Were you surprised when Al Gore lost Tennessee in the 2000 election?

[Plankton5165]

Tennessee was Al Gore's home state, Bill Clinton won it twice.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

He would be president if he won NH😐

[Sir Mohamed]

I don’t remember the election myself (I was twelve years old and still living in Dubai), but I would have been surprised had he won. TN is solid conservative terrain and W was a good fit for this state. I am still surprised that Gore lost NH. It gave us W, let alone FL which wouldn’t have been necessary to win.

[Figueira]

I think if I had been aware of state voting patterns then, I would have been surprised, but in retrospect, I'm not.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I was more baffled about him losing WV.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Yes.  Equally surprised he lost AR.  But then again, he distanced himself from Bubba.

[uti2]

I don’t remember the election myself (I was twelve years old and still living in Dubai), but I would have been surprised had he won. TN is solid conservative terrain and W was a good fit for this state. I am still surprised that Gore lost NH. It gave us W, let alone FL which wouldn’t have been necessary to win.

The map was different before the Lewinsky scandal and the religious right that exploded following it.  That's why he lost a ton of Clinton '96 states. Bush was seen as a proponent of the religious right.

The modern political map was created by Bush's religious polarization in 2000.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In 2000 I was a 7-year-old French kid who was only vaguely aware of the US' existence, so no.

[Xing]

I was more baffled about him losing WV.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

I was 7

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I was 4 and knew nothing about politics.

[Arbitrage1980]

I don’t remember the election myself (I was twelve years old and still living in Dubai), but I would have been surprised had he won. TN is solid conservative terrain and W was a good fit for this state. I am still surprised that Gore lost NH. It gave us W, let alone FL which wouldn’t have been necessary to win.

In his Senate re-election in 1990, Gore won EVERY single county in Tennessee, including the rock solid republican counties of the eastern part of the state, which had been republican since the Civil War. During the Clinton presidency, Gore was tainted by the scandals and corruption and was seen as too liberal on social and cultural issues such as guns, environment, and abortion. This is why Gore lost not just Tennessee but other appalachian/border states such as Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, all states that Clinton won twice.

[White Trash]

I don’t remember the election myself (I was twelve years old and still living in Dubai), but I would have been surprised had he won. TN is solid conservative terrain and W was a good fit for this state. I am still surprised that Gore lost NH. It gave us W, let alone FL which wouldn’t have been necessary to win.

In his Senate re-election in 1990, Gore won EVERY single county in Tennessee, including the rock solid republican counties of the eastern part of the state, which had been republican since the Civil War. During the Clinton presidency, Gore was tainted by the scandals and corruption and was seen as too liberal on social and cultural issues such as guns, environment, and abortion. This is why Gore lost not just Tennessee but other appalachian/border states such as Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, all states that Clinton won twice.

Plus, picking Joe Lieberman was a big mistake.

[Sedona]

I wasn't remotely old enough to have an idea what was going on politically then, but I figure that Gore lost Tennessee mainly because of his attempts to distance himself from Bill.  If he had ran more on Clinton's legacy, I think he could have picked up not only TN, but Arkansas and Missouri as well.

[Mr. Smith]

I was 7

[Mr. Reactionary]

In 2000, I was 9.

[Metalhead123]

I think the electoral map would have looked like this had Gore took advantage of the fact that Bill Clinton was popular.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

I was more baffled about him losing WV.

Gore was extremely environmentalist, which didn't sit too well with West Virginian coal miners.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

I was 4 and knew nothing about politics.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

I wasn't old enough vote but was following politics, and I wasn't that surprised because Clinton only won the state in '96 by two points. Tennessee became really Republican in the 90s.

[morgankingsley]

I was 2

[RRusso1982]

Not really.  The state was had trended redder since Al Gore's last Senate election in 2000.  Gore had not really even lived in the state since being elected Vice President.  Clinton won it both times, but that had just as much to do with Clinton as with Gore.  It was only close because it was Al Gore's state.

[I’m not Stu]

No.

[Calthrina950]

I wasn't "cognizant" at the time (I was only 2 and a half years old on Election Night 2000), but I've watched the NBC Election Night coverage of that election, and the subsequent Nightly News Reports, anchored by Tom Brokaw. It was of course remarked at the time that Gore was the first major-party presidential candidate to lose his home state since George McGovern 28 years earlier.

In hindsight, I would say Gore's loss there wasn't too surprising. Bill Clinton only won the state by 2.41% in 1996, and arguably would have lost it were it not for Ross Perot. Moreover, Tennessee had turned heavily Republican at the downballot level in the 1994 midterms, and Bill Frist (who later became Senate Majority Leader) got 65% of the vote in 2000, which certainly helped Bush. Gore had become too liberal for his home state-his positions on gun control and climate change in particular, costing him dearly there, and in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia-all states Clinton won twice.

[Samof94]

I was only 6, but do vaguely remember this election. Still, the late 90’s were a rightward shift in the South. This was also when a lot of aughts social trends started too.