" and not supporting the War on Terrorism.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Coburn was aided in this effort by the fact that the Kerry campaign did not contest the state of Oklahoma and that incumbent President George W. Bush was expected to win Oklahoma comfortably. This was compounded by the fact that Vice-President Dick Cheney campaigned for Coburn and appeared in several television advertisements for him. Carson countered by emphasizing his Stilwell roots and his moderation, specifically, bringing attention to the fact that he fought for greater governmental oversight of nursing home care for the elderly.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oklahoma
Carson responded to the attacks against him by countering that his opponent had committed Medicaid fraud years prior, in an event that reportedly left a woman sterilized without her consent. Ultimately, however, Carson was not able to overcome Oklahoma's conservative nature and Senator Kerry's abysmal performance in Oklahoma, and he was defeated by Coburn by 11.5%. As of 2014, the result remains the closest the Democrats have come to winning a Senate election in Oklahoma since Republican Don Nickles was first elected to the Senate by 8.7% in 1980.


2004 United States Senate elections, Oregon
Incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden won re-election to a second full term over Republican rancher Al King,


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Incumbent Republican Arlen Specter won re-election to a fifth term.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Democrats had difficulty recruiting top tier candidates against the popular Specter. Among the Democrats to decline to run for the nomination were Treasurer (and former Republican) Barbara Hafer, Public Utilities Commissioner John Hanger, real estate mogul Howard Hanna, State Representative (and also former Republican) John Lawless, and State Senator (and future Congresswoman) Allyson Schwartz.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Congressman Hoeffel ended up running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Software businessman Charlie Crystle was considered a strong possible candidate, but he dropped out before the election.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Specter faced a primary challenge from U.S. Representative Pat Toomey. Despite the state Republican Party's strong history of embracing a moderate philosophy, the influence of conservatism among rank-and-file members had been steadily growing for decades; because of his liberal social views, Specter was often considered to be a "Republican in Name Only" by the right. Although Specter had a huge fundraising advantage, Toomey was aided by $2 million of advertising from the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that focuses on fiscal issues and targets moderate Republican incumbents.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Toomey criticized Specter as a spendthrift on economic policy and as out of touch with his own party on social issues. Although Toomey had difficulty with name recognition early in the campaign, he built huge momentum over the final weeks preceding the primary, and Specter appeared to have transitioned from having a comfortable lead to being behind his challenger


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Specter received a huge boost from the vocal support of President George W. Bush; most of the state's Republican establishment also closed ranks behind Specter. This included Pennsylvania's other U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum, who was noted for his social conservative views. Many Republicans at the state and national level feared that if Toomey beat Specter, he wouldn't be able to defend the seat against his Democratic opponent.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
For Democrats, hope of winning the election centered on Toomey's defeat of Specter. However, after the challenge from the right failed, enthusiasm from the party establishment waned and Hoeffel had difficulty matching the name recognition and fundraising power of his opponent   Despite contempt from conservatives, Specter enjoyed high levels of support from independent voters and, as in previous elections, a surprisingly large crossover from Democratic voters. Even in the areas in which Toomey performed best in the Republican primary (mainly the state's conservative, rural center), Specter performed well.


2004 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Except for his large margin of victory in almost uniformly Democratic Philadelphia, Hoeffel was crushed at the polls; his only other wins came by close margins in three metro Pittsburgh counties; although President Bush proved to be unpopular in the state, voters were not willing to abandon Specter over party affiliation.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
Incumbent Democrat Fritz Hollings decided to retire. Jim DeMint, a Republican U.S. Representative won the open seat over Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, the South Carolina Superintendent of Education.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
The Senate election two years earlier in 2002 did not have a primary election because the South Carolina Republicans were more preoccupied with the gubernatorial contest, despite having the first open senate seat in 40 years. The retirement of Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings gave the Republicans an opportunity to pick up the seat and with no other interesting positions up for election in 2004, a crowded field developed in the Republican primary. Furthermore, the Republicans were motivated by having President Bush at the top of the ticket enabling them to ride his coattails to victory.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
Former Governor David Beasley, from the Pee Dee, entered the race and quickly emerged as the frontrunner because of his support from the evangelical voters. However, during his term as governor from 1994 to 1998 he had greatly angered the electorate by proposing to remove the Confederate Naval Jack from the dome of the statehouse and by being against the adoption of a state lottery to provide for college scholarships. Both positions led to the loss of his re-election in 1998 and the issues continued to trouble him in the Senate race.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
The battle for second place in the primary was between Upstate congressman, Jim DeMint, and Charleston developer Thomas Ravenel. DeMint was able to squeak out a second-place finish because Charlie Condon, a former Attorney General of South Carolina, split the Lowcountry vote with Ravenel thus providing DeMint the margin he needed. In addition, while many voters were attracted to the Ravenel campaign and felt that he had a future in politics, they believed that he should set his sights on a less high-profile office first before trying to become senator. Resigned to defeat, Ravenel endorsed DeMint in the runoff election.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
In the runoff election on June 22, 2004, DeMint scored a surprising victory over Beasley. Ravenel's endorsement of DeMint proved crucial as the Lowcountry counties heavily went for the Representative from the Upstate. Also, Beasley had burnt too many bridges while governor and was unable to increase his share of the vote in the runoff.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Carolina
DeMint entered the general election campaign severely weakened from the primary fight, having spent most of his campaign funds. He stressed to the voters that he would follow conservative principles and provide an important Republican vote in the closely divided Senate. Democrats fared poorly in statewide elections in South Carolina, so Tenenbaum tried to make the race about issues rather than party identification. She attacked DeMint's support of the FairTax proposal because it would increase the sales tax by 23%. The election victory by DeMint merely cemented South Carolina's shift to the Republican column as the best candidate the Democrats could offer was soundly defeated by the typical 10 point margin.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
In the 2004 Congressional elections, Daschle lost his seat to Republican challenger and former U.S. Representative John Thune in a bitterly contested battle. Thune prevailed by a narrow 50.6–49.4% margin, of 4,508 votes. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist visited South Dakota to campaign for Thune, breaking an unwritten tradition that one party's leader in the Senate would not campaign directly for the other's defeat. Daschle's loss resulted in the first ousting of a majority or minority leader since 1952 when Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland lost his seat to Barry Goldwater. Daschle's Senate term expired on January 3, 2005.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Throughout the campaign, Thune, along with Frist, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney, frequently accused Daschle of being the "chief obstructionist" of Bush's agenda and charged him with using filibusters to block confirmation of several of Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary. Thune also used moral values such as issues surrounding same-sex marriage and abortion to convince South Dakota voters that Daschle's positions on such topics were out-of-sync with the state's residents. The Republican candidate also drove home his strong support for the President while blasting Daschle for his vehement opposition to Bush. He attempted to sway voters by remembering that Bush won South Dakota in a landslide in 2000 and had a very high job-approval rating among South Dakotans. His opponent, the Minority Leader, repeatedly argued that he was funneling money into South Dakota for vital federal highway and water pet projects.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Daschle responded to Thune's claim that he was a partisan anti-Bush obstructionist by pointing to his action just nine days after the September 11 attacks when he hugged President Bush on the Senate floor following Bush's address to Congress and the nation. He also hit back by alleging that Thune wanted to "rubber stamp what the administration is doing." Daschle's use of the video of his embrace of Bush forced the Republican National Committee to demand that the ad be pulled, claiming that it suggests that Bush endorses Daschle. Shortly following the airing of the ad, in a nationally televised debate on NBC's Meet the Press, Thune accused Daschle of "emboldening the enemy" in his skepticism of the Iraq War.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Daschle also noticeably relied very heavily on the power of incumbency to win a fourth term. Some also argued that Stephanie Herseth's election to the state's only House seat hurt Daschle, as voters may not have been comfortable sending an all-Democratic delegation to Congress for the first time in many decades. Accusations that Daschle was possibly considering no longer being an official resident of South Dakota was believed to have offended voters there. Others have analyzed that Daschle's lengthy consideration and eventual rejection of a potential run for the presidency in 2004 took a toll on South Dakotans, who felt betrayed and used by Daschle as a result.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7 points in January and February. By May, his lead minimized to just 2 points and into the summer polls showed a varying number of trends: either Daschle held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or Thune held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or the race was tied right down the middle.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Throughout September, Daschle led Thune by margins of 2 to 5 percent while during the entire month of October into the November 2 election, most polls showed that Thune and Daschle were dead even, usually tied 49–49 among likely voters. Some polls showed either Thune or Daschle leading by extremely slim margins.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Thune was an aide to former Senator James Abdnor, the man Daschle defeated in 1986 to gain his seat in the Senate.


2004 United States Senate elections, South Dakota
Daschle spent a great deal of time and energy campaigning for his fellow Democrat Tim Johnson in 2002, who barely defeated Thune by 524 votes. He argued that by re-electing Johnson, South Dakota would be better off because Johnson would help to keep Daschle Majority Leader. However, in the end, while Johnson won, other states voted for enough Republicans that Daschle was no longer majority leader. Furthermore, Thune's whisker-close defeat in 2002 freed him up to run against Daschle in 2004. Had Daschle not put his considerable weight to re-electing Johnson, it seems very likely that Thune would have beaten Johnson, leaving Daschle without a strong challenger for the upcoming election and making his re-election a certainty.


2004 United States Senate elections, Utah
Incumbent Republican Bob Bennett won re-election to a third term easily beating Democrat Paul Van Dam, former Attorney General of Utah and former Salt Lake County District Attorney


2004 United States Senate elections, Vermont
Incumbent Democrat Patrick Leahy won re-election to a sixth term.


2004 United States Senate elections, Washington
Incumbent Democrat Patty Murray won re-election. She became only the fourth Washington senator to win 3 consecutive terms, just after fellow Democrats Warren G. Magnuson and Scoop Jackson.


2004 United States Senate elections, Washington
Term limits became an issue in the campaign, as Democrats seized on Nethercutt's broken term-limits pledge that he had made when he unseated Speaker Tom Foley in 1994. Nethercutt was also hampered by his lack of name recognition in the more densely populated western part of the state, home to two-thirds of the state's population. Washington has not elected a senator from east of the Cascades since Miles Poindexter in 1916. Other important issues included national security and the war in Iraq. Nethercutt supported the invasion of Iraq, while Murray opposed it. Nethercutt was a heavy underdog from the start, and his campaign never gained much traction. In November, he lost by 12 points, receiving 43 percent of the vote to Murray's 55 percent.


2004 United States Senate elections, Wisconsin
Incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold won re-election to a third term.


2004 United States Senate elections, Wisconsin
Republican Tim Michels, businessman and army veteran insisted he has more real world experience than Feingold, someone he called an "extreme liberal" who's out of touch with Wisconsin voters. Feingold attacked back by saying that any Republican would be a rubber stamp for President Bush. The incumbent had $2.2 million in the bank, while Michels had already spent $1 million in the primary and had only about $150,000 left.


2004 United States Senate elections, Wisconsin
When the NRSC was finally convinced in October that Michels had a shot, they pledged $600,000 for him.


2004 United States Senate elections, Wisconsin
On October 1, a poll showed Feingold leading 52% to 39%. In mid October, another poll showed Feingold winning 48% to 43%. A poll at the end of the month showed him leading 51% to 36%.


2004 United States Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia
The 2004 Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia took place on November 2, 2004, to elect a shadow member to the United States House of Representatives to represent the District of Columbia. Unlike non-voting delegates, the Shadow Representative is only recognized by the District of Columbia and is not officially sworn or seated. This race was a rematch of 2002 when the same two candidates appeared on the ballot. Like in 2002, incumbent Shadow Representative Ray Browne was reelected.


2004 United States Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia, Primary elections, Other primaries
A Republican primary was held but no candidates filed and only write-in votes were cast. Adam Eidinger was the only Statehood-Green candidate and got 90% of the vote.


2004 United States Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia, General election
The general election took place on November 2, 2004. It was an exact rematch of the election two years before.


2004 United States election voting controversies
During the 2004 United States elections, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote, whether ineligible voters were registered, whether voters were registered multiple times, and whether the votes cast had been correctly counted. More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome of the presidential election, in which the incumbent, Republican President George W. Bush, defeated the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. Despite the existing controversies, Kerry conceded the election the following day on November 3.


2004 United States election voting controversies
There was generally less attention paid to the Senate and House elections and to various state races, but some of them were also questioned, especially the gubernatorial election in Washington, which was decided by less than 0.01% and involved several recounts and lawsuits. The final recount also reversed the outcome of this election.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter registration
In the months leading up to the 2004 election, both parties made efforts to register new voters. In some cases, Republicans challenged or prepared to challenge the validity of many new registrations, citing instances of fictitious names such as Mary Poppins appearing on the voter rolls. Lawyers for the Kerry campaign accused the Republicans of using this as an excuse for vote suppression.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter registration
There were also complaints about the rejection of registrations by government agencies. College students encountered difficulties in registering where they attended school. Some officials rejected voter registration forms on grounds that were contested, such as a failure to use paper of a particular weight (in Ohio) or a failure to check a box on the form (Florida).


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter registration
Aside from such official actions, there were disputes about other voter registration activities. In Nevada and Oregon, a company hired by the Republican National Committee solicited voter registration forms, but was accused of filing only the Republicans' forms and shredding those completed by Democrats. Individuals tenuously linked to nonprofit organizations, ACORN and the NAACP, were accused of submitting false voter registration forms and of carelessly or deliberately failing to submit some valid ones that they had received.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter registration
An analysis of Florida voter rolls in December 2004 alleged that over four registered voters had names that also appeared in a Social Security database of death claims, according to the Chicago Tribune. In response, the Brennan Center for Justice found reason to believe that the undisclosed methodology of the source article may have been inaccurate, and further noted that there was no allegation of anyone voting in someone else's name.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter registration
A New York Daily News article alleged 46,000 people were registered to vote in both New York City and Florida. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article identified 27,000 people possibly registered in both Ohio and Florida, with 400 possibly voting in both states consistently in the previous four years. The articles attempted to match voter rolls to each other, which probably did not produce accurate results due to similarity of names.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Purges of voter lists
State efforts to purge voter rolls have led to disputes, notably in Florida. Before the 2000 election, Florida officials purged approximately 100,000 registered voters on the grounds that they were convicted felons (and therefore ineligible to vote under Florida law) or dead. Many of those whose names were purged were "false positives" (not actually felons). (See Florida Central Voter File.) A post-election lawsuit brought by the NAACP, the People for the American Way Foundation, and other organizations resulted in a settlement in 2002 in which the state agreed to restore eligible voters to the rolls and take other steps to improve election procedures.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Purges of voter lists
The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. The state government initially attempted to keep the list secret. When a court ordered its release, it was found to contain mostly Democrats and a disproportionate number of people from racial minorities. Faced with media documentation that the list included thousands of errors, the state abandoned the attempt to use it. Some of the voters improperly purged in 2000 had not been restored as of May 2004.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter suppression
Representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat from Ohio) commented on allegations of voter suppression in Ohio during the 2004 election:


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter suppression
Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter suppression
John Pappageorge, a Republican state legislator in Michigan, said in summer 2004, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." Pappageorge later claimed he was taken out of context saying, "In the context that we were talking about, I said we've got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message."


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voter suppression
Court injunctions were placed by the Franklin County Common Pleas Court against MoveOn for verbally threatening and harassing individuals who identified themselves as Republican. On October 5, a Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer in Orlando had his arm broken when trying to stop union activists from storming the campaign office. The "storming" was part of a massive simultaneous campaign against 20 pro-Republican headquarters.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Practical impediments
In every election, some voters encounter practical impediments to voting, such as long lines at the polling place. In 2004, however, the issue received increased attention. In many places, some voters had to wait several hours to vote. Ohio voters, in particular, were plagued by this issue. A study conducted by the Democratic National Committee in the summer of 2005 found that long lines forced three percent of the state's registered voters to abstain.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Practical impediments
Among the factors thought to be at work were: the general increase in voter turnout; a particular increase in first-time voters whose processing required more time; and confusion about the providing of provisional ballots, which many states had never used before.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Practical impediments
Distribution of voting machines proved to be a problem in some districts. In Ohio, some precincts had too few machines, causing long waiting times, while others had many machines per registered voters. Officials cited a late rush of registrations after voting machines had already been allocated as one source of long lines.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voting machines
In the 2000 election, especially in the disputed recounts in Florida, there were issues concerning the ambiguities and uncertainties that arose from punch-card ballots, such as the hanging chads (incompletely punched holes). In 2004, the punch-card ballots were still widely used in some states. For example, most Ohio voters used punch-card ballots, and more than 90,000 ballots cast in Ohio were treated as not including a vote for President; this "undervote" could arise because the voter chose not to cast a vote or because of a malfunction of the punch-card system.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voting machines
For the country as a whole, the voting technology used in the 2004 election breaks down as follows:


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voting machines
Before 2004, the increasing use of electronic voting machines had raised several issues:


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voting machines
The state of California ordered that 15,000 of its Diebold voting machines not be used in the 2004 elections due to flaws that the company failed to disclose.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Voting machines
In September 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process while citing concerns about security and reliability raised by numerous groups, and detailing specific problems that have occurred.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Provisional and absentee ballots
Provisional ballots are for would-be voters who assert that they are registered but whose names cannot be found in the list available at the polling place. The voter completes a written ballot, which is placed in a sealed envelope. The ballot is opened and counted only if the voter is subsequently found to be registered.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Provisional and absentee ballots
In 2004, there was contention over the standards for determining whether to count provisional ballots. In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell ruled that Ohio would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that were submitted at the wrong precinct. This ruling was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Specific issues concerning the voting process, Provisional and absentee ballots
Absentee ballots were also an issue. There were reports of absentee ballots being mailed out too late for some voters to complete and return them in time. In some instances, officials argued that last-minute litigation over Ralph Nader's ballot status or other issues had prevented them from finalizing the absentee ballots as early as they wanted to. In Broward County, Florida, some 58,000 absentee ballots were delivered to the Postal Service to be mailed to voters, according to county election officials, but the Postal Service said it had never received them.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
The 2004 election brought new attention to the issue of exit polls. Discrepancies existed between early exit poll information and the officially reported results. These discrepancies led some, including Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to conclude that Kerry won the election prematurely. Expert opinion was divided concerning what inferences should be drawn from the cited discrepancies.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
Mitofsky International, the company responsible for exit polling for the National Election Pool (NEP) and its member news organizations, released a report detailing the 2004 election's exit polling. At issue were the early release of some poll information, issues regarding correcting exit poll data using actual voter totals, and differences between exit polls and official results.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
The NEP report stated that "the size of the average exit poll error ... was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data" and that exit polling estimates overstated Kerry's share of the vote in 26 states by more than one standard error and overestimated Bush's share in four states by more than one standard error. It concluded that these discrepancies between the exit polls and the official results were "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters".


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
The NEP report further stated that "Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment. Our analysis of the difference between the vote count and the exit poll at each polling location in our sample has found no systematic differences for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment."


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
A study performed by the Caltech / MIT Voting Technology Project concluded that "there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the 2004 election for President Bush." This study was criticized for using data that had been corrected to match the official count, and thus "essentially analyzing rounding error". On December 5, 2004 Charles Stewart III of MIT released a revised report which, he said, used pre-corrected data. Two days later, however, Warren Mitofsky, who had overseen the exit polling, stated that the pre-corrected data were proprietary and would not be released.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
One paper (and a follow-up book) concluded that discrepancies in the exit polls were evidence that the election results were off, though others alleged this paper was unscientific.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Exit polling
Following the 2004 election, researchers looked at ways in which polling methodologies might be flawed and explored ways to improve polling in the future.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Racial discrimination
Some of the issues described above have created problems for voters generally. Others, however, by accident or (it is charged) by design, have disproportionately affected racial minorities. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that, in Florida in 2000, 54 percent of the ballots discarded as "spoiled" were cast by African Americans, who were only 11 percent of the voters. Another paper studied the residual vote rates of the election technology used and the distribution of those technologies among race and found that the percentage of spoiled votes did not disproportionally affect any particular race.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
Ralph Nader requested a recount of 11 wards in New Hampshire where vote totals for Bush were 5–15% higher than predicted by exit polls. The Nader campaign reports:


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
In the eleven wards recounted, only very minor discrepancies were found between the optical scan machine counts of the ballots and the recount. The discrepancies are similar to those found when hand-counted ballots are recounted.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
In Ohio, two minor-party presidential candidates, Michael Badnarik (Libertarian Party) and David Cobb (Green Party) cooperated in requesting a recount.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
According to Ohio recount rules, 3% of a county's votes are tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3% sample. The 3% must be randomly selected, and all hand counts are to be performed in public (with observers). After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
The Cobb campaign claimed that the precincts were not randomly selected and the ballots were pre-sorted. They suggested that this indicates that precincts were selected that would match the machine count, in order to prevent a county-wide hand count, i.e. that it was "staged". Two poll workers were convicted of preselecting ballots for the recounts.


2004 United States election voting controversies, Recounts
Around the country there were also recounts of races for state and local office. Most of them reflected simply the closeness of the official tally, but some also raised issues of election irregularities. These included the elections for: