George W. Bush was elected 43rd
President of the
United States of America by a
margin of 1% of the Electoral College vote on
November 7th, 2000 CE, serving the 2000-2004 term. However, a vote recount ensued when results of voting in several
Florida counties were disputed, and Bush did not officially become
President-Elect until December 13, after a lengthy legal battle. He won by a
margin of less than 150
votes, in one of the closest
American elections in
history. It should be noted that while he won the Electoral College vote, he lost the popular vote.
A member of the Republican Party, Bush was among other things the first President to have a criminal record (a DUI conviction in 1978) and also the first to preside over a government where both the House of Representatives and the Presidential seat were held by the Republican Party since Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-57). He is the son of former President George Bush, who also served as vice-president under Ronald Reagan.