United States Presidential Election, 2000 (PNIP)

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United States presidential election, 2000
November 2, 2000
	Presidential election results map. Green denotes states won by Nader/LaDuke (23), Red denotes states won by Bush/Cheney (27), Blue denotes those won by Gore/Edwars (D.C.).
	President before election; George Bush; Democratic Elected President; Ralph Nader; Independent/Green/Reform

The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President, Republican candidate George W. Bush, and Green candidate Ralph Nader. Bill Clinton, the incumbent President, was vacating the position after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Nader narrowly won the November 7 election, with 275 electoral votes to Gore's 3 and Bush's 260. The election was closest of the 21st century and would also be one of the few election where a candidate won the electoral vote but not the popular vote(Nader won the electoral vote, Bush won the popular vote).

Democratic Party Nomination

Democratic Party Candidates

Vice President Albert Gore of Tennessee
Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey

Many candidates for the Democratic nomination tested the waters, but only two serious candidates entered the contest: Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. Only Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone formed an exploratory committee.

Gore had a strong base as the incumbent Vice President; Bradley received some endorsements but was not the candidate of a major faction or coalition of blocs. Running an insurgency campaign, 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." He made the spending of the record-breaking budget surplus on a variety of social welfare programs to help the poor and the middle-class one of his central issues, along with campaign finance reform and gun control.

Gore easily defeated Bradley in the primaries, largely because of the support given to Gore by 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 in rural America. The closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary. On March 14th Al Gore won the Democratic nomination.

Gore, as incumbent V.P., was supported by Bill Clinton and despite Bradley's challenge was a safe front-runner. But some other prominent Democrats were mentioned as possible contenders, such as Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, and famous actor and director Warren Beatty, who declined to run.

None of Bradley's delegates were allowed to vote for him, so Gore won the nomination unanimously at the Democratic National Convention. North Carolina Senator John Edwards was nominated for Vice President by voice vote. Edwards was chosen by Gore over five other finalists on his shortlist.

Republican Party Nomination

Republican Party Candidates

Former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
Former Undersecretary of Education Gary Bauer of Kentucky
Publisher and Author Pat Buchanan of Virginia
Governor George W. Bush of Texas
Former Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina
Businessman Steve Forbes of New York
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah
Representative John Kasich of Ohio
Former Ambassador and conservative activist Alan Keyes of Maryland
Senator John McCain of Arizona
Former Vice President Dan Quayle of Indiana
Senator Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire

George W. Bush became the early frontrunner, acquiring unprecedented funding and a broad base of leadership support based on his governorship of Texas and the name recognition and connections of the Bush family. Several aspirants withdrew before the Iowa Caucus because they were unable to secure funding and endorsements sufficient to remain competitive with Bush. These included Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole, John Kasich, Dan Quayle, and Robert C. 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 24th Bush won the Iowa caucus with 41% of the vote. Forbes came in second with 30% of the vote. Keyes received 14%, Bauer 9%, McCain 5%, and Hatch 1%. Hatch dropped out.

Bush, the governor of Texas, a son of a former president, and the favored candidate of the Christian right, was portrayed in the media as the establishment candidate. McCain, with the support of many moderate Republicans and Independents, portrayed himself as a crusading insurgent who focused on campaign reform.

On February 1st McCain won a 49%-30% victory over Bush in the New Hampshire primary. Gary Bauer dropped out. After coming in third in Delaware Forbes dropped out, leaving three candidates. In the South Carolina primary, Bush soundly defeated McCain. Some credit Bush's win to the fact that it was the first major closed primary in 2000, which negated McCain's strong advantage among independents. Some McCain supporters blamed it on the Bush campaign, accusing them of mudslinging and dirty tricks, such as push polling 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. After the South Carolina primary, McCain won both Michigan and his home state of Arizona on February 22nd.

On February 24, John McCain criticized George W. Bush for not denouncing the Bob Jones University policy banning inter-racial dating. On February 28th John McCain also referred to Rev. Jerry Falwell and televangelist Pat Robertson as agents of intolerance. John McCain lost the state of Virginia to George W. 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. On March 10, Alan Keyes got 21% of the vote in Utah. 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 and other states. At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia George W. Bush accepted the Nomination of the Republican party.

Vice Presidential candidates

Governor Bush told former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to head up a commission to help select a running mate for him, but ultimately, Bush decided that Cheney should be the Vice Presidential nominee. While the U.S. Constitution does not specifically disallow a president and a vice-president from the same state, it does prohibit each elector from casting both of his or her votes for persons from his or her 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 Governor Bush would have forfeited their electoral votes from the Texas electors, a situation which—given the eventual razor-thin margin of victory for the Republicans that year—would have almost certainly resulted in the Vice-Presidential election going to the Republican Senate.

Green Party Nomination

Green Party Candidates

Activist Ralph Nader of Connectict
Punk Rocker Jello Biafra of California
Spiritualist Stephen Gaskin of Colorado
Writer Joel Kovel of New York

The nomination went to Ralph Nader of Connecticut and Winona LaDuke of Minnesota, at the Green Party's National Nominating Convention in Denver, Colorado. The Green Party appeared on 44 of 50 state ballots as well as the ballot in DC.

Reform Party Nomination

Reform Party Candidates

Publisher and Author Pat Buchanan of Virginia
Professor John Hagelin of Iowa

The nomination went to John Hagelin and running mate Charlie Collins of Georgia. In the end, the Hagelin/Collins ticket appeared on 49 of 51 possible ballots.

The general election campaign

Although the campaign was 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 often an issue. Bush criticized Clinton administration policies in Somalia, where 18 Americans died in 1993 trying to sort out warring factions, and in the Balkans, where United States peacekeeping troops perform 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 in the nation's capital, 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 made by Bush in interviews and speeches and suggesting the Texas governor 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, particularly on his vice president's run to replace him. Republicans, who typically have an advantage with voters on moral issues, strongly denounced the Clinton scandals, particularly Bush, who made his repeated promise to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House (a none-too-subtle jab at Clinton) a centerpiece of his campaign. Gore studiously avoided the Clinton scandals, as did Edwards. In fact, some media observers theorized that Gore actually chose Edwards 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.

Ralph Nader was the most successful of third-party candidates, drawing nearly 11% of the popular vote in the early campaign. His campaign was marked by a traveling tour of "super-rallies"; large 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 big publicity pitch to (potential) Nader supporters in the final weeks of the campaign, downplaying Gore's differences with Nader on the issues and claiming that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were, trying to note 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. In the aftermath of the campaign, many Gore supporters claimed that many of Nader's voters would have supported Gore, thus siphoning off enough would-be Gore votes to throw the election to Bush. Nader dismissed such concerns, claiming his objective in the campaign was to "make a mark on the nation to break the American Duopoly".

The vice presidential candidates Dick Cheney , John Edwards and Winnona LaDuke campaigned aggressively in the 2000 presidential election. Both camps made numerous campaign stops nationwide.

In the midpoint of the campaign, the Bush/Cheney camp began to run "pro-nader" ads to siphon off votes from the Gore/Edwards ticket.

The Election

Most pundits had written off Nader as a long shot, even with his steady gain in polls. This thought was shattered as state after state fell to the Nader/LaDuke camp, Bush was coming in at second everywhere as Gore underpreformed and only won the Democratic stronghold of DC.

Election Results

Results by state

#	State	Winner	Delegates
1	Washington	Nader / LaDuke	11
2	Oregon	Nader / LaDuke	7
3	California	Nader / LaDuke	54
4	Arizona	Bush / Cheney	8
5	Nevada	Bush / Cheney	4
6	New Mexico	Nader / LaDuke	5
7	Colorado	Nader / LaDuke	8
8	Utah	Bush / Cheney	5
9	Idaho	Bush / Cheney	4
10	Montana	Nader / LaDuke	3
11	Wyoming	Bush / Cheney	3
12	North Dakota	Bush / Cheney	3
13	South Dakota	Bush / Cheney	3
14	Nebraska	Bush / Cheney	5
15	Kansas	Bush / Cheney	6
16	Oklahoma	Bush / Cheney	8
17	Texas	Bush / Cheney	32
18	Louisiana	Bush / Cheney	9
19	Arkansas	Bush / Cheney	6
20	Mississippi	Bush / Cheney	6
21	Alabama	Bush / Cheney	9
22	Georgia	Bush / Cheney	13
23	Florida	Bush / Cheney	25
24	South Carolina	Bush / Cheney	8
25	North Carolina	Bush / Cheney	14
26	Virginia	Bush / Cheney	13
27	Tennessee	Bush / Cheney	11
28	Kentucky	Bush / Cheney	8
29	West Virginia	Bush / Cheney	5
30	Ohio	Nader / LaDuke	21
31	Indiana	Bush / Cheney	12
32	Illinois	Nader / LaDuke	22
33	Michigan	Bush / Cheney	18
34	Wisconsin	Nader / LaDuke	11
35	Minnesota	Nader / LaDuke	10
36	Iowa	Bush / Cheney	7
37	Maine	Nader / LaDuke	4
38	Vermont	Nader / LaDuke	3
39	New Hampshire	Nader / LaDuke	4
40	Massachusetts	Nader / LaDuke	12
41	Rhode Island	Nader / LaDuke	4
42	Connecticut	Nader / LaDuke	7
43	New York	Nader / LaDuke	33
44	Pennsylvania	Nader / LaDuke	23
45	New Jersey	Nader / LaDuke	15
46	Delaware	Bush / Cheney	3
47	Maryland	Nader / LaDuke	10
48	Missouri	Bush / Cheney	11
49	Alaska	Nader / LaDuke	3
50	Hawaii	Nader / LaDuke	4
51	Washington D.C.	Gore / Edwards	3

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