on election day 2004...

[WalterMitty]

bush.

[Sumner 1868]

Bush, though I desperately sought his defeat.

[King]

Bush. I might have been tricked by those early exit polls if I saw them, but I was at school most of the day when those came out so my long belief that Bush had it in the bag was going strong into the evening.

The only thing I recall getting wrong about 2004 prediction was Wisconsin for Bush and Dino Rossi, but I'm still not convinced I got those wrong. If Kerry had attempted a recount in Ohio, Bush's best counter strategy would have been to request a recount in Wisconsin.

[TDAS04]

I had a feeling that Bush was going to win.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

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.

[ZuWo]

Kerry. I watched the Swiss news on election night and they showed a very reputable pollster named John Zogby who predicted with a great deal of confidence that Kerry was going to win.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Kerry

I still believed in that undecideds breaking towards the challenger nonsense, and had Kerry winning both Florida and Ohio.  I'll cut myself some slack, I was only 17. 

[Mr. Smith]

Kerry

I couldn't believe people would actually vote for someone so inarticulate that even an average 11 year old would be embarrassed.

Even with no political knowledge, I figured the adults would vote for the person who can finish the sentence.

[Torie]

Oh, I thought the odds were about 2-1 that Bush would win, just as I though at the end that the odds were about 2-1 that Obama 2012 would win (the doubt in 2012 being which turn out models were correct, and we found out which one was - Obama's!). The Obama margin was surprisingly large however due to the unexpected fall off in the white working class, lower/lower middle class vote.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Bush, but I figured it was a 50-50 shot.

[retromike22]

I thought Kerry was going to win. He was actually the first Presidential candidate who I had voted for, although I voted for Edwards in the primary.

[Lief 🗽]

Kerry. He was basically tied in Florida and Ohio and I thought undecideds would break towards him. Plus I figured Nevadans weren't idiots who wanted a bunch of nuclear waste dumped in their state. But boy was I wrong!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Bush. I might have been tricked by those early exit polls if I saw them, but I was at school most of the day when those came out so my long belief that Bush had it in the bag was going strong into the evening.

The only thing I recall getting wrong about 2004 prediction was Wisconsin for Bush and Dino Rossi, but I'm still not convinced I got those wrong. If Kerry had attempted a recount in Ohio, Bush's best counter strategy would have been to request a recount in Wisconsin.

I did. But even to me, they seemed ridiculous.

I did think Kerry would win, but only by winning OH.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I just assumed Bush would win because he was President. I had no idea 2004 was as close as it actually was until 2008 .

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

2004, my dad was voting for Bush and my mom was voting for Nader.  I remember my dad watching the map and explaining that red was for Bush and blue was for Kerry.  I asked him what color Nader states would be and he said "I guess they would be Green."  I kept wondering why there were no green states, I thought Nader would win at least one of the smaller states.  I did think Bush would win though.

[Indy Texas]

I went to bed thinking Kerry would win. Kerry conceded sometime mid-morning the next day but being in high school I was in class and obviously couldn't just look it up on my phone in 2004. I think I was in the computer lab in the afternoon when I read about the concession. Strange how "slow" information moved back then...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I went to bed thinking Kerry would win. Kerry conceded sometime mid-morning the next day but being in high school I was in class and obviously couldn't just look it up on my phone in 2004. I think I was in the computer lab in the afternoon when I read about the concession. Strange how "slow" information moved back then...

Hell, I found out Qaddafi had been killed the same exact way and that was 2011 . I remember pulling up a giant image of his bloodied face and immediately clicking out because I was a nervous freshman afraid of getting in trouble for being off task in computers class.

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

I just assumed Bush would win because he was President. I had no idea 2004 was as close as it actually was until 2008 .

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Didn't care (literally in 1st grade)

[Cory]

I was a naive young liberal and thought Kerry would win.

[Thunderbird is the word]

Was absolutely convinced that Kerry was going to win, until midday on November 3rd. I cried when I found out the true election results and ended up owing a Republican friend in home room five bucks.

[courts]

bush obviously

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I honestly had no idea, since it could go either way (nonetheless, I strongly hoped for Kerry).

[Phony Moderate]

Bush. It was also the first election of any kind that I was aware of.

Pretty absurd to compare it to 2012 though. Obama had a consistent lead in most of the battleground states and actually did even better in them when the results came in. In 2004, OH, FL, PA, NM, WI, NH and IA were all toss-ups...though for whatever reason Kerry's chances beforehand were rated higher in OH than in FL, despite polling showing the same thing pretty much in both...of course FL was indeed a solid win for Bush, but it still seems strange.

[Ebowed]

It was my last month living in America, actually.  We left for Australia in December 2004.  I was 14 at the time and was rooting for Kerry, and I thought / maybe more hoped that he would win.  But Bush's victory didn't come as a surprise.