Why was Perot blamed for Bush I's defeat in the first place?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I don't think Perot took votes away from Clinton he brought out more voters, and with higher turnout they might otherwise vote Democratic.

[jimrtex]

How many Clinton voters would have stayed home if Perot hadn't run, and Bush had appeared unbeatable?   

How many supporters of Perot switched to Clinton when Perot dropped out, and then didn't switch back to Perot when he dropped back in?

[Erc]

Decided to have some fun with math on this one...

Assuming (completely unreasonably) that Perot's name suddenly disappears off the ballot, and that Perot voters split into not-voting/Bush/Clinton voters in the same proportions in each state...

The key state for Bush to win an electoral victory, then, is Iowa, putting him over the top with 274 electoral votes.  If all Perot voters continue to vote, he needs to win 66.1% of remaining Perot voters nationwide to win Iowa.  If 25% of Perot voters didn't vote, he'd need to win 71.4% of remaining Perot voters nationwide.  If 68% or more Perot voters didn't vote, Bush couldn't win even if all the rest voted for him.  (The formula, for anyone interested, is (c-b)/(2 * v * p) + 1/2, where c, b, and p are Clinton, Bush, and Perot's vote totals in Iowa, respectively, and v is the percent of Perot voters who still go to the polls).

Thus, it seems, from the polling data, that Bush still would have lost had Perot not been on the ballot.  Whether Perot's presence in the campaign hurt Bush to a degree that caused his eventual loss--that can't be settled with numbers.

Just for kicks, here's a map (25% of Perot voters stay home, 71.4% of remaining Perot voters vote for Bush, handing Bush an electoral victory (274-264) by dint of the narrowest victory in Iowa (and a popular vote victory by about 500,000 votes / half a percent--Bush still under a majority of the vote, though).

[Gustaf]

Dazzleman makes the best point here. I think someone previously posted a Gallup saying that 50% would have voted Bush, 20% Clinton and 30% not at all. I did the math and then a map back then in that thread, so I won't do it again.

[minionofmidas]

That's a pretty freaky map.

[© tweed]

Here's the map:


Clinton/Gore: 48,858,570 (49.6%); 346 EV's
Bush/Quayle: 47,002,078 (47.7%); 192 EV's
Other: 2,639,382 (2.7%); 0 EV's

So with Carl's numbers, Clinton wins convincingly.  Which is what I have been saying all along.

[Nym90]

Why was he? Because Republicans want to blame someone for their defeat. It's more pscyhologically comforting than admitting you lost fair and square.

Not to say both sides don't do this, of course, but the numbers don't lie if we are comparing Nader's effect on Gore in 2000 as opposed to Perot's on Bush in 1992.

The Perot vote would've pretty evenly split had he not been a candidate, with a pretty large percentage of Perot's voters choosing simply to not vote at all.

Now if Perot hadn't been a candidate, how would that have changed the entire dynamic of the campaign, and how would those changes have affected the final vote? Almost impossible to say for sure, of course. The idea that Perot hurt Bush by raising into the public eye issues which were weaknesses for Bush certainly has merit, though I have to think most of those would've been raised by Clinton himself eventually anyway.

It's worth noting that right before Perot reentered the race, Clinton was well ahead of Bush. And the first Gallup poll taken after Perot's reentry showed Clinton exactly as far ahead as he was in the Gallup poll taken immediately before he reentered.

There is no rational reason to expect Bush to have made a huge comeback to win if only Perot had remained out, and it's also a bit unreasonable to think that Perot's entry and then subsequent departure from the race earlier could've damaged Bush enough to cost him the election.

[Bacon King]

I love how old BRTD's logic can be used, at least semi-accurately, to refute his own rabid attacks against Nader regarding 2000.