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| Turnout | 56.57% (of registered voters)  46.11% (of voting age population)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Texas |
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The 2004 United States presidential election in Texas took place on November 2, 2004, and was part of the 2004 United States presidential election. State voters chose 34 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Texas was won by incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a margin of 22.87%. Prior to the election, all 12 major U.S. news organizations expected Texas to vote for Bush, considering it to be a safe red state.
Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1976, and has been a Republican stronghold since the 1980s. A former governor of the state, Bush's performance stands as a high water mark for Republican presidential candidates in Texas, and remains the last time that a Republican has won more than 60% of the state's vote, or that a Democrat has won less than 40%. Bush is the last Republican to win any of the following counties in a presidential election: Bexar (home of San Antonio), Dallas (home of Dallas), and Harris (home of Houston). Cameron and Culberson counties would not vote Republican again until 2024. The 1,067,968 ballots cast in Harris County also marked the first time that any Texas county would cast more than one million votes. However, this is also the last election where Harris County would vote to the left of any of the five most populous counties in the state, with the exception of Tarrant County. Harris County in this election voted to the left of Bexar by approximately 0.2% of the votes. This is also the most recent election in which the Republican candidate would win Tarrant County with at least 60% of the vote. Starting from 2008, Republicans would win Tarrant with less than 60% of the vote, and in 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden narrowly carried the county.
Bush, who made historic gains with Latino voters in 2004,[2] drew even with Kerry among Texan Latinos, winning 49% to Kerry's 50%.[3]
This is the most recent presidential election in which a Republican candidate has gotten over 60% of the statewide vote. In 2008 there would be a shift in many of the urban counties Bush carried in this election toward Democratic candidate Barack Obama, though the state would still be won by his Republican opponent, John McCain.
- ^ "Turnout and Voter Registration Figures (1970-current)".
- ^ "Which Latinos Elected Bush in 2004?". America Magazine. June 23, 2008. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
- ^ "CNN.com Election 2004". www.cnn.com. Retrieved March 29, 2021.