So what happened in the 1992 general elections?

[XemaSab]

Would Clinton have still won if Perot had not taken part of the vote?

And what was it about Bush Sr. that so many republicans were angry with him? (IIRC, this was the early days of the militia movement.)

Why were so many voters from both sides angry enough to cast a protest vote for Perot? :shrug:

[endarkenment]

1. The Perot vote was pretty evenly split.

No good argument can be made that Perot altered the outcome. He basically subtracted from the total of swing votes, but the remainder split as they usually do, either slightly D or slightly R.

[AX10]

3. Clinton would have won in a two-way race.

It would have been a 3-4% win for him and 290-310 ev's.

[endarkenment]

4. That was my point.

Perot made no difference. A third party has to be to the left or right of the duopoly to alter the outcome, unless it wins outright.

[Bucky]

9. Perot actually may have flipped a couple of states in Clinton's direction

Nothing big enough to affect the winner, but the EC vote may have been less lopsided for Clinton. Perot got 19% of the popular vote. But most exit polls showed that his candidacy was hurting Clinton more than Bush in the popular totals. Of course without Perot there, Poppy would have pulled more than 45% of the popular vote, thereby sparing him from the particularly Taft-like rebuke at the polls.

That said, Perot may have helped Clinton more than we like to admit. Perot may have been something of a "gateway" candidate for some "Clinton Independents", giving them a sounder reason to reject Bush, then leaving them with an obvious choice (Clinton) for the six weeks after he declared "the Democrats have got their act together" and kept out of the race. When Ross returned to active campaigning in September '92, he was polling far lower than his totals were when he split from the race during the summer.

[wyldwolf]

15. There's really only one state where that case could be legitimately made.. but you're correct...

Clinton still wins the EC

[wyldwolf]

2. The "Perot Factor" is a myth

[XemaSab]

5. Why is that?

:shrug:

[Bucky]

11. Exit polls in 1992 showed more Perot voters would've voted for Clinton than Poppy.

In the popular vote, Perot actually hurt Clinton more.

[Tesha]

14. Because it suits WyldWolf's Clinton mythology ;-) (NT)

[wyldwolf]

16. no, because it is a fact. It started out as a rightwing meme the left adopted...

...as their desire to discredit Clinton and the DLC grew.

The Left’s embrace of this political myth is further indication of their disdain for President Clinton which often rivals in terms of vitriol with the Right’s.

The truth, though (not “truthiness”) lies in the actual statistical analysis of the ‘92 election. This is where it gets complicated. If number crunching makes your eyes glaze over, just skip to the end. Ready?

In 1992, Perot got 19,660,450 votes. The total turnout for the Presidential election was more than 13 million higher than in 1988. So even thought Perot’s vote tally was impressive, 13 million of the voters didn’t even vote in 1988.

Bill Clinton garnered 3.1 million votes more than Michael Dukakis did in 1988, but George H.W. Bush received 9.7 million fewer votes than he did in 1988. Finally, the two party vote fell by 7 million in 1992. So Ross Perot only took 7 million votes from Clinton and Bush.

If Perot had not been in the race, would those 7 million Perot voters who voted for Bush and Dukakis in 1988 have voted for Bush by a sufficient margin for him to overcome Clinton’s 3.1 million vote lead?

Those 7 million Perot voters would have had to favor Bush over Clinton by 5 to 2. Or, even if all 19.6 million Perot voters had voted for one of the major party candidates, they would have had to favor Bush by a 58% to 42% margin to overcome clinton’s lead and tie the race. Was this likely in view of the fact that the other 84 million voters were favoring Clinton by 7%, 53.5% to Bush’s 46.5%?

Usually, the presidential candidate runs far ahead of the rest of the ticket. Perot’s presence in the presidential race combined with an absence of running mates for lesser offices meant that Clinton and Bush ran behind their respective party’s nominees for Governor, Senator and the House. Consequently, it was easy to follow Perot’s voters as they voted for other offices. They voted for Democratic and Republican Governor, Senator and House of Representative candidates in sufficient numbers to give them higher vote totals than Clinton and Bush.

This assumes that all Clinton’s supporters voted for the other Democratic candidates and all Bush’s supporters voted for the Republican candidates for Governor, Senator and the House. Since Republican candidates for other offices received more votes than Bush, and Democratic candidates for other offices received more votes than Clinton, this is a statistically valid assumption. The higher vote totals for the non-presidential candidates had to come from Perot’s voters.

In the Governor’s races, Perot’s voters cast 18% of their ballots for the Republican candidates; 56% of their ballots for Democratic candidates, 17% for independent candidates, and 8% did not bother to vote for Governor. If Perot’s voters had voted for Bush and Clinton in the same proportion that the voted for the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor, Clinton’s lead would have increased by 7.5 million votes.

In the Senate races, Perot’s supporters voted 27% for the Republican candidates, 24% for the Democratic candidates, 23% for the independent candidates, and 24% skipped the Senate races entirely. (This does not include states that did not have Senate races.)

In the House races, Perot’s voters cast 22% of their ballots for Republican candidates, 19% for Democratic candidates, 18% for independent candidates, and 40% did not vote in House races.

Perot’s voters voted overwhelmingly for Democratic Governor candidates, and only marginally in favor of the Republican candidates for the House and Senate. Perot’s voters favored Republican Senate candidates by 2.28%, and Republican House candidates by 2.69%. Because Perot’s voters were only 1/5th of the total, that translates into about another 500,000 votes or 0.5% for bush if they had voted in a two way presidential race the same way they voted for the Senate and House. That is about 1/7th of the margin by which Bush lost. source

So, from a popular vote perspective, Perot clearly did not influence the outcome. He took votes away from both Clinton and Bush. But elections aren’t won on the popular vote (as we were painfully reminded of in 2000.) How did Perot’s performance effect the electoral college results?

SwingStateProject has the answer.

Perot clearly did not cost Bush the 1992 election. The partisan index measures the degree to which a state favors a party relative to the way the rest of the nation favors that party. This being the case, it would follow that if more typically GOP partisans had indeed swung to Perot than had typically Democratic partisans, the 1992 partisan index would reveal and anomalous pro-DNC swing due to a temporarily eroded Republican base.

However, only a handful of states that Clinton won show such trends. Perot definitely seems to have caused Bush to lose Georgia, as the usually double-digit pro-GOP partisan index in that state cratered at +5.0 GOP in 1992. The same goes for Nevada, which relatively favored the GOP by 13.2 in 1988 and 7.5 in 1996, but only by 2.9 in 1992.

I’ll grant that without Perot, Bush probably wins both states.

Looking at the chart, however, only Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Tennessee are other possible states that Perot swung to Clinton. Still, even if Bush had won all of these states as well as Georgia and Nevada, Clinton would have won the Electoral College 315-223. Further, there is no conclusive evidence that Perot actually cost Bush any of these other six states.

Of course, like I already noted, even if I am wrong about all of these states, that means Clinton would still have won 315-223. No other state shows evidence of Perot costing Bush victory. Perot did not cost Bush the 1992 election–not even close. That is one popular myth that can be put to bed.

But let’s not rely on what George W. Bush might have called “fuzzy math” had he been sober in 1992. (I’m sorry, there’s my own contribution to truthiness. Bush claims he’s been sober since 1986.) Let’s go to several newspaper headlines from 1992 concerning exit polling:

Perot Seen Not Affecting Vote Outcome

DIONNE (11/8/92): Ross Perot’s presence on the 1992 presidential ballot did not change the outcome of the election, according to an analysis of the second choices of Perot supporters.

The analysis, based on exit polls conducted by Voter Research & Surveys (VRS) for the major news organizations, indicated that in Perot’s absence, only Ohio would have have shifted from the Clinton column to the Bush column. This would still have left Clinton with a healthy 349-to-189 majority in the electoral college.

And even in Ohio, the hypothetical Bush “margin” without Perot in the race was so small that given the normal margin of error in polls, the state still might have stuck with Clinton absent the Texas billionaire.

Also from the same author:

DIONNE (11/12/92): In House races, Perot voters split down the middle: 51 percent said they backed Republicans, 49 percent backed Democrats. In the presidential contest, 38 percent of Perot supporters said they would have supported Clinton if Perot had not been on the ballot and 37 percent said they would have supported Bush.

An additional 6 percent of Perot voters said they would have sought another third-party candidate, while 14 percent said they would not have voted if Perot had not run.

And finally, the Associated Press:

Perot’s Voters Would Have Split In a Two-Way Race

ASSOCIATED PRESS (11/4/92): Exit polls suggest Ross Perot hurt George Bush and Bill Clinton about equally.

The Voter Research and Surveys poll, a joint project of the four major television networks, found 38 percent of Perot voters would have voted for Clinton and 37 percent would have voted for Bush if Perot had not been on the ballot. Fifteen percent said they would not have voted, and 6 percent listed other candidates.

So there you have three perspectives. Popular vote statistics, electoral vote analysis, and the results of exit polling, all indicating the Perot drew votes away from Bush and Clinton equally and, thus, did NOT throw the election to Clinton.

[earthside]

7. The "Nader Factor" is a myth, too.

[Bucky]

12. And the "O'Reilly Factor" is a complete work of fiction as well.

[wyldwolf]

13. unfortunately not

The stats in FL proved it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. We're Talking About A 537 Vote Defecit Not A 5,370,000 Vote Defecit

But thanks for trying.

[Flatulo]

6. Conservatives were pissed at Poppy for breaking hte 'no new taxes' pledge. nt

[clarence swinney]

26. Greenspan gored Bush I

. MONEY SUPPLY
Bush Sr. claimed Greenspan policies cost him a re-election.
He was correct. Look at tight money supply for him.
Increases “per year” average in Money supply-In Billions.
Reagan-239---Bush I—56---Clinton—380---Bush II –760 (5 years)
Bush Sr. was correct. Greenspan did not attempt to stimulate the economy for him.

[Jack Bone]

8. The LA Riots & a Hurricane in FLA (Homestead)..

I believe, didn't help poppy's chances either..

[illinoisprogressive]

10. It was a change election and people were sick of the republicans. it was prime for dems

[wyldwolf]

18. people were sick of government, period. The GOP was tossed out in '92 and the Dems in '94

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Bush * Was The Incumbent

Sixty three percent of the voters voted against the incumbent because they wanted change...I suspect Perot hurt Bush a bit more than he hurt Clinton but not by much...

That being said, if you folks rememeber, Perot got out of the race sometime between the end of the conventions and then got back in prior to the election...Before he got back in the race there were polls showing Clinton beating Bush* by twenty or so points...

Gallup has a poll graph of all the elections going back to 60... I have it bookmarked but Gallup redid their site... Maybe someone can find it...

[Adsos Letter]

20. GOOD GRIEF, XemaSab...

...I just realized your avatar is a broccoli stalk...all along I've been thinking it was some kind of green alien with huge eyes and an oddly pleased expression on its face...

:D

[XemaSab]

21. Yup. it's teh broccoli.

Though a green alien would be cool too. :)

[Uncle Joe]

22. Integrity was a prime issue then, as well as it would become in 2000

The difference being in 1992 Bush the lesser had the integrity problem, he would utter the fateful words of "read my lips no new taxes" and then reverse him self. The corporate media played that scene over and over making Bush out to be a liar to the Republicans and Independents that believed him.

Sometimes people just underestimate the impact the integrity issue can have on an election.

Of course Perot had an effect because of the exploding debt, however I don't believe Perot would've been so prominent with out Bush's integrity being in question.

[karynnj]

23. Very hard to tell

Some simple analyses were done on exit poll questions and found self identified Perot voters were as likely to say Bush or Clinton. That would say if Perot's name were taken off in the end - the result would be the same.

Whet this doesn't measure is the effect that Perot had early in the process. Perot was extremely strong for an independent and he had a huge amount of money. His campaign was mostly a full blast attack on Bush - on issues like free trade - "the big sucking sound", anyone. He pulled from both the Republicans and Democrats and at one point polled higher than Clinton in 3 way polls. His attacks on Bush were far tougher than Clinton's and his presence doing this may have allowed Clinton to spend less time atttacking Bush and more time winning people in a positive way to himself. At any rate, his being there at that point helped Clinton.

Then Perot pulled out with a strange story of Bush trying to destroy his daughter's wedding. When he came back in, many people never went back to him. I would guess that of the people for him before he pulled out, many went to Clinton - Clinton jumped when Perot pulled out.

So those effects would be:
-Perot made Bush's rn harder because he had to respond to Perot and was mostly on defense
-Clinton had the luxury of having someone else to do the dirty work of hitting Bush
-Perot convinced people to leave a sitting President -

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

24. Perot was not a factor. Bush was at 29%. (Familiar?)

The idea that Perot somehow cost a 29% President re-election is bizarre Republican rewriting of history. Nobody gets re-elected at 29%. Sheesh.

Polls showed that Perot's support split 50-50, or even favored Clinton. Non-factor.

[clarence swinney]

25. Clinton wins 52%

Exit polls revealed that Perot vote would have been dplit almost evenly between Clinton and Bush

[Awsi Dooger]

27. Clinton wins by roughly the same margin

The GOP had been in power 3 terms, leading to an itch factor. The incumbent was wildly unpopular and seen as out of touch. The economy was awful. So how does that equate to voters who preferred a maverick candidate like Ross Perot otherwise dashing back to the unpopular incumbent? Or preferring that incumbent in the first place, if Perot had never entered? Frankly, it's laughable. Pure right wing convenient desperation to deny Clinton was ever legit.

Similarly, there was plenty of Democratic desperation in '04, trying to pretend Bush 43 was every bit as unpopular as his father 12 years earlier, and to use that result as a guideline. Not even close. Bush 43 was a shade below 50% on election day approval while poppy was tanked in the high 20s and low 30s in early to mid '92. It rose somewhat toward election day but not enough to save Bush 41. If Bush 43 had post-Katrina approval numbers he would have been routinely dismissed in '04, even if Kerry had run the identical campaign.