Amid all the postelection tumult, it's easy to lose sight of what President Bush did -- and did not -- accomplish in his reelection victory this month.
Bush didn't build as commanding a presidential majority as some coverage has suggested, but he did significantly strengthen the Republican hold on Congress. One key question for the next four years is whether he can use that strong position on Capitol Hill to build a broader national coalition that would establish a more secure GOP edge in presidential contests.
Measured by contemporary standards, Bush won a solid, even decisive, victory. With his 51%, he became the first president since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote.
He expanded his vote among Latinos, a key to maintaining the GOP's advantage in Florida and the Southwest. He cemented the Republican hold on rural and fast-growing exurban counties. Like Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, he demonstrated that a culturally conservative and tough-on-security message could make inroads among both married women and blue-collar men.
In all, Bush increased his margin of victory in 20 of the 30 states he won last time and reduced the Democratic margin in 11 of the 20 states he lost in 2000. With turnout surging, he won more popular votes than any of his predecessors. And he attracted this support in a difficult climate marked by an uneven economic performance at home and a grueling war in Iraq.
Yet by the standards of previous reelected presidents, Bush's victory looks much more modest. Since the formation of the modern political party system in 1828, 11 presidents have won a second term, while four more -- Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson -- won election after completing the term of a president who died in office.
No single measure captures the extent of a presidential victory. The sheer number of voters that Bush inspired to turn out demonstrated impressive strength. But on several key indicators, Bush's victory ranks among the narrowest ever for a reelected president.
Measured as a share of the popular vote, Bush beat Kerry by just 2.9 percentage points: 51% to 48.1%. That's the smallest margin of victory for a reelected president since 1828.
The only previous incumbent who won a second term nearly so narrowly was Democrat Woodrow Wilson: In 1916, he beat Republican Charles E. Hughes by 3.1 percentage points. Apart from Truman in 1948 (whose winning margin was 4.5 percentage points), every other president elected to a second term since 1832 has at least doubled the margin that Bush had over Kerry.
