Talk Elections

What would have happened if Ross Perot would not have jumped out, then back in of the 1992 Presidential race?

I remember he dropped out , praising the Democrats and blasting Bush and was ahead by like 1% the day he left the race ( which I thought was really odd).  I also remember he was 2d in some states int he final tallies.  Plus even with jumping in and out he still got 19% of the vote, best 3rd party run since TR.  

Would the election have been forced intot he House or could Perot have won if he wouldn't have screwed around?

Perot probably would have needed at least a 5% advantage in the polls in order to get a 1% advantage on election day in order to win because of the lack of party GOTV efforts that the Republicans and Democrats are able to do.

Perot would have also done better had he chosen a sensible Vice Presidential candidate - maybe Lowell Weicker?

What would have been interesting is to see how the Electoral vote would have turned out.  Perot did extremely well in the west and probably would have won everything except California and Utah.  The margins of victory for Bush in the south were already small and a strong Perot might have caused some of them to swing to Clinton.

In the northeast Perot would pick up Maine and New Hampshire and I think that Vermont could have been persuaded.

I think that Clinton would have won, but that Bush would have faced a humiliation of Taft like proportions(what would he be left with? Texas? if Perot ran stronger that's doubtfull)

Yeah, inclined tp agree. Bush would probably have done badly. It depends on where we suppose the aditional Perot votes are taken. Most polls seem to indicate that they would mostly have been Bush-voters, and then Clinton would have retained his majority in the EC.

OK, so I've checked the 1992 results based on the assumption that Perot picks up 10%, 5% from CLinton and 5% from Bush. I think this is favourable to the jvravnsbo theory, some of you might argue that Perot would have taken more voters from Bush than Clinton. Perot would win some states in the west, just like Don thought. But Bush won a lot in the west so it hurts him a lot too. So Perot picks up Montana, Nevada and Maine from Clinton and Kansas, Idaho, Wyoming and Arizona from Bush. The totals are then

Perot: 32

Bush: 147

Clinton: 359

and a still comfortable win for Clinton. (the popular vote would have been Clinton 38%, Bush 32% and Perot 29%). I will make another one though, Bringing Perot up in second place.  

Sorry, missed out Alaska, which would also have gone for Perot in the above scenario.

If we suppose a swing to Perot of 14%, half from Bush, half from Clinton, it would give the PV Clinton 36%, Bush 30% and Perot 33%, with Perot running is second place. I have distributed his pickup equally over the country, which might not be right, but probably would not help Perot that much anyway.

In addition to the above states, Perot would then pick up Texas, Oklahoma and South Dakota from Bush, as well as coming within 0.15% of winning North Dakota and 0.07% of winning Florida. He would also pick up Washington, Oregon, New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Ohio from Clinton, making the total number of EVs the following:

Perot: 158

Bush: 101

Clinton: 279

So Clinton would still win. And most of the remaining Clinton states are those in the south, mid-west, west and North East where he had close to 50%. So it is hard to see Clinton not losing that election, it seems to me like most of the places where Perot was strong were GOP territory, he couldn't have hurt Clinton that much either way.
Clinton:

The best Perot would have done I think is maybe keep Clinton below 270 EV and force it into the House, but then it was democrat and Clinton wins that way.

Yes, but even that seems unlikely.

The election would probably have been pushed into the House and Clinton would have won it there.   I think we still had the majority in Congress back then...the good old days...

But there is the state delegations that vote right? Did the Dems have that, or just a majority of representatives?

Its a vote by state, but GOP won like 40-50 states in 1994 to take charge, so I think the Dem majorities were high.

Poor ole Gephardt.  He was majority leader and Foley the speaker got beat, so he was in line to be Speaker and GOP for the first time in 40 years takes over.  Thanks Bill!

I think the house votes in the event of no electoral majority.

Yes, but thi was discussed on a previous thread, and it was stated that a majority of the 50 House delegations is required, not a majority of the 435 congressmen.

Oh.  I would imaigne the Dems still would have pulled it out though..

Well, jravnsbo seems to think so, anyway. But the Reps have an advantage in controlling more small states, since Wyoming and California both gets one vote each.

I don't think that was true in 1992.

I really don't think that Ross Perot would have carried any states, even if he hadn't dropped out and returned to the race in 1992.

US politics is generally geared in the direction of realism, and I think his support would have fallen away in any case as the election approached, because people would think that a vote for him was wasted since he couldn't win.

That was a strange election year, marked by an incumbent who had run out of ideas and seemed like a deer in the headlights, and a Democratic challenger of highly dubious character and integrity.  So for a lot of people (including me), these were not attractive choices, but I still don't believe that Ross Perot could have won a whole slew of states as some people have suggested.  At most, he might have won around 3 states out west, like Montana, with Clinton still winning the election overall.

But that's just my opinion.  We'll never know for sure.

He was an inch away from carrying Maine after he re-entered, so he would have won it if he had not fooled around.

"some people" would be me, right? :) But I'm not arguing that. If you look at my numbers they don't indicate that Perot would have been successfull. I had to give him 14% before anything serious started to happen, and even so, he didn't impact the actual outcome. He finished third everywhere except Maine, where he beat Bush by the smallest of margins.

He may have beaten Bush by the closest of margins in Maine, but Clinton still carried the state.  So a stronger showing by Perot would only have meant that Bush still lost the state, only by a wider margin.

I looked at the election results from that year, and I didn't see a single state carried by Bush in which Perot was close to Bush in total votes.  So I don't think that Bush would have faced a Taft-style humiliation, even if Perot had stuck it out in the race and not made the crazy comments that he did.

I know, I am not saying anything else. There were some three-way races where he might have done a good performance, but you are right he would most likely have lost Maine, even with a stronger showing. Anyway, Clinton's margin in EVs was so good that it would have taken a lot to stop him. And Clinton was close to 50% in a lot of states, especially big ones, and these he would have won no matter what.

A Taft like humiliation for Bush41? Nice thought though.

Actually Perot did finish 2nd in Utah as well as in Maine, but he was still far behind Bush in Utah.
Maine was Perot's best chance, especially since he could have at least won one electoral vote by winning the northern of the 2 Maine Congressional Districts. I remember on election night that this one electoral vote was still undecided for much of the night, and pundits were suggesting that Perot could win that one electoral vote.

Yeah, I remember that too.

When did Maine and NE adopt the split of EV strategy?  

I don't know.  It only works with small states, though.

I believe it was during the 1960's.

One of them adopted their's in 1991 (I think it was NE, not positive thoguh)
The other did somewhat before then.
However, neither has ever split theirs in this manner.

Maine has come close twice though.

It's on this site...

Maine was in 1969, NE in 1991.

Oh.  We look everywhere, and we're staring right at it!

You suggested that, didn't you? What are you really saying? I am confused!

in 1912 Taft was president but came in 3rd.  Wilson won and TR came in 2d on "Bullmoose" party

I know what happened in the 1912 election! If I was easily angered I might feel a little insulted by that... ;)

What I was referring to was the fact that RP suggested that Bush Sr. might have suffered a Taft like humiliation and some of us discussed that. Then he suddenly posts the post I quoted, and I didn't get what he meant.

didn't meant o offend I really didn't think you knew and was just attempting to explain. :) all good.

Sure, no hard feelings at all, as far as I am concerned! :)

The Republicans had held the White House for 12 consecutive years, and 20 out of the last 24 years. The last time a Democrat had been reelected was 1944, 48 years back. I don't think that the Dems would have been willing to give away the presidency.

How high do you have to go
a for an election decided by the house
b for a Perot victory?

a) If you add another 2% to Perot's vote, 1% from Bush and 1% from Clinton, it makes the PV totals:

Clinton: 35%

Perot: 35%

Bush: 29%

Perot now picks up Vermont, Delaware and Rhode Island from Clinton. He would obviously also pick up Florida and North Dakota, but I didn't bother to check the others.

The EV totals would be:

Clinton: 269

Perot: 189

Bush: 80

And the election get thrown into the house.

b) I now see that Alaska, Utah and Idaho would have gone Perot at a much earlier stage, I just missed it. With my new numbers Nebraska, Missouri and Indiana goes to Perot as well. If we add another 2% to Perot, 1% each from the other candidates, he also picks up Michigan, Iowa, Massachusetts and California.

The PV totals would then be:

Perot: 37%

Clinton: 34%

Bush: 28%  

And the EV totals:

Perot: 320

Clinton: 167

Bush: 51

But this is so unrealistic, that I don't really know why I even bother... :(

It is very unrealistic.  And, I got lost in the middle of it too.

I know it's unrealistic, and I'm not sure why I began to post it in the first place, but Trondheim asked me, and I obliged...

What do you mean got lost in the middle? Am I not good at this? :(

What part didn't you get?

How did Perot double his PV total?  that's unrealistic, and I don't understand where he jumped from 19% to 37% so easily.

Well, ehhh...he, you know...he just did, don't ask stupid questions like that! ;)

And, yes, btw, that is the unrealistic part I referred to in my post...

The whole point was: How much of the vote would Perot have needed to win? (Of course we're three people who agree this was never any likely, and was totally impossible by the end of the campaign.) So he just added them. Maybe someone stuffing ballot boxes:)

Lol... :) Yes, the main point was to see how much would have been required to change the end result, and that rather proves the point. It's obvious that Perot's voters weren't optimally distributed, since he would have needed a clear win in PV to win the EC.

Yeah, pretty much this.