| Election Name: | 2004 Republican Party presidential primaries |
| Country: | United States |
| Type: | primary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 2000 Republican Party presidential primaries |
| Previous Year: | 2000 |
| Election Date: | January 19 to June 8, 2004 |
| Next Election: | 2008 Republican Party presidential primaries |
| Next Year: | 2008 |
| Image1: | File:George-W-Bush.jpeg |
| Colour1: | d30036 |
| Candidate1: | George W. Bush |
| Home State1: | Texas |
| Delegate Count1: | 2,509 |
| States Carried1: | 49 |
| Popular Vote1: | 7,853,863[1] |
| Percentage1: | 98.1% |
| Colour2: | 000000 |
| Candidate2: | Uncommitted |
| States Carried2: | 0 |
| Delegate Count2: | 0 |
| Popular Vote2: | 91,926[2] |
| Percentage2: | 1.2% |
| Image3: | Deleted image removed: --> |
| Image3: | 3x4.svg |
| Colour3: | 53e349 |
| Candidate3: | Bill Wyatt |
| Home State3: | California[3] |
| States Carried3: | 0 |
| Delegate Count3: | 0 |
| Popular Vote3: | 10,937[4] |
| Percentage3: | 0.1% |
| Republican nominee | |
| Before Election: | George W. Bush |
| After Election: | George W. Bush |
From January 19 to June 8, 2004, voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for president in the 2004 United States presidential election. Incumbent President George W. Bush was again selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2004 Republican National Convention held from August 30 to September 2, 2004, in New York City.
Incumbent President George W. Bush announced in mid-2003 that he would campaign for re-election; he faced no major challengers. He then went on, throughout early 2004, to win every nomination contest, including a sweep of Super Tuesday, beating back the vacuum of challengers and maintaining the recent tradition of an easy primary for incumbent Presidents (the last time an incumbent was seriously challenged in a presidential primary contest was when Senator Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980).
Bush won every state with comfortable margins: his worst performance was in New Hampshire, where he received 79.8% of the vote. The only human challenger to receive over 5% of the vote in any state was Bill Wyatt from California, who received 10% of the vote in Oklahoma in a minor upset. "Uncommitted" also received over 5% of the vote in Massachusetts (8.7%), Rhode Island (12.4%) and Texas (7.5%).
Bush managed to raise US$130 million in 2003 alone, and expected to set a national primary fund-raising record of $200 million by the time of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.
Several states and territories canceled their respective Republican primaries altogether, citing Bush being the only candidate to qualify on their respective ballot, including Connecticut,[5] Florida,[6] Mississippi,[7] New York,[8] Puerto Rico,[9] and South Dakota.[10]
Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an opponent of the war in Iraq, Bush's tax cuts, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and much of Bush's social agenda, considered challenging Bush in the New Hampshire primary in the fall of 2003. He decided not to run, after the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003.[11] He would later change his party affiliation to Democratic and run in that party's 2016 presidential primaries.[12] [13]
As of the 2024 presidential election, Bush is the last incumbent president, Democrat or Republican, to win all the delegates going into the national convention.
| Candidate | Most recent office | Home state | data-sort-type="date" | Campaign Withdrawal date | Popularvote | Contests won | Running mate | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data-sort-="" scope="row" style="background:linen;" | George W. Bush | President of the United States (2001–2009) | Texas | data-sort-value="0" | (Campaign • Positions) Secured nomination: March 10, 2004 | data-sort-value="14,015,993" | 7,853,863 (98.01%) | data-sort-value="44" | 49 | Dick Cheney | |||
| Candidate | home state | total votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uncommitted | 91,926 | 1.1% | ||
| (others) | various | 49,281 | 0.8% | |
| Bill Wyatt | 10,847 | 0% | ||
| Blake Ashby | 1.145 | 0% |
All but one of the following were on the ballot only in the state of New Hampshire.
| Candidate | Home state | total votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Bosa | 841 | 1.2% | ||
| 836 | 1.2% | |||
| John Rigazio | 803 | 1.2% | ||
| Robert Haines | 579 | 0.9% | ||
| Michael Callis | New Hampshire | 388 | 0.6% | |
| Millie Howard | 239 | 0.4% | ||
| California | 154 | 0.2% | ||
| Jim Taylor | 124 | 0.2% | ||
| Mark "Dick" Harnes | 87 | 0.1% | ||
| Cornelius E. O'Connor, | 77 | 0.1% | ||
| George Gostigian, | 52 | 0.1% | ||
| 14[17] | 0 |
There were 2,509 total delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention, of which 650 were so-called "superdelegates" who were not bound by any particular state's primary or caucus votes and could change their votes at any time. A candidate needs 1,255 delegates to become the nominee. Except for the Northern Mariana Islands and Midway Atoll, all states, territories, and other inhabited areas of the United States offer delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention.
For brevity, states that did not hold a contest or had Bush as the only option on the ballot are omitted. Only candidates who placed third or better in a primary are included.
| Legend: | 1st place (popular vote) | 2nd place (popular vote) | 3rd place (popular vote) | Candidate has withdrawn | Candidate unable to appear on ballot |
|---|
| Date | Pledged delegates | Contest | George W. Bush | BW Bill Wyatt | Jack Fellure | Other | Uncommitted | Total votes cast | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 27 | 29 | New Hampshire | 79.8% | 0.2% | Not on ballot | 20.0% | Not on ballot | 67,833 votes | |||
| February 3 | 57 | Missouri | 95.1% | 1.0% | Not on ballot | 0.8% | 3.1% | 123,086 votes | |||
| 26 | North Dakota | 99.1% | Not on ballot | 0.7% | 0.2% | Not on ballot | 2,020 votes | ||||
| 41 | Oklahoma | 90.0% | 10.0% | Not on ballot | 66,198 votes | ||||||
| February 10 | 52 | Tennessee | 95.4% | Not on ballot | 4.6% | 99,061 votes | |||||
| February 17 | 37 | Wisconsin | 99.2% | Not on ballot | 0.8% | 159,884 votes | |||||
| March 2 | 41 | Massachusetts | 90.6% | Not on ballot | 0.7% | 8.7% | 69,278 votes | ||||
| 18 | Rhode Island | 84.9% | Not on ballot | 2.7% | 12.4% | 2,535 votes | |||||
| March 9 | 45 | Louisiana | 96.1% | 3.9% | Not on ballot | 72,010 votes | |||||
| 135 | Texas | 92.5% | Not on ballot | 7.5% | 2,535 votes | ||||||
| March 16 | 60 | Illinois | 100% | Not on ballot | Not on ballot | 583,575 votes | |||||
| May 18 | 35 | Arkansas | 97.1% | Not on ballot | 2.9% | 38,363 votes | |||||
| 43 | Kentucky | 92.5% | Not on ballot | 7.5% | 117,379 votes | ||||||
| 28 | Oregon | 94.9% | Not on ballot | 5.1% | 309,506 votes | ||||||
| May 25 | 26 | Idaho | 89.5% | Not on ballot | 10.5% | 123,793 votes | |||||
| June 1 | 45 | Alabama | 92.8% | Not on ballot | 7.2% | 201,487 votes | |||||
| Totals votes from contested states | 718 | 16 contests | 95.3% | 0.4% | 0.000% | 0.53% | 5.2% | 2,723,637 votes | |||
| Convention roll call | 100% | 0% | |||||||||