Recent Presidential Elections

2000 Election

Results, The Campaigns

The 2000 presidential election pitted Republican George W. Bush, governor of Texas and son of former US president George H.W. Bush, against Democrat Al Gore, former senator from Tennessee and vice president in the administration of Bill Clinton. Because Clinton had been such a popular president, Gore had no difficulty securing the Democratic nomination, though he sought to distance himself from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Bush won the Republican nomination after a heated battle against Arizona Senator John McCain in the primaries. He chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate.

On election day, Gore won the popular vote by over half a million votes. Bush carried most states in the South, the rural Midwest, and the Rocky Mountain region, while Gore won most states in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the Pacific Coast. Gore garnered 255 electoral votes to Bush’s 246, but neither candidate won the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. Election results in some states, including New Mexico and Oregon, were too close to call, but it was Florida, with its 25 electoral votes, on which the outcome of the election hinged.

The Campaigns

In their presidential campaigns, both candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as economic growth, the federal budget surplus, health care, tax relief, and reform of social insurance and welfare programs, particularly Social Security and Medicare (Election 1).

The election of 2000 merged or obliterated many of [the previous divisions between the two parties]. During the Clinton years, Democrats overcame their losing reputation on moralistic issues, as Clinton became identified with such stands as harsh treatment of criminals (including support for the death penalty) and welfare reform. The president maintained his popularity even after revelation of his sexual immorality, as seen in the failure of the Republican effort to impeach and remove him from office.

In 2000 Republicans also moved away from previous unattractive positions. On the economic dimension, no longer opposed to all government programs, the party under Governor Bush proposed new policies to improve education, expand health care, and add funds and programs to Social Security and Medicare. Still conservative, the Bush Republicans now modified their ideology by proclaiming a new "compassionate" outlook and reduced their emphasis on moral issues, particularly abortion. Without overt change in his pro-life stance, George W. Bush gave only fleeting attention to the previously divisive issue, promising no more than a ban on unpopular and rare late-term ("partial birth") abortions.

Differences remained significant, but the election campaign was notable for the similarity of the issues stressed by the candidates and for the disappearance of older conflicts. A generation earlier, in 1972, Republicans had accused Democrats of favoring "acid, amnesty, and abortion"; that bitter campaign would be later remembered for Richard Nixon's efforts to destroy his opponents and subvert the Constitution in the Watergate break-in.

The old controversies were gone or had become consensual policies. Drug usage was condemned, and abortion was ignored. Vietnam, the conflict that had defined a generation and its lifestyle, was now a country to be visited by Clinton, once a draft resister and now the U.S. commander-in-chief. Emblematic of the change was that the Democratic party, once the arena for the greatest antiwar protests, nominated Gore, a volunteer who had actually served briefly in the war zone, while the Republicans nominated Bush, who had found a safe billet in the Texas Air National Guard.

There remained a basic philosophic difference between the parties and their leaders. Republicans' instincts still led them first to seek solutions through private actions or through the marketplace, while Democrats consistently looked for government solutions. That difference was evident in such fundamental questions as allocation of the windfall surpluses in the federal budget: Bush sought a huge across-the-board cut in taxes, while Gore proposed a panoply of new government programs and tax cuts targeted for specific policy purposes.

Similar differences could be seen on other issues emphasized during the campaign. To improve education, Bush relied on state programs and testing, while hinting at his support for government vouchers that parents might use for private-school tuition; Gore proposed new federal programs to recruit teachers and rebuild schools. To provide funds for Social Security, Bush proposed that individuals invest part of their tax payments in private investment accounts, while Gore would transfer other governmental funds into the Social Security trust fund. This philosophical difference could be seen even in the most intimate matters, such as teenage pregnancy, where Republicans relied on individual morality, namely, sexual abstinence by adolescents, while Democrats supported sex education programs, which might include distribution of condoms in public schools.

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Bush had made some efforts to gain more minority votes, giving blacks prominent roles in the party convention and arguing that some of his programs, such as educational testing, would particularly benefit this group. These appeals turned out to be fruitless, however, given the Republican's conservative position on welfare issues and affirmative action. Black groups, such as the N.A.A.C.P., mounted a multimillion-dollar campaign to increase minority turnout, expecting that the mobilized voters would be Democrats. Although the black proportion of the electorate remained essentially unchanged at 10 percent, these efforts probably were decisive in close northern states. It would require more than televised black faces to win black votes for the Republicans.

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Other ethnic minorities also supported the Democrats. Both parties paid special attention to Latinos, knowing that they would soon be the largest nonwhite group in the population and that they already comprised a significant voting bloc in critical states such as California, Texas, and Florida.

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Gore's policy agenda was a more "female" agenda, in a political rather than biological sense: the vice president focused on questions likely to be of more concern to women because of their social situation. The social reality in the United States is that women bear a greater responsibility for children's education and for health care of their families and parents, and that women constitute a disproportionate number of the aged. This reality was reflected in political concerns, as women saw education, health care, and Medicare as the principal issues of the election. For these reasons, Gore's greater readiness to use government to solve these problems might appeal particularly to women.

A gender gap has two sides, however, and in 2000 it reflected men's preferences even more than women's. Bush's appeal, too, can be found in particular issues. The social reality is that men are more likely to be the principal source of family income and to assume greater responsibility for family finances. This reality was again mirrored in issue emphases, with men making the state of the economy and taxes their leading priorities, with defense and Social Security of lesser importance.

The gender difference in issue focus was the foundation of gender difference in the vote. Gore was favored among voters who emphasized the "female" issues of health care (an advantage of 31 percent), education (8 percent), and Social Security (18 percent), and Medicare (21 percent). But Bush was favored far more strongly on taxes (a huge advantage of 63 percent) and on world affairs and defense (14 percent), as well as on lesser issues that brought male attention, such as the stereotypically gendered issue of gun ownership.

The presidential race should have been a runaway, according to precampaign estimates. In the end, to be sure, the outcome came down to miscounting or manipulation of the last few ballots. Analytically, however, the puzzling question is why Gore did so badly, not why Bush won.

The economy, usually the largest influence on voters, had evidenced the longest period of prosperity in American history, over a period virtually identical with the Democratic administration. A second predictor, the popularity of the incumbent president, also pointed to a Gore victory, for President Clinton was holding to 60-percent approval of his job performance. In elaborate analyses just as the campaign formally began on Labor Day, academic experts unanimously predicted a Gore victory. Their only disagreements came on the size of his expected victory, with predictions of Gore's majority ranging from 51 to 60 percent of the two-party popular vote.

The academic models failed. It is simpler to explain Clinton's inability to transfer his popularity to his selected successor. Vice presidents always labor under a burden of appearing less capable than the sitting chief executive, and there is a normal inclination on the part of the electorate to seek a change. Previous incumbent vice presidents, such as the original George Bush in 1988 and Richard Nixon in 1960, had borne this burden in their own White House campaigns, but Gore's burden was even heavier, because he needed to avoid contact with the ethical stain of Clinton's affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

There are at least three possible explanations. First, because prosperity had gone on so long, voters may have come to see it as "natural" and unrelated to the decisions and policies of elected politicians. Second, voters might not know whom to praise and reward for their economic fortunes, since both parties in their platforms claimed credit for the boom. These explanations seem weak, however, because two out of three voters believed Clinton was either "somewhat" or "very" responsible for the nation's rosy conditions.

A third explanation, better supported by the opinion data, finds that Gore did not properly exploit the advantages offered by his administration's economic record. In his campaign appeals, Gore would briefly mention the record of prosperity but then emphasize his plans for the future. The approach was typified by his convention acceptance speech:

[O]ur progress on the economy is a good chapter in our history. But now we turn the page and write a new chapter.... This election is not an award for past performance. I'm not asking you to vote for me on the basis of the economy we have. Tonight, I ask for your support on the basis of the better, fairer, more prosperous America we can build together.

Rhetorically and politically, Gore conceded the issue of prosperity to Bush. …

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Gender may also have played a role in undermining Gore's inherited advantage on the economy. Although voters who emphasized this vital factor did favor the vice president (59 to 37 percent), he gained far fewer votes (a 15-percent gain) on the issue than Clinton had four years earlier (34 percent), even though the economy had strengthened during the period. Here, too, as on issues generally, Gore emphasized the "female" side of his policy positions, such as targeting tax cuts toward education or home care of the elderly. He offered little for men who would not benefit from affirmative action in the workplace or who would use money returned from taxes for other purposes. As a result, he gained far less from men (57 percent) than from women (68 percent) who gave priority to economic issues.

In theoretical terms, the vice president turned the election away from an advantageous retrospective evaluation of the past eight years to an uncertain prospective choice based on future expectations. Because the future is always clouded, voters often use past performance to evaluate the prospective programs offered by candidates, but Gore did little to focus voters' attention on the Democratic achievements. As the academic literature might have warned him, even in good times "there is still an opponent who may succeed in stimulating even more favorable future expectations. And he may win."

More generally, Gore neglected to put the election into a broader context – of the administration's record, of party, or of the Republican record in Congress. All of these elements might have been used to bolster his chances, but he, along with Bush, instead made the election a contest between two individuals and their personal programs. In editing his own message so severely, Gore made it less persuasive. If the campaign were to be only a choice of future programs, with their great uncertainties, a Bush program might be as convincing to the voters as a Gore program. If the election were to be only a choice of the manager of a consensual agenda, Bush's individual qualities might well be more attractive.

The Democratic candidate had the advantage of leadership of the party that held a thin plurality of voters' loyalties. His party was historically identified with the popular programs that were predominant in voters' minds – Social Security, Medicare, education, and health care – and the Democrats were still regarded in 2000 as more capable to deal with problems in those areas. Yet Gore eschewed a partisan appeal. In the three television debates, illustratively, he mentioned his party only four times, twice citing his disagreement with other Democrats on the Gulf War, and twice incidentally. Only Bush would ever commend the Democratic party, claiming a personal ability to deal effectively with his nominal opposition.

Gore neither challenged this argument, nor attacked the Republicans who had controlled Congress for the past six years, although promising targets were available. The vice president might have blamed Republicans for inaction on his priority programs, such as Social Security and the environment. He might have drawn more attention to differences on issues on which his position was supported by public opinion, such as abortion rights or gun control. He could even have revived the impeachment controversy, blaming Republicans for dragging out a controversy that Americans had found wearying. The public had certainly disapproved of Clinton's personal conduct, but it had also steadily approved of the president's job performance. That distinction could have been the basis for renewed criticism of the Republicans. Yet Gore stayed silent.

Gore's strategy was based on an appeal to the political center and to the undecided voters gathered there. At the party convention and in his acceptance speech, he did try to rouse Democrats by pointing to party differences – and the effort brought him a fleeting lead in opinion polls. From that point on, however, moving in a different direction, he usually attempted to mute those differences, and his lead disappeared. If there were no important differences, then Democratic voters had little reason to support a candidate whose personal traits were less than magnetic. Successful campaigns "temporarily change the basis of political involvement from citizenship to partisanship." By underplaying his party, Gore lost a vital margin of votes, as more Democrats than Republicans defected.

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When it came to individual character traits, however, Bush was deemed superior on most traits, particularly honesty and strength of leadership. He was also viewed as less likely "to say anything to get elected" and less prone to engage in unfair attacks. … (Pomper 201).

Works cited:

“The Election of 2000.” The Khan Academy. Web. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/modern-us/1990s-america/a/the-election-of-2000

Pomper, Gerald M., “The 2000 Presidential Election: Why Gore Lost.” Political Science Quarterly, Summer 2001, volume 116, issue 2. Web. https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm