Much has been said about how President Donald Trump won a second non-consecutive presidential term (joining Stephen Grover Cleveland in the non-consecutive terms club) with an electoral coalition distinct from those relied upon by former President George W. Bush in his victories in 2000 and 2004 and by John McCain and Mitt Romney in thir 2008 and 2012 defeats against former President Barack Obama. Moreover, Mr. Trump’s winning coalition in the 2016 election is also distinguishable from those of Messrs. Bush, McCain, and Romney in some interesting ways. But one thing that struck me about the 2024 election was not what had changed – but what remained the same. I noted in a recent article that I closely followed the 2004 Presidential Election, wherein George W. Bush secured re-election by narrowly fending off a challenge from the Democratic nominee, John Kerry.
While the 2004 election occurred in a very different environment than 2024 with very different candidates and electorates, there are striking similarities between the ultimate top-line results for Messrs. Bush and Trump. Two decades apart, the candidates achieved the same win-loss outcome in 44 out of 50 states en route to winning their respective second terms. This inspired me to run a surface-level comparison of their victories to see, in the state-by-state raw vote totals , what has changed and what remains largely similar between 2004 and 2024.
(Another similarity are their ages: Messrs. Trump and Bush were born weeks apart on 06-14-1946 and 07-06-1946 respectively, a fact which featured in my articles on presidential ages and older vs younger candidates in presidential elections.)
An Electoral College Introduction
As a threshold matter for non-American readers or readers otherwise not privy to how the United States chooses its president, the President is selected by the Electoral College. Each state begins with two electors and then is afforded additional electors based on population size. For all practical intents and purposes, the electors vote in accord with the popular vote winner of each state. Every state in both 2024 and 2004 save for Maine and Nebraska employed a winner-take-all system where the candidate with the most votes in the State secured all the electors. Maine and Nebraska partitioned electors by congressional district, with two electors tied to the overall State winner. There are occasionally faithless electors, meaning electors who vote for someone other than the popular vote winner of the state, but there were no faithless electors in 2024 and only one in 2004 (no election going back to 1824 has been decided by faithless electors). In all but four elections since 1824 (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016), the candidate with the most votes nationally also won the Electoral College (2000 and 2016 were Messrs. Bush’s and Trump’s first victories, we partially covered the 1888 election in a separate article). (There is a case to be made based on how votes were allocated in a few southern states that 1960 belongs on the popular-electoral split list, but it is not there officially and those questions are beyond the scope of the instant article.)
Trump 2024 vs Bush 2004, a National View
With that brief introduction, let us compare the top-lines for Mr. Trump in 2024 and Mr. Bush in 2004:
- Popular Vote Percentage: Trump 49.8% (+1.5), Bush 50.7% (+2.4)
- States Carried: Trump 31 + ME-02, Bush 31
- Electoral Votes (270 to win): Trump 312, Bush 286
Chessrat, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nkocharh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mr. Bush won a higher percentage of the all voters nationally, colloquially known as the popular vote (50.7% to 49.8%) and had a bigger margin over the Democratic nominee John Kerry (+2.4) than Mr. Trump had over Kamala Harris (+1.5). These stats do come with a minor caveat that we will return to in the survey. Messrs. Bush and Kerry combined to capture 99.0% of the vote in 2004 whereas Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris combined for only 98.1%. meaning third parties and other assorted votes accounted for more votes 2024 than in 2004. If we exclude the third party candidates and look only at the two-party percentages, we come out with the following result:
- Bush 51.2%, Kerry 48.8% (Bush +2.4)
- Trump 50.7%, Harris 49.3% (Trump +1.4)
Mr. Bush still had a higher two-party vote share, but the percent difference between Messrs. Bush and Trump shrinks from 0.9 to 0.5. With this caveat noted, I will focus on the share Messrs. Trump and Bush received out of all voters, including voters for minor candidates, for the rest of the survey. As a general matter, I caution against trying to guess who third-party voters would have voted for in the absence of their candidate based on the ideological leanings of the third party candidate in light of the fact that a significant number of votes for non-viable candidates are protest votes rather than votes for the non-viable candidate, and some voters take into account factors in casting a protest vote such as whether their state is presumed to be competitive between the major party candidates.
Both Messrs. Trump and Bush carried 31 states, with Mr. Trump carrying Maine’s second electoral district while losing the state (Mr. Kerry carried ME-02 along with Maine as a whole in 2004) and Mr. Bush carrying Nebraska’s second congressional district along with the state (Mr. Trump won Nebraska but lost NE-02). What inspired my article is the fact that of the 31 states carried by Messrs. Trump and Bush respectively, 28 of the states were common.
- States Carried by Messrs Trump and Bush: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming
- States Carried by Mr. Trump Only: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
- States Carried by Mr. Bush Only: Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia
Mr. Trump’s 2016 map only differed from 2024 in that he failed to carry Nevada in the former, so his path to victory, including the three closest states (we will address those shortly) was nearly identical, albeit his key state margins were significantly more convincing in 2024 than in 2016 despite the similar top-line result. President Bush traded his 2000 win in New Hampshire for Iowa and New Mexico in 2004. In the end – the greatest commonality between any pair of G.W. Bush-Trump elections is between 2004 and 2024.
I took a cursory look at comparing other winning candidates from the same parties going back to 1976, three elections apart. I found that Messrs. Obama (2012) and Biden (2020) shared 45 common states (excepting Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Georgia, and Ohio), which seems to be the most similar pair followed by Bush 04-Trump 24. But those elections occurred significantly closer together (8 years) than the one we are focused on here (20).
The six states Messrs. Trump and Bush did not share in common help explain Mr. Trump’s healthier Electoral College margin. If Mr. Trump won with Mr. Bush’s 2004 map in 2024, he would have had lost 16 electoral votes on net, ending up with 296. Had Mr. Bush won with Mr. Trump’s 2024 map in 2004, he would have ended up with 307 electoral votes instead of 286. In both election cycles, the Michigan/Pennsylvania/Wisconsin trio was more valuable in terms of electoral votes than was Colorado/New Mexico/Virginia.
Comparing State Performance: Trump 24 vs Bush 04
Below, we will compare Messrs. Trump’s and Bush’s results in three separate categories: States both candidates won, States only one candiate won, and States both lost. In so doing, I will examine their absolute share of the vote and the difference between their share of the vote and that of the runner-up, with the runners-up being Kamala Harris in 2024 and John Kerry in 2004. I will then conclude the article with my summary thought.
Before continuing, you can consult the following links at Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections for the election results we will discuss in the following sub-sections:
(I created all the tables in this article by hand while consulting the Wikipedia pages for the 2024 and 2004 elections. I decided to try to find better links for readers and settled onMr. Leip’s Atlas for his tables because they are very intuitive and include the margins that I tabulated by hand. Note that Mr. Leip uses blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, which has not been the common color scheme in the United States since 1984.)
States Carried by Messrs. Trump and Bush
First, we will compare Trump 2024 and Bush 2004 in terms of raw vote percentage in each State. We will use the percentage of the total vote they received, meaning that in some cases they won states with less than 50% of the vote. It is worth bearing in mind that not excluding third-party vote share will marginally likely benefit Mr. Bush in the aggregate due to the smaller percentage of the pie taken up by the minor candidates in 2004.
| State (EV, 24/20) | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama (9) | 64.6 | 62.5 | Trump +2.1 |
| Alaska (3) | 54.5 | 61.0 | Bush +6.5 |
| Arizona (11/10) | 52.2 | 54.9 | Bush +2.7 |
| Arkansas (6) | 64.2 | 54.3 | Trump +9.9 |
| Florida (30/27) | 56.1 | 52.1 | Trump +4.0 |
| Georgia (16/15) | 50.7 | 58.0 | Bush +7.3 |
| Idaho (4) | 66.9 | 68.4 | Bush +1.5 |
| Indiana (11) | 58.8 | 59.9 | Bush +1.1 |
| Iowa (6/7) | 55.7 | 49.9 | Trump +5.8 |
| Kansas (6) | 57.2 | 62.0 | Bush +4.8 |
| Kentucky (8) | 64.5 | 59.6 | Trump +5.9 |
| Louisiana (8/9) | 60.2 | 56.7 | Trump +3.5 |
| Mississippi (6) | 60.9 | 59.4 | Trump +1.5 |
| Missouri (10/11) | 58.5 | 53.3 | Trump +5.2 |
| Montana (4/3) | 58.4 | 59.1 | Bush +0.7 |
| Nebraska (5*) | 59.3 | 65.9 | Bush +6.2 |
| Nebraska-01 (1) | 55.0 | 63.0 | Bush +8.0 |
| Nebraska-03 (1) | 76.0 | 74.9 | Trump +1.1 |
| Nevada (6/5) | 50.6 | 50.5 | Trump +0.1 |
| North Carolina (16/15) | 50.9 | 56.0 | Bush +5.1 |
| North Dakota (3) | 67.0 | 62.9 | Trump +4.1 |
| Ohio (17/20) | 55.1 | 50.8 | Trump +4.3 |
| Oklahoma (7) | 66.2 | 65.6 | Trump +0.6 |
| South Carolina (9/8) | 58.2 | 58.0 | Trump +0.2 |
| South Dakota (3) | 63.4 | 59.9 | Trump +3.5 |
| Tennessee (11) | 64.2 | 56.8 | Trump +7.4 |
| Texas (40/34) | 56.1 | 61.1 | Bush +5.0 |
| Utah (6/5) | 59.4 | 71.5 | Bush +12.1 |
| West Virginia (4/5) | 70.0 | 56.1 | Trump +13.9 |
| Wyoming (3) | 71.6 | 68.9 | Trump +2.7 |
Now let us look at these same states again, but using the margin of victory – meaning the margin Mr. Trump carried each state over Ms. Harris and the margin Mr. Bush carried each state over Mr. Kerry. Note that these margins are the percent difference out of the total vote, meaning that we are not discarding third-party votes.
| State | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 30.5 | 25.6 | Trump +4.9 |
| Alaska | 13.1 | 25.6 | Bush +12.5 |
| Arizona | 5.5 | 10.5 | Bush +5.0 |
| Arkansas | 30.6 | 9.8 | Trump +20.8 |
| Florida | 13.1 | 5.0 | Trump +8.1 |
| Georgia | 2.2 | 16.6 | Bush +14.4 |
| Idaho | 36.5 | 38.1 | Bush +1.6 |
| Indiana | 19.0 | 20.7 | Bush +1.7 |
| Iowa | 13.2 | 0.7 | Trump +12.5 |
| Kansas | 16.2 | 25.3 | Bush +9.1 |
| Kentucky | 30.7 | 20.0 | Trump +10.7 |
| Louisiana | 22.0 | 14.5 | Trump +7.5 |
| Mississippi | 22.9 | 19.7 | Trump +3.2 |
| Missouri | 18.4 | 7.2 | Trump +11.2 |
| Montana | 19.9 | 20.5 | Bush +0.6 |
| Nebraska | 20.4 | 33.2 | Bush +12.8 |
| Nebraska-01 | 13.0 | 27.3 | Bush +14.3 |
| Nebraska-03 | 53.6 | 51.2 | Trump +2.4 |
| Nevada | 3.1 | 2.6 | Trump +0.5 |
| North Carolina | 3.2 | 12.4 | Bush +9.2 |
| North Dakota | 36.5 | 27.4 | Trump +9.1 |
| Ohio | 11.2 | 2.1 | Trump +9.1 |
| Oklahoma | 34.3 | 31.1 | Trump +3.2 |
| South Carolina | 17.8 | 17.1 | Trump +0.7 |
| South Dakota | 29.2 | 21.5 | Trump +8.1 |
| Tennessee | 29.7 | 14.3 | Trump +15.4 |
| Texas | 13.6 | 22.9 | Bush +9.3 |
| Utah | 21.6 | 45.5 | Bush +23.9 |
| West Virginia | 41.9 | 12.9 | Trump +29.0 |
| Wyoming | 45.8 | 39.8 | Trump +6.0 |
Excluding Nebraska’s 1st and 3rd Congressional districts, Mr. Trump out-performed Mr. Bush on both charts in 17 of the 31 States.
However, the differences are not all equal in significance to the understanding of their victories. For example, while Mr. Trump ran up much bigger margins than Mr. Bush in Tennessee and West Virginia and while Mr. Bush did likewise in Alaska and Utah, none of these four States was considered to be in doubt in 2004 or 2024, and Republicans have carried them by comfortable margins in every presidential election in between. (The margins in these states may have down-ballot consequences, for example I explained how Mr. Bush’s margin in South Dakota helped carry the current Senate Majority Leader John Thune over the finish line against the then-Democratic Senate Leader, Tom Daschle, but we are only interested in presidential elections for purposes of this article. You can however read about my memories of the 2004 Senate race in South Dakota.)
There are three Bush states which have drifted noticeably toward Democrats: Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Mr. Bush carried all three states without drama in 2004, but they were considered to be competitive in 2024, especially after Mr. Trump became the first Republican of the new century to lose Arizona and Georgia in 2020. While Arizona’s swing state status turned out to be greatly exaggerated in 2024, both Georgia and North Carolina were competitive and consumed significant campaign resources. They combined for 32 electoral votes in 2024, making their becoming competitive states a notable shift (Mr. Obama failed to carry either Arizona or Georgia in his two wins, but he did carry North Carolina in 2008).
Conversely, Mr. Trump made significant gains in Florida, Iowa, and Ohio – rendering these three states, which were highly competitive in 2004 and now worth 53 electoral votes – non-competitive. Mr. Bush was only running for re-election in 2004 because he had carried Florida in 2000 by 579 votes out of 5,963,110 cast, or 0.009%. Mr. Bush improved significantly in 2004, carrying the State by 5 points. But Florida remained competitive thereafter – Mr. Obama carried it in both 2008 and 2012 and Mr. Trump narrowly returned it to the Republican column by 1.2 and 3.3 in 2016 and 2020 respectively. In 2024, Mr. Trump won Florida by 13.1 – a margin in line with the 2022 midterms wherein Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and then-Senator Marco Rubio (now U.S. Secretary of State) won their re-election races against well-funded opponents by 19.4 and 16.4 respectively – while securing 56.1% of the vote, which matched his total vote share in the more reliably red Texas. Ohio was the decisive State in 2004. Like Florida, it flipped to Mr. Obama in both 2008 and 2012 followed by going for Mr. Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. However, while Mr. Trump’s best Ohio showing came in 2024, he won it by comfortable +7.8 and +8.1 margins in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Smaller Iowa followed a similar trajectory. Mr. Bush carried it by the slightest of margins in 2004 after having lost it in 2000. Iowa went into the Obama column by +9.5 and +5.9 in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Mr. Trump won Iowa by Ohio-esque margins of +9.4 and +8.2 in 2016 and 2020. Despite one notable Iowa poll improbably finding Mr. Trump trailing on the weekend before the election, he carried 55.7% of the vote and won the state by a +12.5 margin in 2024, which was the largest gap in Iowa since Ronald Reagan’s first term victory in 1980.
Missouri was still seen as competitive in 2004, although Mr. Bush’s strong +7.2 margin foreshadowed where it was going. John McCain carried Missouri by just 0.14% in 2008, but that he managed to carry Missouri at all in an election he lost convincingly enough to lose Indiana(!?) — a state that the Democrats have not been within single digits of carrying since Mr. Obama’s stunning 2008 triumph — was a sign of where Missouri was headed. Mr. Romney carried Missouri by 9.3 in 2012 while losing the election, and Mr. Trump solidified it as a solid GOP presidential state with winning margins of +18.5, +15.4, and +18.4 in his three runs – all of which are directionally consistent with state-level trends.
Messrs. Trump and Bush performed similarly in Nevada two decades apart. However, it is worth noting that Mr. Trump in 2024 was the first Republican since Mr. Bush in 2004 to carry Nevada, having lost the state by small margins in 2016 and 2020.
Texas is an interesting case. While Republicans have not lost a state-wide race in Texas since 1994, Mr. Bush was unusually strong in Texas for obvious reasons. John McCain and Mr. Romney also won Texas easily while losing their elections, taking 55.4% and 57.2% of the vote respectively. Mr. Trump never came close to losing Texas, but he under-performed in 2016 and 2020, taking 52.2% (+9.0) and 52.1% (+5.6) in 2016 and 2020 respectively. In 2024, Mr. Trump performed more similarly to the post-Bush elections in 2008 and 2012, doing slightly better than McCain and slightly worse than Mr. Romney.
States Carried By Either Mr. Trump or Mr. Bush
Mr. Trump and Mr. Bush had the same win-loss outcome in 44 out of 50 states. Here, let us look at the States they did not share in common along with two districts in Maine and Nebraska, the only two states that apportion their electors by congressional district.
First, let us start with States and districts carried by Mr. Trump alone.
| State (EV, 24/20) | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan (15/17) | 49.7 | 47.8 | Trump +1.9 |
| Pennsylvania (19/21) | 50.4 | 48.4 | Trump +2.0 |
| Wisconsin (10) | 49.6 | 49.3 | Trump +0.3 |
| Maine-02 (1) | 53.1 | 46.1 | Trump +7.0 |
Next for the margin vs Mr. Kerry and Ms. Harris respectively:
| State | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | +1.4 | -3.4 | Trump +4.8 |
| Pennsylvania | +1.7 | -2.5 | Trump +4.2 |
| Wisconsin | +0.9 | -0.4 | Trump +1.3 |
| Maine-02 | +8.3 | -5.8 | Trump +14.2 |
Mr. Trump was the first Republican since the first George H.W. Bush in 1988 to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin when he swept all three in 2016. After surrendering the trio in 2016, he won all three in 2024 by better margins than he had in 2016. As we can see, Mr. Bush was competitive in all three states, especially Wisconsin, which he had lost by a similarly narrow 0.22 margin in 2000. But close counts for little, and between Mr. Trump’s flipping Michigan-Pennsylvania-Wisconsin and removing Iowa and Ohio from the list of competitive states, he has clearly improved the GOP position at the presidential level in the Midwest. It is worth noting, however, that these states shifted towards Republicans in broad terms during the Obama presidency and some of the Republican statewide gains were reversed in 2018, leaving all three states fairly competitive across the board. For example, all three states currently have Democrat Governors and Democrats control 4 of the 6 Senate seats, but Republicans have a majority in the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin House delegations and a 25-19 advantage in the House in the three States combined.
In the case of Maine-02, Mr. Bush performed slightly better than McCain and Mr. Romney in 2008 and 2012 respectively, but Mr. Trump carried Maine-02 by comfortable margins in 2016, 2020, and 2024, marking this as another GOP-gain in the Trump era. However, Democrat Jared Golden held the Maine-02 House seat in 2020 and again in 2024, showing that the district is still competitive in Federal elections.
Now for states carried only by Mr. Bush.
| State (EV, 24/20) | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado (10/9) | 43.2 | 51.7 | Bush +8.5 |
| New Mexico (5) | 45.9 | 49.8 | Bush +3.9 |
| Virginia (13) | 46.1 | 53.7 | Bush +7.6 |
| Nebraska-02 (1) | 46.7 | 60.2 | Bush +13.5 |
Next for the margin vs Mr. Kerry and Ms. Harris respectively:
| State | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | -11.0 | +4.7 | Bush +15.7 |
| New Mexico | -6.0 | +0.8 | Bush +6.8 |
| Virginia | -5.7 | +8.2 | Bush +13.9 |
| Nebraska-02 | -4.6 | +21.7 | Bush +26.3 |
Mr. Bush was the last Republican to carry Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. Mr. Trump curiously was closer in Colorado (-4.9) in 2016 than in 2024 (close to Mr. Romney’s 2012 effort), albeit he had the same 43.2% share of the vote. Mr. Trump posted his best performances in terms of vote share in New Mexico and Virginia, but he was slightly closer in terms of margin in Virginia in 2016. Mr. Romney performed better than Mr. Trump in both Colorado and Virginia in 2012 (both in absolute terms and margin), but Mr. Trump had the best post-Bush showing in New Mexico in 2024. Colorado is no longer competitive for Republicans under normal circumstances, and while Republicans have won significant recent statewide elections in Virginia and been occasionally competitive in New Mexico, both states have shifted strongly toward Democrats since 2004.
Nebraska-02 is the most dramatic shift on the chart. Mr. Obama carried it by just over a point in 2008 after Mr. Bush had carried it by more than 20 in 2004, but both Messrs. Romney and Trump carried returned it to the Republican column, albeit by far smaller margins than Mr. Bush had carried it, in 2012 and 2016 respectively. However, Mr. Biden flipped it in 2020 and Ms. Harris carried it by a slightly smaller margin in 2024. In a reverse of Maine, Republican Congressman Don Bacon held Nebraska’s congressional seat in 2020 and again in 2024, highlighting that the area remains competitive in federal elections.
States Lost By Messrs. Trump and Bush
Now let us look at how Messrs. Trump and Bush fared in the Harris-Kerry states. We again begin with an absolute vote share comparison with all the third-party caveats applied.
| State (EV, 24/20) | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| California (54/55) | 38.3 | 44.4 | Bush +6.1 |
| Connecticut (7) | 41.9 | 44.0 | Bush +2.1 |
| Delaware (3) | 41.9 | 45.8 | Bush +3.9 |
| District of Columbia (3) | 6.5 | 9.3 | Bush +2.8 |
| Hawaii (4) | 37.5 | 45.3 | Bush +7.8 |
| Illinois (19/21) | 43.5 | 44.5 | Bush +1.0 |
| Maine (4*) | 45.5 | 44.6 | Trump +0.9 |
| Maine-01 (1) | 38.3 | 43.1 | Bush +4.8 |
| Maryland (10) | 34.1 | 42.9 | Bush +8.8 |
| Massachusetts (11/12) | 36.0 | 36.8 | Bush +0.8 |
| Minnesota (10) | 46.7 | 47.6 | Bush +0.9 |
| New Hampshire (4) | 47.9 | 48.9 | Bush +1.0 |
| New Jersey (14/15) | 46.1 | 46.2 | Bush +0.1 |
| New York (28/31) | 43.3 | 40.1 | Trump +3.2 |
| Oregon (8/7) | 41.0 | 47.9 | Bush +6.9 |
| Rhode Island (4) | 41.8 | 38.7 | Trump +3.1 |
| Vermont (3) | 32.0 | 38.8 | Bush +6.8 |
| Washington (12/11) | 39.0 | 45.6 | Bush +6.6 |
Now let us see their margins from Ms. Harris and Mr. Kerry respectively:
| State | Trump 2024 | Bush 2004 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | -20.2 | 10.0 | Bush +10.2 |
| Connecticut | -14.5 | 10.4 | Bush +4.1 |
| Delaware | -14.7 | -7.6 | Bush +7.1 |
| District of Columbia | -83.8 | -79.8 | Bush +4.0 |
| Hawaii | -22.8 | -8.7 | Bush +14.1 |
| Illinois | -10.9 | -10.3 | Bush +0.6 |
| Maine | -6.9 | -9.0 | Trump +2.1 |
| Maine-1 | -21.2 | -11.9 | Bush +9.3 |
| Maryland | -28.5 | -13.0 | Bush +15.5 |
| Massachusetts | -25.2 | -25.1 | Bush +0.1 |
| Minnesota | -4.2 | -3.5 | Bush +0.7 |
| New Hampshire | -2.8 | -1.4 | Bush +1.4 |
| New Jersey | -5.9 | -6.7 | Trump +0.8 |
| New York | -12.6 | -18.3 | Trump +5.7 |
| Oregon | -14.3 | -4.2 | Bush +10.1 |
| Rhode Island | -13.7 | -20.8 | Trump +7.1 |
| Vermont | -31.2 | -20.1 | Bush +11.1 |
| Washington | -18.2 | -7.2 | Bush +11.0 |
Mr. Bush’s slightly better national vote share and margin can be marked up in significant part to his generally performing better in the states that both he, and Mr. Trump 20 years later, failed to win – perhaps most significantly given its population size, Mr. Bush’s comparatively better performance in California. One reason that there was no notable split between the Electoral College and popular vote results in 2024 whereas there was in 2016 (where Mr. Trump won the election with a 2.1 deficit in the popular vote) and 2020 (Mr. Trump nearly repeated the feat with a 4.5 deficit in the popular vote) was because Mr. Trump performed significantly more respectably in defeat in California, which has the largest population by a wide margin, than he did in 2016 and 2020 (Mr. Trump’s improved performances in Texas, Florida, and, to a lesser extent, New York, also played a role without changing the final outcome in any of those states). Using California as our example, Mr. Trump had a deficit of 3,194,482 in 2024, 5,104,121 in 2020, and 4,269,978 in 2016. While the result is the same in all three cases, California’s out-sized influence can be seen in comparing the national popular margin (Trump +2,284,967 in 2024) to the size of the gaps in California.
Most of the states listed on the double-Democratic win chart were not competitive in either 2004 or 2024, but there are a few worth highlighting for evaluating Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Bush’s performances in electoral college terms.
Maine is one of the few losing states where Mr. Trump out-performed Mr. Bush in terms of vote share and margin, which is reflected in the Maine-02 flip we discussed in the previous section. Mr. Trump had a narrower margin in Maine in 2016, losing the state by just 2.9, but his vote share was slightly better in 2024. Staying in the northeast, New Hampshire was competitive in both 2024 and 2004, but Mr. Bush came closer to carrying the state. Mr. Bush is actually the last Republican to carry New Hampshire, doing so in 2000. Mr. Trump lost New Hampshire by a much narrower margin in 2016, 0.3, than he did in 2024 or Mr. Bush did in 2016, but he only secured 46.5% of the vote in 2016 compared to 47.9% in 2024 (2016 had an unusually high share of third-party votes). We can finish up the northeast in New York and New Jersey. Mr. Trump out-performed Mr. Bush by more in New York than any other losing state, and while it was still not competitive, I doubt many prognosticators had Mr. Trump losing New York by a smaller margin than his winning margin in traditionally competitive Florida. Mr. Bush had a slightly higher vote share in New Jersey than Mr. Trump, but Mr. Trump lost by a smaller 5.9 margin.
Turning to the Midwest, it is notable – and positive for Democrats – that Minnesota has not shifted toward Republicans in the same way as its neighbors, holding relatively steady over two decades. Mr. Trump came within 1.9 in 2016, but he did so with just 44.9% of the vote in that case. The same can be said for Illinois – even granting the Illinois vote is dominated by Cook County, which includes Chicago – it ended 2024 in a similar place to where it was in 2004 despite the Midwest broadly trending right since 2012.
The Republicans have lost ground on the West Coast since 2004. I will start by writing off Mr. Bush’s bizarrely strong performance in Hawaii in 2004, which was and remains the best GOP performance in the state since Ronald Reagan carried it, along with 48 other states, in 1984, as something that defies an easy explanation. California was not competitive in 2004 with Mr. Bush dropping the state by 10.2, but Mr. Trump’s -20.2 margin was the closest a Republican has come since 2004. Mr. Bush lost Oregon by just 0.44 in 2000, making his -4.2 loss in 2004 more of a harbinger than anything. 2004 was the last time a Republican for president came within double digits in either Oregon or Washington, and those states along with California remain solidly blue at the state level.
Conclusion
The similar top-line results for Mr. Bush and Mr. Trump should not obscure the fact that there have been significant electoral shifts – which can be seen in more granular data in the competitive States. These shifts help explain, for example, why Virginia shifted toward Democrats and Ohio toward Republicans. But it is notable that the final top-line electoral map – with the qualified exception of 2008 – have not shifted greatly since Mr. Bush’s second election victory.
Before continuing with our comparison, I will note that this survey should lead to some appreciation of the electoral significance of Mr. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 wins and related political circumstances. Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to carry Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, and West Virginia, and with the exception of Missouri, none of those states were meaningfully close in either of Mr. Bush’s election wins (see 1992 and 1996 top-line results). The Republican gains in those states proved to be sustainable – surviving through 2024 – similarly to Mr. Obama’s flips of Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. While some combination of Mr. Clinton having unique appeal in some of the states in question and general trends broadly favoring Republicans, it would be an exaggeration to say that Mr. Bush was primarily responsible for turning them into solid Republican states at the presidential level, but the fact they became so in 2000 and 2004 cannot be denied.
Granting the top-line similarities – I do think that Mr. Trump’s victory is the more comfortable of the two – looking only at the presidential result. A non-insignificant portion of Mr. Bush’s raw vote edge on Mr. Trump came in states, namely California, that were not competitive. Mr. Trump’s wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin expand the GOP map more than Mr. Bush’s wins in Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. Moreover, the status of Florida and Ohio, the 3rd and 6th largest states respectively, as solidly Republican plays a role in allowing Republicans to allocate resources to the tightening sunbelt states and the more-competitive uppermidwest. This conclusion is also consistent with the electoral vote composition of Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Bush’s wins. As an initial matter, this is easy to see based on the electoral margin, with Mr. Trump being 42 votes clear of the 270 needed to win while Mr. Bush was only 16 clear. Another way we can see this is by looking at the tipping point state, meaning the margin in the state that the runner-up would have needed to flip to win. In 2004, Mr. Kerry would have won the election had he won Ohio, which was the fifth closest state. Mr. Bush won Ohio by 118,601 votes, or 2.10% in percent terms. (Note: Mr. Kerry was much closer to flipping Iowa and New Mexico than Ohio, but those two together without Ohio would have left him short of 270.) Ms. Harris would have had to flip the three closest states – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – to reach 270. Mr. Trump carried Wisconsin by 29,397 (0.87%), Michigan by 80,103 (1.41%), and Pennsylvania by 120,266 (1.71%). Granting that Mr. Bush’s tipping point percent margin (albeit not raw vote margin) was greater than Mr. Trump’s, Mr. Kerry only needed one close state to win. While one would suspect that in a world where Ms. Harris won Pennsylvania, she would have also won Michigan and Wisconsin, we cannot say for certain – for example it is not inconceivable that specific circumstances could have resulted in Mr. Trump holding Michigan or even Wisconsin (he performed better in Wisconsin than Michigan in 2016 and 2020) in a universe where he lost Pennsylvania, still keeping him above 270.
(Down-ballot elections are beyond our scope, but consider that the Republicans won more House seats in 2004 (232) than in 2024 (220), but the Republicans had a larger national share of the vote in 2024 (50.5%, +2.8) than in 2004 (49.4%, +2.8). Republicans gained four Senate seats in 2004 and 2024, ending with 55 in 2004 and 53 in 2024 due to having started with a small 51-seat majority in the former.)
It is always hard to draw firm conclusions from one election to the next. For example, while Mr. Bush’s two wins largely solidified the south as Republican on the presidential level, Mr. Obama detonated his winning map by flipping nine states in 2008 and holding seven of his flips in 2012 – and as we discussed, three of the nine states Mr. Obama flipped – Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia – were never carried by Mr. Trump. Conversely, Mr. Trump’s gains in Florida, Iowa, and Ohio look likely to be transferable to future Republican nominees as a result of the size of his victories and general trends in those states. But whether another Republican can replicate his gains in the upper Midwest or out-perform him in other areas remains an open question in an environment where a non-insignificant number of voters in 2028 will have never voted in a presidential election in which Mr. Trump was not the Republican nominee.
I am sure that statisticians with more time and inclination can put together a far more compelling comparison of 2024 vs 2004 by bringing in more data from intervening elections as well as 2000, which also bears on the inquiry. However, I have no such time or inclination – although I would be interested in reading more detailed surveys. So as we look ahead to a new presidency, I conclude my look back at the 2024 and 2004 Presidential Elections that were.
