Going into Election Night 2000, who did you expect to win?

[Josh/Devilman88]

My brother was in High School at that time and they did the election, Nader won.

[Ebowed]

I recall believing Bush would win, and was quite shocked when Gore was winning the popular vote (I didn't pay much attention to the polls).  However, I also expected Gore to win Tennessee and West Virginia.  I'm not sure what I would have substituted from Gore's actual victories in their places.

In 2004, I was quite sure that Kerry would win, simply because the idea of Bush winning another election was too amusing a joke for me to take it seriously.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

It seemed like because of the DWI, Gore would be slightly favored, but hardly a sure thing. I predicted that it would come down to Florida,. I didn't expect to be as right as I was.

[Friz]

In 2000, I was expecting Gore to win.

In 2004, I was quite certain Kerry would win, as the idea of Bush winning a second time was too outrageously unjust to believe.  It wasn't.

[Reaganfan]

In 2000, I was expecting Gore to win.

In 2004, I was quite certain Kerry would win, as the idea of Bush winning a second time was too outrageously unjust to believe.  It wasn't.

The way I always saw it that was that if Governor George W. Bush won Ohio and Florida, a President George W. Bush who had been at one point the most popular president in history with 70-90% approval ratings from 2001-2003, would definitley win again, especially given he is stronger in 2004 after his high approval as President then he was as the Governor of Texas. I was right, and 62 million Americans sent him in with more electoral votes and a nice popular vote win then they did in 2000.

[CPT MikeyMike]

Bush.

Funny thing was that we did an electoral pool at my college. My sister, who has no clue about poltics, picked random states but had Bush winning 271 electoral votes and winning the $200 jackpot.

What a dumb blonde she was!

[Tetro Kornbluth]

In both 2000 and 2004 I had a very strong feeling Bush would win. Especially in 2004, I just struggled to imagine JFK II as president.

[MasterJedi]

I thought Bush was going to win both times, especially in 2004.

[phk]

Judging by the polls, I thought Bush would have land slided Gore, I had no idea that he would lose the popular vote and be one state away from winning.

[minionofmidas]

To abandon Al Gore who was a decent tollerant man

See, 50,000,000 Americans wholly rejected your premise.  Gore was personally very unpopular.

He still received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush.

That's because Bush was plainly not a decent man.

[7,052,770]

if Governor George W. Bush won Ohio and Florida

except GWB didn't win Florida in 2000.



Anyway, I thought Gore would win in 2000, and he did, but I never dreamed the Republicans would steal it away.

[Verily]

In 2000, I was expecting Gore to win.

In 2004, I was quite certain Kerry would win, as the idea of Bush winning a second time was too outrageously unjust to believe.  It wasn't.

The way I always saw it that was that if Governor George W. Bush won Ohio and Florida, a President George W. Bush who had been at one point the most popular president in history with 70-90% approval ratings from 2001-2003, would definitley win again, especially given he is stronger in 2004 after his high approval as President then he was as the Governor of Texas. I was right, and 62 million Americans sent him in with more electoral votes and a nice popular vote win then they did in 2000.

Had the election been in 2001, 2002 or 2003, you might have a point. (Although Bush was never above 70% in 2003, and only above 60% in 2003 briefly after the beginning of the Iraq War.) Approval ratings from years previous are meaningless.

[MasterJedi]

if Governor George W. Bush won Ohio and Florida

except GWB didn't win Florida in 2000.



Anyway, I thought Gore would win in 2000, and he did, but I never dreamed the Republicans would steal it away.

Oh God Harry, how many times to the facts have to prove people who believe this wrong.

[7,052,770]

if Governor George W. Bush won Ohio and Florida

except GWB didn't win Florida in 2000.



Anyway, I thought Gore would win in 2000, and he did, but I never dreamed the Republicans would steal it away.

Oh God Harry, how many times to the facts have to prove people who believe this wrong.

Gore won Florida.  The facts prove it...why can't Republicans accept this?

The ballots were looked at several times by several organizations, with many different standards.  This led to a multitude of different vote counts, the majority of which have Gore winning.

This itself does not prove Gore won, but it suggests that it is very likely.  When you factor in the thousands of African-Americans that were disenfranchised wrongly, the butterfly ballot (that was designed by a Republican, contrary to what is usually reported) that cost Gore around 2000 votes, it is plain to see that the election was (somewhat intentionally, somewhat unintentionally) stolen.

[Nym90]

I was optimistic that Gore would pull it out.

In my political science class, I actually predicted the opposite of what officially happened. I said that I thought Bush was going to win the popular vote but Gore was going to win the Electoral College. At the time this made sense as most national polls had Bush 2-3 percent ahead but Gore was leading in Florida by 1-2 points in most polls there.

Ultimately I thought Gore would at least win Tennessee and thus not need Florida, but I still thought Florida would go to Gore.

[zorkpolitics]

It seemed unimaginable that voters would reject the Democrats in time of peace and prosperity, for a relativley unknown, poor spoken, but seemingly nice guy from Texas.

Based on polling data, I thought Bush would win until the DUI thing came out, then I expected Gore to win the EV but Bush to maybe carry the popular vote. 

[HardRCafé]

They didn't reject the Democrats, just Gore specifically.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

This was my prediction...

I was in 8th grade at the time, and was really pulling for Gore to win.  I really viewed the interior west as Bush territory and the Northeast as Gore territory, so NH and NM flipping was surprising to me.  I though Missouri would come through for Gore b/c of St.Louis and Kansas City, but the other Midwestern states (WI and IA)...were too rural.  I also thought that in the end, there was no way Gore could lose his home state....c'mon, I mean....it just doesn't happen.... : /

[phk]

I was expecting a Bush landslide.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I was expecting a narrow Bush victory, but wouldn't have been surprised to see a Gore victory.  I would have been disappointed.  It wasn't until the Sunday before election day that I finally decided that I'd vote for Nader instead of Bush.  I'd already decided I wouldn't be voting for Gore back in 1999.

[Eraserhead]

I wasn't sure. I figured it would be close but I wasn't nearly as interested in politics at the time and wasn't really looking at any polling.

[gorkay]

2000 is the only election since '76 that I didn't do electoral maps for and follow my state-by-state predictions as the results came in. In fact, of all the elections since I got interested in politics around 1966, I probably paid less attention to this one than any other, because my father was seriously ill and I was preoccupied with him and his condition. I did follow it as best I could, and it seemed as if Bush was leading through most of the campaign, but in the last week or so the trend was towards Gore, especially in the last couple of days. I knew it was going to be very close, and that I was in for a long night of watching the returns. Based on the polls from the last few days, I thought Gore was a very slight favorite. On election night, the early returns looked good for him, and when the networks called Florida for him, I thought he had it. Then, of course, they un-called Florida, which gave me a very uneasy feeling (not because I thought any chicanery was going on, just because I thought he might need those EVs), and the feeling grew as more returns came in and Gore was not doing as well as expected in the south and midwest. I finally went to bed at about 4 in the morning, convinced he had lost, and awakened again around 7 to find out that he hadn't.

[Reaganfan]

2000 is the only election since '76 that I didn't do electoral maps for and follow my state-by-state predictions as the results came in. In fact, of all the elections since I got interested in politics around 1966, I probably paid less attention to this one than any other, because my father was seriously ill and I was preoccupied with him and his condition. I did follow it as best I could, and it seemed as if Bush was leading through most of the campaign, but in the last week or so the trend was towards Gore, especially in the last couple of days. I knew it was going to be very close, and that I was in for a long night of watching the returns. Based on the polls from the last few days, I thought Gore was a very slight favorite. On election night, the early returns looked good for him, and when the networks called Florida for him, I thought he had it. Then, of course, they un-called Florida, which gave me a very uneasy feeling (not because I thought any chicanery was going on, just because I thought he might need those EVs), and the feeling grew as more returns came in and Gore was not doing as well as expected in the south and midwest. I finally went to bed at about 4 in the morning, convinced he had lost, and awakened again around 7 to find out that he hadn't.

Actually...he had lost...it was just so close that a recount of Bush's victory was needed.

[Хahar 🤔]

Gore. Of course, the election took place less than a week after my 6th birthday.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I was sure Gore would win, because my parents supported him, and they were never wrong.  Boy, I was even more of a hack in 2000 then I am now