Things were noticeably broke in the markets in 2000. The dot com bubble popped in March 2000 and the Dow flatlined losing 6% of its value that year. The Nasdaq lost so much value that people began to joke about their retirement plans becoming 201k's instead of 401k's.
Most of the decline didn't occur until right after the election. Consumer confidence and right/track wrong figures were all extremely positive until that point as well.
The NASDAQ fell from roughly 5000 to 3000 in the six months before the election, and was down to 2400 by Dec 31. Major industries and the larger jobs market did not feel the dot com pop until 2001, and that figures into consumer confidence. But in the tech sector of the economy jobs and income were being lost at a great rate throughout the summer of 2000. If Gore was looking for the vote of the young entrepreneurial tech worker, a message that the economy was fine was going to look out of touch.
