| Election Name: | 2004 Azorean regional election |
| Country: | Azores |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Previous Election: | 2000 Azorean regional election |
| Previous Year: | 2000 |
| Election Date: | 17 October 2004 |
| Next Election: | 2008 Azorean regional election |
| Next Year: | 2008 |
| Seats For Election: | 52 seats to the Legislative Assembly of Azores |
| Majority Seats: | 27 |
| Turnout: | 55.2% 1.9 pp |
| Leader1: | Carlos César |
| Party1: | Socialist Party (Portugal) |
| Leaders Seat1: | São Miguel |
| Last Election1: | 30 seats, 49.2% |
| Seats1: | 31 |
| Seat Change1: | 1 |
| Popular Vote1: | 60,140 |
| Percentage1: | 57.0% |
| Swing1: | 7.8 pp |
| Colour2: | 00aaaa |
| Leader2: | Victor do Couto Cruz |
| Party2: | PSD |
| Leaders Seat2: | São Miguel |
| Last Election2: | 20 seats, 42.1%[1] |
| Seats2: | 21 |
| Seat Change2: | 1 |
| Popular Vote2: | 38,883 |
| Percentage2: | 36.8% |
| Swing2: | 5.3 pp |
| Map Size: | 250px |
| President | |
| Posttitle: | President-designate |
| Before Election: | Carlos César |
| Before Party: | Socialist Party (Portugal) |
| After Election: | Carlos César |
| After Party: | Socialist Party (Portugal) |
| Alliance2: | CA |
The Azores Regional Election, 2004 (Portuguese: Eleições Regionais dos Açores, 2004) was an election held on 17 October 2004 for the legislative assembly and government of the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores, in which the Socialist Party, under the leadership of Carlos César won 57 percent of the votes, and got an absolute majority, for the 2nd consecutive turn. The Social Democratic Party ran in a coalition with the People's Party, called Azores Coalition, but was massively defeated gathering just 37 percent of the votes.[2]
Voter turnout increased, for the first time since the 1992 election, with 55.2 percent of the electorate casting their ballot on election day.
In the Azores, there were 52 seats in the Regional Parliament in dispute, the same of the previous election, in 2000. The seats were distributed by the 9 islands of the archipelago proportionally to the population of each island; however, each island is entitled to at least two members of parliament.
A total of 7 parties and/or coalitions ran in these elections. The parties/coalitions listed on the voting ballots were the following:
For a third consecutive term, the Socialist Party won the regional election in Azores, increasing its share of the vote from 49% to 57%, and re-electing Carlos César to the presidency of the Regional Government. César and his party obtained an absolute majority with 31 of the assembly's 52 seats.[3]
The Social Democrats and the People's Party contested these elections in a joint coalition called "Azores Coalition". The coalition achieved a very disappointing result, polling 20% below the Socialists. The PSD/CDS-PP coalition only won 37% of the votes, but was able to increase the number of parliament members to 21, against the combined total of 20 both parties had since 2000. In fact, the bad result from this PSD/CDS-PP coalition was one of the reasons PSD and CDS didn't contest, in a coalition, the 2005 general elections.[4] Due to the strong bipolarization of the race, both PS and PSD/CDS-PP gathered a total of almost 94% of the votes, and due to the application of the Hondt election model in the nine islands, the smaller parties were severely punished. The Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU), led by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), saw their share of vote reduced by almost half and they lost all representation in the regional parliament. The Left Bloc also suffered a setback by polling below 1%.
The People's Monarchist Party, the Earth Party and the Democratic Party of the Atlantic also failed to make any inroads.
|-| colspan="11"||-! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing! colspan="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|MPs! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|MPs %/
votes %|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"! align="center"|2000! align="center"|2004! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±|-| |60,140||56.97||7.8||30||31||1||59.62||1.9||1.05|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#00aaaa align="center" | |align=left|Azores Coalition (PSD / CDS–PP)|38,883||36.84||5.3||20||21||1||40.38||1.9||1.10|-| |2,942||2.79||2.0||2||0||2||0.00||3.9||0.0|-| |1,022||0.97||0.4||0||0||0||0.00||0||0.0|-| |369||0.35||||||0||||0.00||||0.0|-| |293||0.28||||||0||||0.00||||0.0|-| |248||0.23||||||0||||0.00||||0.0|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|103,897|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|98.43|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.2|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|52|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|52|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|879||0.83||0.1||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|780||0.74||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|105,556|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||191,127||55.23||1.9|-| colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições|}
|- class="unsortable"!rowspan=2|Constituency!!%!!S!!%!!S!rowspan=2|Total
S|- class="unsortable" style="text-align:center;"!colspan=2 | PS!colspan=2 | CA|-| style="text-align:left;" | Corvo| style="background:; color:white;"|49.4| 1| 36.1| 1| 2|-| style="text-align:left;" | Faial| 39.8| 2| style="background:#00aaaa; color:white;"|40.2| 2| 4|-| style="text-align:left;" | Flores| style="background:; color:white;"|46.2| 2| 35.9| 1| 3|-| style="text-align:left;" | Graciosa| style="background:; color:white;"|52.7| 2| 44.3| 1| 3|-| style="text-align:left;" | Pico| style="background:; color:white;"|49.4| 2| 46.3| 2| 4|-| style="text-align:left;" | Santa Maria| style="background:; color:white;"|68.7| 2| 25.5| 1| 3|-| style="text-align:left;" | São Jorge| 44.3| 2| style="background:#00aaaa; color:white;"|50.7| 2| 4|-| style="text-align:left;" | São Miguel| style="background:; color:white;"|65.6| 12| 33.8| 7| 19|-| style="text-align:left;" | Terceira| style="background:; color:white;"|59.1| 6| 37.0| 4| 10|- class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9"| style="text-align:left;" | Total| style="background:; color:white;"|57.0| 31| 36.8| 21| 52|-| colspan=6 style="text-align:left;" | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições|}