on election day 2004...

[tik 🪀✨]

I really wasn't sure. I was hoping for Kerry, of course, but I wasn't following it especially closely, and the story was that it could go either way.

I mostly just remember being annoyed when I discovered my friends had voted for Bush because abortion and gays.

Holy sh**t. That  was ten years ago. Oh god

[morgieb]

Heck, I didn't even take a vested interest in the 2004 Australian election, let alone the American one. I doubt I knew who John Kerry was lol.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

2004 was the first American election I've followed closely.

[Tender Branson]

I actually thought Kerry had a good chance to win and he almost did: he just needed 100.000 or so more votes in OH (which were probably stolen by Ken Blackwell ... ).

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Bush.  I had no concerns in 2004. 

[Mr. Illini]

I believed that the President would be reelected

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Hmmm interesting. Why were all of you so confident that Bush would win?

Kerry had a good chance to win and he almost did: he just needed 100.000 or so more votes in OH (which were probably stolen by Ken Blackwell ... ).

This. I still don't know why Kerry decided not to challenge the results in OH, there would have been many reasons to do so. Don't ge me wrong: He was a TERRIBLE candidate and I would have voted for Nader in 04, but every time I watch 2004 election night coverage videos, I always hope that Kerry wins lol. (Same with 1992 for Bush, btw.) Democrats often complain about Republican voter fraud occuring today, but when it actually mattered - in 2004 - Democrats (including Kerry) were silent. Two sides of the same coin. I don't consider Bush jun. to be a legitimate president. Never did, never will. The last real Republican win was in 1988, although that was by no means a "moral victory" for the GOP considering the wicked strategy Bush and Atwater used to win.  

Problem is, even if counting of uncounted provisional ballots at the wrong polling places would have made up the ~120,000 vote deficit, it would have been very close and probably would have resulted in a full recount afterward, and who knows what would have happened then? Besides, Bush would have countered the move by asking for a recount in Wisconsin, which could have flipped the result there. In the end, challenging the OH result would have resulted in a 2000-style battle culminating in a supreme court decision, and even if it had gone in Kerry's favor, he would still get tons of people calling it unjustified because of Bush's 2.5% win in the national popular vote and would probably come into office significantly underwater in his approvals and with little if any political capital. He made the right choice.

[Ebsy]

Can you imagine how the country would have lost their collective minds if there was another recount for W.

[Eraserhead]

Thought it was a pure-tossup as the day started. Thought Kerry would win when the exit polls started leaking. Thought Bush would win as the real numbers started pouring in.

As someone who had just turned 18 as well as someone who had only really been a truly politically minded person for a couple of years, it taught me an important lesson about the worth, or lack thereof, of exit polling. It also taught me what a buffoon John Zogby was and still is to this day!

[OSR stands with Israel]

Didn't care (literally in 1st grade)

That means you joined this bard as a middle schooler

[Eraserhead]

It was fairly obviously going to be Bush to anyone able to think at the time - nearly as likely as Obama's 2012 re-election was. I mean I was 10 so I was pretty stupid and got like 7 states wrong still believing in miracles - PA, MI, MN, HI on the optimistic side and NV, NE, and WV or something on the Kerry side, but even I felt it as a foregone conclusion.

Uh, no. You're way off on that. If Kerry could have flipped one of the close big states, he would have won. Romney was crushed in the EC.

[Lurker]

Yeah, Kerry received 251 electoral votes, so saying that Bush was the obvious winner is just silly. Though, actually, the vast majority of Republican pundits and "experts" thought Romney to be the likely winner, all the way up to election day.

[politicallefty]

The 2004 election was the first I really followed closely, even though I was 17 at the time. I knew the election was close, but I did really feel like Kerry was going to win. Both of my parents voted for Kerry (the first time they voted the same in a presidential election). My mom even called to excuse me from school the next day so I could stay up and watch the election results. I stayed up very late and it wasn't until I woke up the next day that I found out that Kerry conceded. I didn't know until my mom called and basically woke me up that morning and told me. I'm not going to lie about my reaction, but I did break down on the phone when I heard that (and I pretty much avoided all news for a couple weeks after the fact).

[IceSpear]

Well, I was 11. I thought Bush would lose because "everyone thinks he's dumb."