In 2004, George W. Bush was the first Republican to win the popular vote outright in a generation. He earned 50.7 percent, for just 286 Electoral College votes. It was a narrow but convincing win in a divided electorate. He was particularly helped by the fact that eleven states held ballot referenda on same-sex marriage. Despite some fringe lunatics speculating about voting machines, it was a clean, undisputed victory. Whereas four years earlier people blamed the Supreme Court or poorly designed ballots in Florida, this time, observers began conceding that Bush political strategist Karl Rove was right to call America a center-right country. “I earned capital in this election,” Bush bragged, “and I’m going to spend it.”
The campaign had focused relentlessly on two issues, Bush’s leadership in the war on terror after 9/11 and the renewal of tax cuts passed in his first term.
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