United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2004

United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2004

November 2, 2004

Nominee Richard Burr Erskine Bowles Party Republican Democratic Popular vote 1,791,450 1,632,527 Percentage 51.60% 47.02%

200px County Results

Senator before election John Edwards Democratic Elected Senator Richard Burr Republican

The 2004 United States Senate election in North Carolina was held on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator John Edwards decided to retire from the Senate, ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination, and became his party's vice presidential nominee. Republican Richard Burr won the open seat.

Primaries

Democratic

Erskine Bowles won the Democratic Party's nomination unopposed. He had been the party's nominee for the state's other Senate seat in 2002.

Republican

2004 North Carolina U.S. Senate Republican primary election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Richard Burr	302,319	87.92	N/A
	Republican	John Ross Hendrix	25,971	7.55	N/A
	Republican	Albert Wiley	15,585	4.53	N/A
Turnout			343,875

General election

Candidates

• Tom Bailey (L), Vietnam War veteran
• Erskine Bowles (D), businessman and President Bill Clinton's chief of staff
• Richard Burr (R), U.S. Representative from North Carolina's 5th congressional district since 1995

Campaign

Both major-party candidates engaged in negative campaign tactics, with Bowles' campaign attacking Burr for special interest donations and his positions on trade legislation, and Burr's campaign attacking Bowles for his connections to the Clinton administration. Both attacks had basis in reality: Burr's campaign raised funds from numerous political action committees and at least 72 of the 100 largest Fortune 500 companies, while Bowles departed from the Clinton administration in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Burr won the election by 4%. He joined the Senate in January 2005. Bowles went on to become the president of the UNC system.

Results

2004 North Carolina U.S. Senate election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Richard Burr	1,791,450	51.60	+4.58
	Democratic	Erskine Bowles	1,632,527	47.02	–4.13
	Libertarian	Tom Bailey	47,743	1.38	–0.46
	Nonpartisan	Walker F. Rucker (write-in)	362	0.01	N/A
Turnout			2,577,891

See also

• United States Senate elections, 2004