Could Clinton had won in 1992 without Perot taking 18.87% of the vote?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.4reference.net/encyclopedias/wikipedia/U_S_presidential_election_1992.html

Presidential Candidate - Electoral Vote - Popular Vote - Pct Party

William J. Clinton - 370 - 44,908,254 -42.93% (Democrat)

George H. W. Bush - 168 - 39,102,343 -37.38% (Republican)

Ross Perot - Ø -19,741,065 -18.87% (independent)

Did anyone ever do a study to find out which party most of Perots votes were siphoned from? I suspect mosly from Republicans, but I am not sure. Thanks in advance for any help.

Don

[Eric J in MN]

1. No. Can a web-person please start a Draft Perot 2004 website?

We need conservative third-party candidate to win.

Can someone good with web-design please create a Draft Ross Perot 2004 website?

His issue is the deficit, and it's relevant.

[AP]

10. Wrong. Clinton was condorcet winner vs both Perot and Bush.

[papau]

18. Correct - stat analysis of those voting Perot showed half had Clinton #2

Seems Bush just was not appreciated!

[virtualobserver]

32. I remeber when Perot dropped out.......

The polls had Clinton in the 60's

Clinton would have won easily.

[bearfartinthewoods]

44. the statistics say that but don't represent the whole story

statistics and poll questoning can't factor in the effect of a year of 2 on 1 campaigning. poppy was getting it from both sides and perot's bombastic charm and money got him plenty of air time.


no matter what the stats say, i don't think we would have won without the fevor of discontent that perot whipped up against poppy.

[mikehiggins]

2. Without Perot Clinton would have been toast.

Ironically, one of the reasons Perot took off after George I is becuase he beleived the Pres had buried records of MIA/POW's still being held in captivity in Viet Nam.

Many Perotistas would have voted for Bush if they had to, though. They could never vote for a bed-wetting commie pinko like Bill.

The day of the populist third party candidate, however, is over.

[arewethereyet]

3. I really have to disagree

Clinton was a strong populist as was Perot. I think he would have taken the lions share of that block.

[stevedeshazer]

6. He only got 43%

Clinton only got 48% in Massachusetts, even.

[arewethereyet]

17. I didn't say he was a liberal

you don't state Perot's numbers in Mass. enough to get the other 7.1 ?

we'll never know of course but I don't think Perot only hurt Bush

[stevedeshazer]

27. ?

I didn't say he was a liberal, either.

I still think Perot hurt Poppy Bush more, but you're right that we'll never know.

[Eric J in MN]

4. There is dissatisfaction with Bush over spending and deficits.

There is dissatisfaction with Bush over spending and deficits.

If Ross Perot ran as a third-party candidate in 2004, he could get votes
from people who want smaller government.

[AP]

12. Wrong. There's enough data proving Clinton would have won with Perot

in the race.

Since the data is out there, I think people should stop pretending that Clinton would have lost.

[Bucky]

22. Correct. Exit polling among Perot voters show 2nd choice was split even

The exit polling I remember reading about showed that Clinton would've gotten just slightly more of the second choice votes among Perot voters. Here's a link.

Without Perot, Clinton might have lost Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, and Nevada. That's 40 EC votes. Another 49 EC votes would be questionable for Clinton. But even this worst case scenario has Clinton winning 271-267. That is only enough to keep Clinton from claiming a non-squeaker, not enough to deprive him of a victory.

[joeybee12]

20. Nope, all studies show Clinton would have won regardless--against

only Bush, or a three way.

No studies back up your views.

[bowens43]

26. Wrong. Perot took more votes from Clinton then from Bush

[Sean Reynolds]

5. Bush would have walked to re-election.

I doubt Bush would have gotten all 19% of Perot voters, a lot probably wouldn't have voted. BUT he'd get enough to beat Clinton by a solid margin. I'd say Bush probably would have gotten at least 10% of Perot's 19%. So he'd have about 47% to Clinton's 42% and the electoral college would have swayed the other way.

Bush would have won re-election.

[AP]

14. Not true. The data says otherwise.

I'm not going to let this slide.

It's practically beyond hypothesis.

The only question is whether Clinton voters showed up only because Perot was in the race. But, I believe, his MOV was significantly large in the condorcet Bush v Clinton match-up that it's almost beyond doubt he would have won without Perot.

Clinton and Perot probably split they "we need a change" vote in a year when many people wanted a change.

[TruthIsAll]

16. Sean Reynolds, your math is wrong..

Clinton 43
Bush 37
Perot 19

Say Bush got 10 of Perot's 19 (52% of Perot votes). Then Clinton gets the remaining 9 (48%) and the totals would then be:
Bush: 10+37=47%
Clinton: 9+43=52%

The only way Bush wins is if he gets 13 of the Perot 19% (69% of the Perot votes). Then Clinton is left with 6% of the 19% (or 31% of the Perot votes)). This is very unlikely.

Then Bush wins a squeaker:
Bush = 13+37=50%
Clinton = 43+6=49%

[Sean Reynolds]

40. No, I was right.

I said Bush would probably get 10% of the Perot vote, but that the rest probably wouldn't vote. I never said they'd turn around and vote for Clinton. So Bush gets 47%, while Clinton had 43% of the vote.

47% to 43%

[sandnsea]

42. My hubby voted Perot

He wouldn't have voted Bush in a cazillion years. He would have voted Clinton. He voted Perot because of that giant sucking sound. Appears he was probably right.

[stevedeshazer]

7. Look at the Reform Party

Ross Perot was/is nuttier than a squirrel turd, but he made hay by making a very big deal out of the national debt. This resonated with a lot of true conservatives who abhor deficit spending.

Clinton didn't lose many votes to Perot, but Poppy sure did.

[PsN2Wind]

15. If you mention Perot

you always get this type of response. Perot was crazy and paranoid in his droppoing out of the race for a time because of threats to disrupt his daughters wedding. Well, we all know that it's nuts to imagine that the Honorable G H W Bush would stoop to dirty tricks.

[PsN2Wind]

8. A better question might be

Would the working class in the US be better off if Perot had won the presidency, considering Bill Clintons switch from uncertainty on NAFTA to strongly pushing it thru congress?

[AP]

9. Yes. Almost definitely. Here's why.

For the last six or seven elections, political scientists have sampled voters according the condorcet method. They brake down all the candidates into head-to-head races between every candidate running. In 1992 Clinton was the condorcet winner. He beat Bush head-to-head and he beat Perot head-to-head.

In 1996, Clinton was the Condorcet winner by a very large margin.

In 2000, Gore was the condorcet winner by a very narrow margin. Guess what? Nader was very close in, if memory serves, the head to head with Gore and with Bush.

2000 was the only year in which enough data was available to draw a conclusion in which the Condorcet winner was NOT the winner of the election.

[stevedeshazer]

19. Hey, AP

Is there a link for any of this? Interesting, and first time I've ever heard of it....

[AP]

21. There's a political science professor at Harvard who studies the

influence of third parties on elections.

His name slips my mind. Google Harvard, third party and study, or search around their web site, and you'll find it. Also Google Condorcet. I believe this guy's PhD is from Ohio State.

There's a web site cited in this professor's paper on the 2000 election which has all the data. You can do your own analysis if you were inclined.

[Bucky]

24. I got yer Google right here, buddy boy. Check out post #22 in this thread

eom

[AP]

25. This might be a good place to start

www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~burden/thirdpty.pdf

(from googling: condorcet clinton harvard nader)

[stevedeshazer]

28. Thanks, I'll look here n/t

[seasat]

11. I think Clinton still would have won.

A lot of people were ticked over the economy and the Iran Contra affair. I started off as a Ayn Rand quoting Republican when I graduated from high school. I voted for Perot in that election since I thought Clinton was too liberal and was one of the pissed. I thought Perot was a nut but wanted a third party alternative. After I actually started paying attention to politics, started keeping up with current events, and became a Christian, I realized that the world is not the black and white world of the Republicans. I registered as a Democrat in 2000 and have voted mainly Democrat since then. Clinton would have still beat Srub Sr with or without Perot. I remember seeing a poll that showed that the Perot voters drew from both parties, mainly Republicans, but Clinton still could have won if Perot was not on the ballet.

[Bucky]

13. Yes, Clinton would have won w/o a 3rd party candidate

Exit polling at the time showed that Perot was pulling almost perfectly evenly from Bush, Clinton, and Mr Stay-at-Home. IIRC (and I used to get into arguments about this all the time in the soc.history.what-if newsgroup), Clinton was the second choice of about 35% of the Perotistas to Bush's 32%. Had Perot pulled out in late October, Clinton would have won by about 50 million to Bush's 44 million, or with approximately 53% of the popular vote (not counting minor candidates).

Of course direct extrapolations like this are never quite perfect. But with Bubba's already 5.8 million vote advantage over Bush and a third of Perot's voters sitting it out, Poppy would have needed to get Perot's leftovers to break eight to one in his favor in order to win a popular vote victory. Obviously with the Electoral College the equation becomes a bit more complicated.

[bowens43]

23. Perot took more votes from Clinton then he did Bush

a fact that most conservatives find unpleasant.

[Donna Zen]

29. Thinking about this just this morning...honestly

I agree that while the numbers show that Clinton would have won against bush the elder without Perot, the numbers don't tell the whole story. The greater effect of Perot IMHO may have been to make the anti-bush issue, the deficit, the big story. The swing voters, moved to Clinton who represented a major party, but it was the yammering of Perot that sealed the deal. Remember how high Perot's numbers were before he kinda cracked. Voters that were considering him, did not return to the undecided column, they moved solidly to Clinton. If you look at it that way, it was his voice not his vote that made the difference.

[mot78]

30. It's possible that Clinton could still have won

but as people on this thread have pointed out, by a very narrow margin in the Electoral College. Didn't Perot lead both Clinton AND Bush Sr. before he dropped out? Here's an even more intriguing question. If he hadn't dropped out in July, and if he hadn't selected Stockdale for his running mate, could he have actually won the Presidency? If he did, history would be differant, as we would have no NAFTA, no 1994 Contract with America crap, no Monica, possibly no 9/11/Iraq war. Then again, Perot was nuts, and unfortunately he's almost 70, too old to run again.

[tritsofme]

33. I dont think Perot could "survive" another

election. A sudden "heart attack" shortly after announcing candidacy?

The Bushies got screwed once because of him, not again, and not by anyone else.

[Yupster]

31. Here's some data

In the 1996 exit poll, the question was asked of voters, "who did you vote for in 1992?" Here's the results.



The '92 Clinton voters said they voted this way in 96
Clinton 85%
Dole 9 %
Perot 4%

The '92 Bush voters said they voted this way in 96
Clinton 13 %
Dole 82 %
Perot 4 %

The '92 Perot voters said they voted this way in 96
Clinton 22 %
Dole 44 %
Perot 33 %

Of course you can interpret this any way you want, but the simplest interpretation is that Perot voters were mostly Republicans who had a bit of a temper tantrum and largely came home in 96 even to a weak candidate like Bob Dole.

Of the Perot 92 voters, more of them switched to Dole than even stuck with Perot, and double went to Dole than Clinton. And this is after a successful four year presidency. I think it's hard to argue that Perot took votes equally from each when you look at the numbers. I've seen it said many times that he took from both sides, but when I've tried to search for numbers, all I ever get is reporters saying that he took from both sides equally.

So, my opinion? I think Clinton still wins, but it's much closer. I took Perot's vote and distributed as follows... 6 % don'ty vote for anyone. 8% vote for Bush and 5 % for Clinton. That makes it Clinton 48-46. Moving the numbers to 100% gives me Clinton 51.1 - 48.9.

Looking at the electoral college, I have no doubt that Perot cost Bush the following states. New Hampshire, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio. I think there's a chance Perot cost Bush Georgia, Missouri, and Kentucky. I don't see any states that Clinton would have won if Perot would not have been in. That's my take. Clinton still wins, but much closer.

[dansolo]

34. I thought it was about even

I seem to recall that about a third of the Perot voters came from Bush, a third from Clinton, and the last third were new voters.

[elperromagico]

35. Interesting question.

This post consists of a great deal of healthy speculation. Take it with a grain of salt.

From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political/IRV_MaximumChoice.html

"... exit polls showed that Ross Perot voters were evenly split between George Bush and Clinton.

... With Ross Perot on the ballot, voter participation rose in 49 out of 50 states. Furthermore, while the average increase in voter turnout was 5% around the nation, its average rise was 8% in the 10 states where Perot gained his highest percentages of the vote."

So Perot's votes came from three sources: potential Clinton supporters, potential Bush supporters, and people who had never shown interest in voting at all (I believe nearly half of Perot's voters said they wouldn't have voted if Perot hadn't been in the race, and the rest were split between Clinton and Bush).

Let's assume that 45% of Perot's supporters would have given the election a miss. Let's take that further and say that 35% of his supporters would have gone with Bush, and 20% with Clinton. The results would have looked something like this:

Clinton - 42.93% +4.72% = 47.65%
Bush - 37.38% +6.60% = 43.98%

So, in a two-man race, the results might have been:

Clinton - 52.0%
Bush - 48.0%

So, Clinton would have won. But it is possible that Bush could have gained enough support in close states to have won the Electoral College.

Again, this is all speculation.

[Yupster]

36. What exit poll

ever showed Perot taking equally from each? I've never seen one.

[Yupster]

37. My speculative numbers elper

come out about the same as yours.

[elperromagico]

39. Whew, that's a relief.

I really don't want to have to go looking for an exit poll from 1992. :P

[theorist]

38. This is the wrong question to ask.

I know it's an interesting hypothetical, but it doesn't matter. I think the real questions should be:

Why did Perot run? (I feel he ran to ruin things for Bush. Perot had a grudge against Poppy going all the way to the days when Bush was running the RNC.)

How did he go about succeeding? (My opinion here was that Perot never wanted to be president, but he wanted to steal the portion of the Bush vote that really hated taxes, but didn't know enough about tax laws to see that Perot's ideas were intractable.)

[grasswire]

41. I'd rather see Buchanan run again...

...because the constitutionalists are really mad. He could siphon off those who oppose the patriot act and neo-conservatism.

And now that he just lost his gig on MSNBC, he's free to run.

[FDRrocks]

43. Yes

plenty of reggied Democrats were right wing disciples at that point, and probably voted Perot. Look at how many reggied Dems voted for Bush in 2k0.

It's all Naders fault anyways. Damn liberals don't need representation. The far-right does, however.

[Silverhair]

45. Even Rush, at the time, admitted after the election that Americans

wanted to fire Bush. Perot was a very interesting side show. That Perot did so well also shows that Americans are hungry for something other that the two main parties.