1. President Bush became the first President to be re-elected while gaining seats in the House and Senate since 1936 and the first Republican President since 1924 to be re-elected while re-electing Republican House and Senate majorities.
2. Became the first President to win a majority of the popular vote since 1988.
3. Received 57.4 million votes – more than any other candidate in history. He broke President Reagan’s 1984 mark of 54.5 million. (96% reporting)
4. Increased the popular vote by seven million votes since 2000 – more than twice Clinton’s increase from 1992 to 1996.
5. Improved his percentage in every state except four (MD, OR, VT and WY). This includes a four percent increase in John Kerry’s home state, Massachusetts.
I’m not displeased with my election predictions. The final CNN/Gallup Poll had the election at 49 to 49. If you recall, I said that you always have to add five points to the Republican, and the final results were 52 to 48 percent. (The media is rounding 51.55 percent down, surprise surprise). Unlike National Review and all the Northern Alliance guys except for Hugh Hewitt, I did not take the early exit polls seriously and posted to that effect at the time here yesterday.
The day after the Massachusetts Supreme Court created “gay marriage” I said that Bush would have an easy victory – not a landslide, just one that wasn’t subject to 2000-style recounts – and that’s pretty much what happened. Ohio, you’ll note, had a marriage amendment on the ballot which brought out the social conservatives who obviously weren’t interested in the Constitution Party. I think it was only as close as it was because the stock market has been flat throughout the campaign. Had the market crashed, Robert Prechter almost surely would have been right and Bush would have lost; that did not turn out to be the case. Timing is clearly not their strong suit, but all the same, one ignores him and leaps into the markets now at one’s peril.
I was largely wrong about the turnout, which I expected to be flat. However, the much-ballyhooed P.Diddy-MTV youth vote failed to manifest, so I wasn’t completely wrong there. And, of course, I wasn’t even close on the third-party turnout, as the LP’s Michael Badnarik didn’t hit 1 million votes or a combined 2 percent of the ballot with the CP. Clearly, the further you are emotionally away from something, the easier it is to analyze it accurately.
We are here for all your election prediction and analysis needs. And Jeanne, when you’re ready to order those books, you can do it here….