Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 2000. The Republican ticket of Texas governor George W. Bush and former secretary of defense Dick Cheney narrowly defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent vice president Al Gore and Connecticut junior senator Joe Lieberman. It was the fourth of five U.S. presidential elections, and the first since 1888, in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote. By number of votes that could have changed the outcome, it is the closest presidential election in U.S. history. The result remains controversial.
Incumbent Democratic president Bill Clinton was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Incumbent vice president Gore easily secured the Democratic nomination, defeating former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley in the primaries. He selected Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Bush—the eldest son of former president George H. W. Bush—was seen as the early favorite for the Republican nomination, and after a contentious primary battle with Arizona senator John McCain and others, he secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. He selected former secretary of defense Dick Cheney as his running mate.
Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Due to President Clinton's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton. Republicans denounced Clinton's indiscretions, while Gore criticized Bush's lack of experience.
On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the electoral votes of the state of Florida still undecided. It took over a month to resolve the issue: recounts were started and halted (some due to protest), and ensuing litigation was settled by the highly controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, which ensured that Florida's electoral votes went to Bush, tipping the election in his favor. Without a full recount, Bush carried Florida by only 537 votes out of 5.96 million cast in the state (a margin of 0.009%).
Ultimately, Bush won 271 electoral votes, one vote more than the 270 required to win, while Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 votes (a margin of 0.52% of all votes cast). Bush flipped 11 states that had voted Democratic in 1996: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Despite Gore's loss, this election marked the first time since 1948 that the Democratic Party won the popular vote in three consecutive elections.
Background
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and former governor of Arkansas, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to the Twenty-second Amendment; in accordance with Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2001.
Republican Party nomination
Primaries
Bush became the early front-runner, acquiring unprecedented funding and a broad base of leadership support based on his governorship of Texas, the Bush family's name recognition, and connections in American politics. Former cabinet member George Shultz played an important early role in securing establishment Republican support for Bush. In April 1998, he invited Bush to discuss policy issues with experts including Michael Boskin, John Taylor, and Condoleezza Rice, who later became his secretary of state. The group, which was "looking for a candidate for 2000 with good political instincts, someone they could work with", was impressed, and Shultz encouraged him to enter the race.
Several aspirants withdrew before the Iowa caucuses because they did not secure funding and endorsements sufficient to remain competitive with Bush. These included Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Smith. Pat Buchanan dropped out to run for the Reform Party nomination. That left Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch as the only candidates still in the race.
On January 24, Bush won the Iowa caucuses with 41% of the vote. Forbes came in second with 30% of the vote. Keyes received 14%, Bauer 9%, McCain 5%, and Hatch 1%. Two days later, Hatch dropped out and endorsed Bush. The national media portrayed Bush as the establishment candidate.
With the support of many moderate Republicans and independents, McCain portrayed himself as a crusading insurgent who focused on campaign reform.
On February 1, McCain, who had skipped the caucuses in order to divert resources toward New Hampshire and South Carolina, won a surprising 49–30% victory over Bush in the New Hampshire primary. Bauer subsequently dropped out, followed by Forbes, who had won no primaries after spending $32 million of his own money on his campaign. This left three candidates. In the South Carolina primary, Bush soundly defeated McCain. Some McCain supporters accused the Bush campaign of mudslinging and negative campaigning, citing push polls that implied that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was an African-American child he fathered out of wedlock. McCain's loss in South Carolina damaged his campaign, but he won both Michigan and his home state of Arizona on February 22.
The primary campaigns impacted the South Carolina State House, where a controversy about the Confederate flag flying over the capitol dome prompted the state legislature to move the flag to a less prominent position at a Civil War memorial on the capitol grounds. Most GOP candidates said the issue should be left to South Carolina voters, but McCain later recanted and said the flag should be removed.
McCain criticized Bush for speaking at and accepting the endorsement of Bob Jones University despite its policy banning interracial dating, actions for which Bush subsequently apologized. On February 28, McCain also referred to Jerry Falwell and televangelist Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance," a term from which he distanced himself during his 2008 bid. He lost Virginia to Bush on February 29. On Super Tuesday, March 7, Bush won New York, Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, California, Maryland, and Maine. McCain won Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts but dropped out of the race. Bush took the majority of the remaining contests and won the Republican nomination on March 14, winning his home state of Texas and his brother Jeb's home state of Florida, among others. At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush accepted the nomination.
Bush asked former secretary of defense Dick Cheney to head up a team to help select a running mate for him, but ultimately chose Cheney himself as the vice presidential nominee. While the U.S. Constitution does not specifically disallow a president and a vice president from the same state, it prohibits electors from casting both of their votes for persons from their own state. Accordingly, Cheney—who had been a resident of Texas for nearly 10 years—changed his voting registration back to Wyoming. Had Cheney not done this, either he or Bush would have forfeited his electoral votes from Texas.
- Governor George W. Bush – 1,526
- Senator John McCain – 275
- Ambassador Alan Keyes – 23
- Businessman Steve Forbes – 10
- Gary Bauer – 2
- None of the names shown – 2
- Uncommitted – 1
Democratic Party nomination
Primaries
Vice President Al Gore was a consistent front-runner for the nomination. Other prominent Democrats mentioned as possible contenders included Bob Kerrey, Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, and actor and director Warren Beatty. Of these, only Wellstone formed an exploratory committee.
Running an insurgency campaign, U.S. Senator Bill Bradley positioned himself as the alternative to Gore, who was a founding member of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. While former basketball star Michael Jordan campaigned for him in the early primary states, Bradley announced his intention to campaign "in a different way" by conducting a positive campaign of "big ideas." His campaign's focus was a plan to spend the record-breaking budget surplus on a variety of social welfare programs to help the poor and the middle class, along with campaign finance reform and gun control.
Gore easily defeated Bradley in the primaries, largely because of support from the Democratic Party establishment and Bradley's poor showing in the Iowa caucus, where Gore successfully painted Bradley as aloof and indifferent to the plight of farmers. The closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary. On March 14, Gore clinched the Democratic nomination.
None of Bradley's delegates were allowed to vote for him, so Gore won the nomination unanimously at the Democratic National Convention. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was nominated for vice president by voice vote. Lieberman became the first Jewish American ever to be chosen for this position by a major party. Gore chose Lieberman over five other finalists: Senators Evan Bayh, John Edwards, and John Kerry, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, and New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen.
Delegate totals:
Other nominations
The nomination went to Pat Buchanan and running mate Ezola Foster from California over the objections of party founder Ross Perot and despite a rump convention nomination of John Hagelin by the Perot faction. In the end, the Federal Election Commission sided with Buchanan, and that ticket appeared on 49 of 51 possible ballots.
Association of State Green Parties nomination
The Greens/Green Party USA, a then-recognized national party organization, later endorsed Nader for president and he appeared on the ballots of 43 states and Washington, D.C.
Libertarian Party nomination
The Libertarian Party's National Nominating Convention nominated Harry Browne from Tennessee and Art Olivier from California for president and vice president. Browne was nominated on the first ballot and Olivier received the vice presidential nomination on the second ballot. Browne appeared on every state ballot except Arizona's, due to a dispute between the Libertarian Party of Arizona (which instead nominated L. Neil Smith) and the national Libertarian Party.
Constitution Party nomination
The Constitution Party nominated Howard Phillips from Virginia for a third time and Curtis Frazier from Missouri. It was on the ballot in 41 states.
Natural Law Party nomination
The Natural Law Party held its national convention in Arlington County, Virginia, on August 31–September 2, unanimously nominating a ticket of Hagelin/Goldhaber without a roll-call vote. The party was on 38 of the 51 ballots nationally.
Independents
- Bob Smith U.S. senator from New Hampshire (1990–2003)Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from NH-01 (1985–1990) Withdrew: October 28, 1999
General election campaign
The US economy was enjoying record prosperity in the late 1990s. Although the campaign focused mainly on domestic issues, such as the projected budget surplus, proposed reforms of Social Security and Medicare, health care, and competing plans for tax relief, foreign policy was a prominent issue.
Bush criticized the Clinton administration's policies in Somalia, where 18 Americans died in 1993 intervening among warring factions, and in the Balkans, where United States troops performed a variety of functions. "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building", Bush said in the second presidential debate. Bush also pledged to bridge partisan gaps, claiming the atmosphere in Washington stood in the way of progress on necessary reforms. Gore, meanwhile, questioned Bush's fitness for the job, pointing to gaffes Bush made in interviews and speeches and suggesting he lacked the necessary experience to be president.
Bill Clinton's impeachment and the sex scandal that led up to it cast a shadow on the campaign. Republicans strongly denounced the Clinton scandals, and Bush made a promise to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House a centerpiece of his campaign. Gore studiously avoided the Clinton scandals, as did Lieberman, even though Lieberman had been the first Democratic senator to denounce Clinton's misbehavior. Some observers theorized that Gore chose Lieberman in an attempt to separate himself from Clinton's past misdeeds and help blunt the GOP's attempts to link him to his boss. Others pointed to the passionate kiss Gore gave his wife during the Democratic Convention as a signal that despite the allegations against Clinton, Gore himself was a faithful husband. Gore avoided appearing with Clinton, who was shunted to low-visibility appearances in areas where he was popular. Experts have argued that this could have cost Gore votes from some of Clinton's core supporters.
Ralph Nader was the most successful of the third-party candidates. His campaign was marked by a traveling tour of large "super-rallies" held in sports arenas like Madison Square Garden, with retired talk show host Phil Donahue as master of ceremonies. After initially ignoring Nader, the Gore campaign made a pitch to potential Nader supporters in the campaign's final weeks, downplaying his differences with Nader on the issues and arguing that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were and that Gore had a better chance of winning than Nader. On the other side, the Republican Leadership Council ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in an effort to split the liberal vote. Nader said his campaign's objective was to pass the 5-percent threshold so his Green Party would be eligible for matching funds in future races.