Even in Ronald Reagan's landslide re-election of 1984, Harlan County voted 51.9% for Democratic Presidential nominee Walter Mondale, while incumbent Reagan received 47.1% of the vote. But the decline of the coal industry also changed politics in the county: in the 2004 Presidential election, Harlan County voted for the Republican Presidential nominee for the first time in 32 years; Republican incumbent George W. Bush received 60.2% of the vote, while the Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry received 39.1% of the vote.