With less than a week before the 2 November presidential election, competing polls in late October 2004 showed an exceptionally tight national contest between Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic Senator John Kerry. Surveys ranged from a slim Kerry lead of three points in Washington Post and Rasmussen tracking polls, to a dead heat in the Los Angeles Times poll, to a Bush advantage of as many as eight points in TIPP and Gallup surveys.
The decisive battleground shifted to individual states, where each candidate needed 270 electoral votes to claim the presidency. Analysts credited Bush with roughly 213 solidly committed electors across 25 states, while Kerry held an estimated 207 from 15 states and the District of Columbia. Ten states totaling 118 electoral votes remained genuinely contested.
Florida (27 electoral votes), Ohio (20), and Pennsylvania (21) drew the most attention, with several analysts suggesting that winning any two of those three states would likely decide the presidency.
Political analysts mapped out several possible outcomes, including a large Bush victory reaching 327 electoral votes, a strong Kerry win at 311, or even a 269-269 tie that would send the decision to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for the first time since 1824.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.