How did Gore not win comfortably?

[phk]

Exit polls showed that nearly 1 in 5 Clinton 96' voters were for Bush.

[phk]

while Bush's supporters among the religious right were more motivated with the hypothetical chance to overturn Roe v. Wade and "restore moral authority" to the White House.

They weren't that motivated. The Bush 2004 campaign harped on the depressingly low Evangelical turnout of 2000. They made sure that they wouldn't see a repeat of that.

These sort of things are hard to (dis)prove but Gore received only 3 million more votes than Clinton did three years earlier while Bush received about 11 million more votes than Dole did. Those votes had to come from somewhere. IIRC Bush won about 60% of 1996 Perot voters (according to exit polls) yet that only amounts to about 5 million votes. The term "that motivated" is relative. Obviously not as motivated as they were four years later, but certainly much more motivated than they were in 1996 and 1992. Which was, at the time, what mattered.

If exit polls are correct than Clinton 96 voters who supported Bush in 2000 contributed an 6 to 8 million pV boost for Bush.

Though I'm sure in some localities such as NoVA, Bay Area burbs, Seattle burbs, etc there were some decent Dole to Gore movement.

Exit polls showed that nearly 1 in 5 Clinton 96' voters were for Bush.

I guess that was mainly in the Southeast, Midwest and West?

I think the bulk of these people were in Appalachia and the South (KY, TN, WV, AR, LA). These were likely people who voted for Clinton based on "personal appeal" anyway.

I think Gore could have easily won though had he not hemorrhaged so many Clinton voters, likely netting him TN, FL, WV, NH, NV rather easily.

[phk]

The media was in Bush's pocket.

This too. The press core was fairly pro-Bush.

[phk]

Ralph Nader.

What about the 10% or so of Democrats who voted for Bush?

They never vote Dem in presidential elections.

I think some of them voted for Carter and Clinton.

Probably Carter, lost he lost a lot of them in 1980. Clinton is pretty much impossible to tell because of Perot. Remember, he never broke 50%

I think what really damaged Al Gore was around 1 in 5 Clinton 96' voters switching to Bush in 2000.

[phk]

Ralph Nader.

What about the 10% or so of Democrats who voted for Bush?

They never vote Dem in presidential elections.

I think some of them voted for Carter and Clinton.

Probably Carter, lost he lost a lot of them in 1980. Clinton is pretty much impossible to tell because of Perot. Remember, he never broke 50%

I think what really damaged Al Gore was around 1 in 5 Clinton 96' voters switching to Bush in 2000.

Maybe he should have had Clinton campaign with him. That way, it is likely that at least some of those voters would have voted for Gore, allowing him to win.

I'm not sure if they would prefer Gore to Bush however firstly. Whose to say they still approved of Clinton personally post-Lewinsky.

Maybe Gore is right after all that the Lewinsky scandal may have hurt his chances in 2000, as Clinton's personal approval ratings were in the toilet in most states and would not have been a good campaigner for him. Though maybe in Arkansas it could make a difference.

Losing 18% to 20% of Clinton 1996 voters is more responsible for making Gore lose than anything Nader did. Could have retained WV, TN, FL (even without the Jewish pull of Lieberman), AR (maybe), OH (decent chance), NH.

This pretty much answers from a numeric perspective of why Gore did not win comfortably.

Dole 1996 => Bush 2000 was around ~39 million => ~50.5 million in terms of the pV. The 11 million is composed of mostly Perot voters and around 18% of Clinton voters.

I could even argue that the D+9 situation of 1996 was sort of out of balance and that the D+.5 was more of a "correction" than anything and those 1 in 5 Clinton 96/Bush 00 voters likely felt likewise.

[phk]

He should have picked Feingold or Wellstone.

[phk]

I don't think its exactly correct to say that each vote +1 Nader = -1 Gore and vice-versa. Some would have even voted for Bush over Gore and some would have Abstained over Gore.

I knew people with preferences like.

Bush > Nader > Gore
Nader > Bush > Gore

Its not always the assumed preference of

Nader > Gore > Bush

If I had to venture a guess to the preferences of Nader voters however.

~60% would have had the preference relation of Nader > Gore > Bush
~40% would have had other preference relations.

[phk]

I don't think its exactly correct to say that each vote +1 Nader = -1 Gore and vice-versa. Some would have even voted for Bush over Gore and some would have Abstained over Gore.

I knew people with preferences like.

Bush > Nader > Gore
Nader > Bush > Gore

Its not always the assumed preference of

Nader > Gore > Bush

If I had to venture a guess to the preferences of Nader voters however.

~60% would have had the preference relation of Nader > Gore > Bush
~40% would have had other preference relations.

Even that would have been enough for Gore to win, though. 20% of 90,000 (the total # of Nader voters in Florida) is 18,000 votes, much more than the 537 votes Gore needed to win Florida.

Sure he could have won if 60% of Nader voters had switched. But he still wouldn't have won comfortably.

Interestingly Clinton got a slightly higher % in TN in 1996 than Al Gore did himself in 2000. It was 48% vs 47.28%

[phk]

I don't think its exactly correct to say that each vote +1 Nader = -1 Gore and vice-versa. Some would have even voted for Bush over Gore and some would have Abstained over Gore.

I knew people with preferences like.

Bush > Nader > Gore
Nader > Bush > Gore

Its not always the assumed preference of

Nader > Gore > Bush

If I had to venture a guess to the preferences of Nader voters however.

~60% would have had the preference relation of Nader > Gore > Bush
~40% would have had other preference relations.

Even that would have been enough for Gore to win, though. 20% of 90,000 (the total # of Nader voters in Florida) is 18,000 votes, much more than the 537 votes Gore needed to win Florida.

Sure he could have won if 60% of Nader voters had switched. But he still wouldn't have won comfortably.

Interestingly Clinton got a slightly higher % in TN in 1996 than Al Gore did himself in 2000. It was 48% vs 47.28%

It wouldn't matter if Gore would have won comfortably or not. All that would have mattered is that he would have won. Winning narrowly and winning in a landslide makes no difference to the winner--he still wins (even though a larger victory might make governing easier due to coattails). However, there is a massive difference between winning narrowly and losing narrowly.

Well I suppose, but keep in mind, it was expected for him to win comfortably, considering the relative peace and prosperity of the preceding 8 years. He ended up basically fighting to a draw however.

[phk]

I don't think its exactly correct to say that each vote +1 Nader = -1 Gore and vice-versa. Some would have even voted for Bush over Gore and some would have Abstained over Gore.

I knew people with preferences like.

Bush > Nader > Gore
Nader > Bush > Gore

Its not always the assumed preference of

Nader > Gore > Bush

If I had to venture a guess to the preferences of Nader voters however.

~60% would have had the preference relation of Nader > Gore > Bush
~40% would have had other preference relations.

Even that would have been enough for Gore to win, though. 20% of 90,000 (the total # of Nader voters in Florida) is 18,000 votes, much more than the 537 votes Gore needed to win Florida.

Sure he could have won if 60% of Nader voters had switched. But he still wouldn't have won comfortably.

Interestingly Clinton got a slightly higher % in TN in 1996 than Al Gore did himself in 2000. It was 48% vs 47.28%

It wouldn't matter if Gore would have won comfortably or not. All that would have mattered is that he would have won. Winning narrowly and winning in a landslide makes no difference to the winner--he still wins (even though a larger victory might make governing easier due to coattails). However, there is a massive difference between winning narrowly and losing narrowly.

Well I suppose, but keep in mind, it was expected for him to win comfortably, considering the relative peace and prosperity of the preceding 8 years. He ended up basically fighting to a draw however.

Then how come Gore failed to open a large lead in the polls in the fall like Bush Sr. did? The conditions in 1988 and 2000 were roughly similar (good economy, lack of foreign threats, popular incumbent President), yet Bush Sr. won in a landslide and Gore lost by an extremely narrow margin.

I'm pretty sure Gore's personality is what turned a solid victory into a draw that could go either way and pretty much caused lots of bleeding to Nader.

[phk]

It's hard to "win comfortably" after your party held the White House for 8 years. Neither party has a lock on the presidency, partisanship is strong and independent voters are likely to be fatigued after two terms.

Even Bush's win in 1988 wasn't all that comfortable. He was trailing Dukakis deep into the summer and really his electoral victory seems very impressive only because he pulled off an ungodly number of tight wins (California, Illinois, Pennsylvania - just to mention the big states, all won with about 51% of the vote). Shuffle Dukakis and Bentsen on the ticket and you have a true cliffhanger election.

Even flipping all states that Bush won by 6% or less. We get 286-252 for Bush-Dukakis.

[phk]

Also everyone needs to remember the whole Monica L. scandal, while it sounds stupid now people were actually quite upset about it.

Why blame Gore for that, though? He wasn't involved in any way. Besides, Clinton's (job) approvals were about 60% throughout 2000, and that should have been enough for Gore to win the White House.

What do you think he should have done to stop the bleeding of potential supporters to Nader?