Abstract
The regional electoral divide across America made closely contested midwestern states like Ohio, with its twenty-one electoral votes, all the more important in the 2004 election. Both presidential campaigns focused much of their regional travel in close proximity to the Great Lakes and the northern reaches of the Mississippi River.1 In 2004, the upper Midwest had five of the most competitive states nationwide. When they were not in Ohio, candidates Kerry and Bush crisscrossed nearby states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.2 Neither candidate, on the other hand, spent much time traversing the central Midwest Plains states of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas, states that have solidly voted for Republican presidential candidates without exception since 1968.
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© 2005 Kevin J. McMahon, David M. Rankin, Donald W. Beachler, and John Kenneth White
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Rankin, D.M. (2005). The Midwest. In: Winning the White House, 2004. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980861_7
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