Incumbent President George W. Bush announced in mid-2003 that he would campaign for re-election ; he faced no major challengers . He then went on , throughout early 2004 , to win every nomination contest , including a sweep of Super Tuesday , beating back the vacuum of challengers and maintaining the recent tradition of an easy primary for incumbent Presidents ( the last time an incumbent was seriously challenged in a presidential primary contest was when Senator Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980 ) . Bush managed to raise US$ 130 million in 2003 alone , and expected to set a national primary fund-raising record of $ 200 million by the time of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City
2004 Republican National Convention
2004 Republican National Convention
2004 Republican Party presidential primaries