PRESIDENTIAL 96 A CASE STUDY In the election of 1996 President Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee, won a decisive victory over former Senator Bob Dole, his republican opponent, and Ross Perot, the candidate of the Reform Party. Clinton carried thirty-two of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and won 379 electoral votes to 159 for Bob Dole. Clinton s victory marked the first time since 1936 that a Democratic president had been reelected to a second full term. The results were: Popular Vote 1 Electoral Vote Popular Vote Percentage Bill Clinton (D) 45,628,667 379 49.2% Bob Dole (R) 37,869,435 159 40.8% Ross Perot (RP) 7,874,283 0 8.5% Others 1,435,025 0 1.5% 92,807,410 538 100.0% The Democrats As the 1986 presidential campaign approached, it was almost unanimously assumed that President Clinton would, at age 50, seek reelection. But Clinton and his Democratic supporters realized that three unknowns could have a powerful effect on their party s prospects. First, how popular would the president and his administration be with the voters in the summer and fall of 1996? The president and his party had suffered a stunning defeat in the midterm election in November 1994, when the Republicans captured majorities in both the House and the Senate for the first time in forty years. But if Bill Clinton could rebound from that electoral disaster and attain high job approval ratings by the time of the 1996 campaign, then a Clinton victory might be possible. Otherwise, the 1996 contest for the presidency could result in another humiliating defeat for the Democrats. Second, would President Clinton face opposition from within his own party as he sought re-nomination? If other Democrats entered the spring primaries, the resulting battles could split the party and weaken its prospects in the general election. Third, and perhaps most important of all, what would economic conditions be like in the summer and fall of 1996? The economy had been generally healthy and 1 USA Today, November 8, 1996, p. 6A.
growing during the early years of the Clinton presidency. If economic expansion continued in 1996, and inflation could be contained, the chances of a Democratic victory would be much greater. But an economic downturn would make it difficult for Clinton to persuade voters that they were better off than they had been four years earlier. Clinton had begun his presidency in January 1993 with the broad approval that the American public usually gives a new president at the start of his first term. After his first few days in office, the Gallup poll reported that 58 percent of the public approved of the job he was doing as president, and only 20 percent disapproved. (See Table 1.) Over the next nineteen months his popularity plummeted, however, so that by September 1994 shortly after his major proposal for health-care reform legislation had been rejected by Congress only 39 percent of the public approved of Clinton s job performance; a full 54 percent disapproved. Two months later came the Republican electoral landslide in the congressional elections of 1994. The Democratic defeat that year was especially dramatic in the House of Representatives, which the Democrats had controlled for forty consecutive years. No other elected institution of the national government not the presidency, not the U.S. Senate had ever been controlled that long by one party. Now the Republicans and the new speaker of the House, the outspoken Newt Gingrich of Georgia, were firmly in control. Among Democrats, Clinton himself received much of the blame. During the winter of 1994-1995 there was widespread speculation among politicians and in the press that one or more prominent congressional Democrats might challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 1996. Public attention focused on the efforts of Speaker Gingrich and the freshmen Republicans to push their ambitious and conservative program, the Contract With America, through Congress. At one point President Clinton even felt the need to remind journalists that he was still relevant: The Constitution gives me relevance, the power of our ideas gives me relevance. 2 Clinton also made key changes in his White House staff. In June 1994 he announced that his lifelong friend Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty would be replaced as the White House chief of staff by Leon E. Panetta, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a former member of Congress from California. Panetta had served in the House for sixteen years and unlike McLarty had broad knowledge of the Washington political world. 3 After Panetta took charge as chief of staff appeared to improve. Clinton also brought in State Department spokesman Michael McCurry to be his new White House press secretary, replacing Dee Dee Myers. 4 McCurry proved skillful in handling the daily White House press briefings and in dealing with the news media. 2 Time, September 2, 1996, p. 33. 3 Facts on File, June 30, 1994, p. 457. 4 Facts on File, January 19, 1995, p. 31.
TABLE 1 President Clinton's Job Rating, 1993-1996 Date of interviews Approve Disapprove No Opinion Clinton Elected with 43% of the vote, November 1992 Clinton inaugurated, January 1993 January 24-26, 1993 58% 20% 22% April 22-24, 1993 55 37 8 "Travelgate," "$200 haircut," several presidential nominations Difficulties with Senate, Dave Gergen joins White House, May 1993 June 5-6, 1993 37 49 14 Sept. 13-15, 1993 46 43 11 Clinton announces health care proposal in speech to Congress, September 1993 Sept. 24-26, 1993 56 36 8 Nov. 19-21, 1993 48 43 9 Clinton's second State of the Union address, January 1994 January 28-30, 1994 58 35 7 April 22-24, 1994 48 44 8 Health care reform dies, September 1994 Sept. 6-7, 1994 39 54 7 Midterm elections--republicans capture the House and Senate, November 1994 Dec. 28-30, 1994 40 52 8 Feb. 3-5, 1995 49 44 10 Midterm elections--republicans capture the House and Senate, November 1994 April 21-24, 1995 51 39 10 Sept. 14-17, 1995 44 44 12 Nov. 17-18, 1995 53 38 9 January 5-7, 1995 42 49 9 Note: Responses were to the question: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bill Clinton is handling his jab as president? Source: Data provided by the Gallup poll. Slowly, the president s job-approval ratings began to rise. When a federal office building was bombed in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 169 people, the nation was shocked and looked to Washington for reassurance. Clinton and the
CLINTON MOVES TO THE CENTER: "Tonight I want to talk to you about what government can do, because I believe government must do more." --President Clinton, State of the Union Address, 1993 "The era of big government is over." --President Clinton, State of the Union Address, 1993 federal government responded decisively to the tragedy. In the aftermath, Clinton s standing in the polls went up. Some of Clinton s foreign-policy actions also seemed to help his popularity. He also appeared to gain in popularity by taking more moderate positions on a broad range of issues. The Democratic president was moving to the center. Much of the national political debate in 1995 focused on the attempts of Republicans in Congress to pass their legislative program, and Clinton s efforts to block or modify the Republican proposals. During Clinton s first two years in office, when the Democrats controlled Congress, the president did not veto a single bill. In Clinton s second two years in office, with a Republican Congress, he exercised his veto fifteen times. 5 In December 1995, Republican leaders tried to force Clinton to approve their budget bill by withholding funds to run the federal government agencies were closed for days. It was a defining event in Clinton s first term. The public appeared to blame the president for the impasse; when the confrontation was over, the president s jobapproval rating had increased to 52 percent in the Gallup poll taken at the end of January. During the rest of the year, through the November election, President Clinton s job approval rating never dropped below 52 percent. This surge in the president s popularity had other effects on the 1996 campaign. Clinton was able to avoid a potentially divisive fight within his own party for the nomination; he was the first incumbent Democrat president since Franklin Roosevelt not to have a significant challenge for re-nomination. And by early 1996 Clinton had moved ahead of all his potential Republican opponents in the polls. It was a lead that the president never relinquished. The Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on August 26. Speakers praised Clinton s first term and assailed the GOP-controlled Congress. The Democrats experienced an embarrassing setback, however, on the final days of the convention. Clinton s top campaign strategist, Dick Morris, abruptly resigned in the wake of a tabloid s allegations that he had been seeing a $200-an-hour call girl and had let her listen in on his private conversations with the president. 5 Time, September 2, 1996, p. 32.
On August 28, as the delegates cheered and stomped, Clinton was formally renominated by the convention. The next day, he accepted his nomination to chants of four more years and promised that his administration and the Democratic party would build a bridge to the twenty-first century. The Republicans Early in 1995 the Republican Party was in an enviable position. Republicans had just won control of both the House and the Senate and their Contract With America dominated the congressional agenda. In the confident view of many Republican leaders, the question was not whether they would have a chance of winning the 1996 presidential election, but rather, which Republican would become the next president of the United States? As Clinton s job-approval ratings slowly began to rise, however, a number of prominent Republicans indicated that they would not seek the nomination. These included former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Representative Jack Kemp, the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and the governor of Massachusetts, William Weld. That fall, there was a great deal of political speculation over a possible presidential candidacy by General Colin L. Powell. A highly respected, retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and hero of the Persian Gulf War, Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, created more excitement than any other possible Republican candidate. And there were signs that Powell might have the best chance of defeating President Clinton in 1996; a CNN poll in the early fall of 1995 showed Powell ahead of Clinton, 46 percent to 38 percent. 6 Yet no one knew for sure whether Powell was a Republican. On November 8, 1995 Colin Powell answered the question: He announced that he was a Republican but that he would not seek the party s presidential nomination in 1996. President Clinton and the Republican presidential contenders gave a collective sigh of relief. 6 Newsweek, Special Election Issue, November 18, 1996, p. 45.
The retired general did not rule out a presidential bid in another year as Powell himself said, The future is the future. 7 But even without Powell in the picture, the list of candidates was a long one. On April 10, 1995, from the steps of the State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas, Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader, officially entered the race for the Republican nomination. In time, a total of ten candidates competed for the prize: Dole; former governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee; conservative columnist and former Nixon and Reagan administration official Pat Buchanan; Steve Forbes, heir to a publishing empire; Senator Phil Gramm of Texas; California Governor Pete Wilson; Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana; Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; Representative Robert Dornan of California; Alan Keyes, a black conservative radio talk-show host who had never held elective office; and Illinois businessman Morry Taylor. Wilson withdrew from the race in September, saying that he lacked campaign funds. Specter ended his campaign in November. Although Dole had failed to capture the Republican nomination in 1980 and in 1988, in 1996 he appeared to be the early front-runner. However, Dole was surprisingly slow out of the gate in the Iowa caucuses on February 12. Dole barely edged out Pat Buchanan, 26 percent to 23 percent. It was clear that Dole would have to battle for the nomination. 8 Gramm, who finished fifth in Iowa with only 9 percent of the vote, dropped out of the race on February 14. 9 The first Republican primary in New Hampshire took place on February 20. Over the years, the state had proved to be a key battleground in presidential primaries. Since 1948, through twelve presidential elections, eleven candidates have won in New Hampshire and gone on to the White House. President Clinton was the sole exception, finishing second there in 1992. 10 The 1996 contest was regarded as one of the most negative campaigns in New Hampshire history candidates spent less time shaking hands and talking with the voters than they did attacking on another through television ads and sound bites on the evening news. When the votes were counted, Buchanan shocked Republicans across the country by beating the party s front-runner, Dole. The final tally: Buchanan 27 percent, Dole 26 percent, Alexander 23 percent, and Forbes 12 percent. The result prompted Dole to portray himself as a centrist candidate in contrast to the more conservative Buchanan. Dole told his fellow Republicans: It s a two-man race from now on, and we know we re now engaged in a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. 11 The Forbes effort appeared doomed after two straight fourth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. How the primary campaigns moved south for an all- 7 New York Times, November 9, 1995, p. A1. 8 Washington Post, February 13, 1996, p. A1. 9 Washington Post, February 14, 1996, p. A1. 10 www.allpolitics.com, February 20, 1996. 11 Washington Post, February 21, 1996.
important clash on March 2 between Dole and Buchanan in South Carolina, a conservative state that seemed ripe for another Buchanan victory. Dole, however, regained front-runner status there with a big victory, garnering 45 percent of the vote to Buchanan s 29 percent. 12 On March 5, Dole won all of the day s eight primaries. Then it was the turn of both Alexander and Lugar to bow out of the race. On March 12, Super Tuesday, Dole swept all seven of the key primaries and urged Buchanan and Forbes to support his inevitable nomination. Our focus should be on Bill Clinton, not Bob Dole or each other, the Kansas senator declared. 13 When Dole won California on March 26 his delegate total surpassed the 996 needed to win the nomination. After sixteen years of trying, Dole declared that, finally, he would be the Republican nominee for president. With Dole assured of the nomination, he was able to concentrate on the coming campaign battle against President Clinton. But the opinion polls did not bode well for the older man from Kansas; they showed Dole tailing Clinton by a sizeable seventeen points. The unfavorable poll data prompted Dole to announce on May 15 that he would resign from the Senate. Dole s resignation was a dramatic gesture that he hoped would focus attention on his candidacy and allow him more time to campaign. However, the polls did not respond the way that Dole hoped. During June and July, Dole continued to lag behind Clinton often by as much as 15 percentage points in most national polls. Dole also celebrated his seventy-third birthday in July, prompting questions about whether he was too old to 12 www.allpolitics.com, March 2, 1996. 13 www.allpolitics.com, March 12, 1996.
be president; polls showed that 32 percent of respondents thought that he was. On August 5, Dole sought to regain the initiative by unveiling his long-awaited economic stimulus plan. His proposal, which he hoped would be the centerpiece of his campaign, was a 15 percent across-the-board income tax cut. He also promised to reform the Internal Revenue Service. As the Republican National Convention approached, speculation mounted about who would be Dole s vice presidential running-mate. On August 10 Dole announced his choice: Jack Kemp, a former member of Congress from New York, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and a onetime professional football player for the Buffalo Bills. In view of their past sparring matches over economic policy, the choice was surprising; Dole had always advocated deficit reduction rather than tax cuts, while Kemp championed tax cuts as a part of supplyside economics. But Dole s choice of Kemp as his running mate was well received both by the public and by Republican activists. On August 12 the Republican National Convention opened in San Diego. In contrast to the Republican convention in Houston four years earlier, there was very little conflict over the policies and direction of the Republican Party. Instead there were four days of made-for-tv programming, with speeches delivered by Colin Powell, Representative Susan Molinari of New York, and Elizabeth Dole, the candidate s wife. The convention nominated the former senator from Russell, Kansas, on August 14.
TABLE 2 Voter Support for Clinton, Dole, and Perot: The Gallup Poll's Three-way Trial Heats between February 1995 and Election Eve, 1996 Date of interviews For Clinton For Dole For Perot February 3-5, 1995 45% 51% -- April 17-19, 1995 40 37 18 August 4-7, 1995 39 35 23 Government shutdown ends, January 6 January 12-15, 1996 43 39 16 Clinton's fourth State of the Union address, January 23 January 26-29, 1996* 54 42 -- March 8-10, 1996 47 34 17 Dole clinches Republican nomination, March April 9-10, 1996 49 35 15 July 25-28, 1996 50 35 10 Republican Convention, August 12-15 August 16-18, 1996 48 41 7 Democratic Convention, August 26-29 Sept. 9-11, 1996 55 34 5 October 3-4, 1996 51 39 5 October 5-6, 1996 55 35 5 Presidential and vice-presidential debates, October 6-16 October 17-18, 1996 55 32 8 October 20-21, 1996 54 35 6 October 30-31, 1996 52 34 10 Final Poll 52 41 7 Election Results 49 41 8 *Perot's name not included in poll questions Source: Data provided by the Gallup poll. Although Buchanan was not allowed to speak at the 1996 convention, he finally endorsed Dole. On the last day of the convention, Dole accepted the GOP nomination and offered himself to the nation as a man tested by adversity, made sensitive by hardship, a fighter by principle, and the most optimistic man in
America. 14 The convention was generally considered to be a success for the Republicans, and Clinton s lead over Dole narrowed. (See Table 2.) Ross Perot s Reform Party, and Ralph Nader As Clinton and Dole prepared to do battle in 1996, the Texas billionaire Ross Perot entered the fray once more. Despite his off-again, on-again presidential bid four years earlier, Perot had polled 19 percent of the vote in 1992 the best showing by a thirdparty candidate since Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. In 1996, Perot, the founder of the Dallas-based Electronic Data Systems Corporation, built his own political party, the Reform Party. He energized some 1.3 million voters, all the while insisting that the effort isn t about me. 15 But as soon as the former governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm, declared that he would seek the Reform Party nomination, Perot announced that he, too, would run. On August 17, Perot easily won his party s nomination by a margin of two to one. 16 One other minor-party candidate received a fair amount of media attention Ralph Nader of the Green Party. In the spring of 1996, polls showed that about 5 percent of the public said that they would vote for Nader, a well-known consumer advocate. Many Democratic political leaders initially worried about the Nader 14 www.allpolitics.com, March 15, 1996. 15 www.allpolitics.com, March 15, 1996. 16 www.allpolitics.com, March 17, 1996.
candidacy, because they feared that most of his support would come from Democratic voters who would otherwise vote for Bill Clinton. The General Election Campaign Both the Democrats and the Republicans appeared to gain a surge in popular support from their national conventions. After the Democratic, a new Gallup poll reported that President Clinton and his running-mate, Vice President Al Gore, held at 55 percent to 34 percent advantage over Dole and Kemp going into the final two months of the campaign. As the last phase of the campaign got under way, it was clear that Clinton was continuing to benefit from good news about the American economy. (See Table 3.) In many voters minds, however, there were continuing questions about the Whitewater affair and the controversy over Clinton s business dealings in the 1990s in Arkansas. TABLE 3 Inflation Unemployment Annual Rates of 1980 13.5% 7.1% Inflation and 1981 10.4 7.6 Unemployment in 1982 6.1 9.7 the United States, 1983 3.2 9.6 1980-1996 1984 4.3 7.4 1985 3.6 7.1 1986 1.9 6.9 1987 3.6 6.1 1988 4.4 5.5 1989 4.6 5.3 1990 5.4 5.6 1991 4.2 6.8 1992 3.0 7.5 1993 3.0 6.9 1994 2.6 6.1 1995 2.8 5.6 1996 3.0 5.4 *1996 figures are annualized for the first seven months of the year. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, 1996 Clinton: We have reduced the size of the federal government to is smallest size in 30 years.... Our government is smaller and less bureaucratic and has given more authority to the states than its two predecessors under Republican presidents, but I do believe we have to help our people get ready to succeed in the 21st century. Clinton: With this risky $550 billion tax scheme of Senator Dole's, even with his own friends, his campaign co-chair, Senator D'Amato, says that they can't possibly pay for it without cutting Medicare more and cutting Social Security as well.... Now, my balanced budget plan adds 10 years to the life of the Medicare trust fund, 10 years. And we'll have time to deal with the long term problems of the baby-boomers Clinton: You know, this 'liberal' charge, that's what their party always drags out when they get in a tight race. It's sort of their 'golden oldie,' you know. It's a record they think they can just play that everybody loves to hear. And I just don't think that dog will hunt this time.... The American people can make up their own mind about whether that's a liberal record or a record that's good for America-- liberal, conservative--you put whatever label you want on it. Dole: I think the basic difference is--and I've had some experience in this--.... I trust the people. The president trusts the government.... I guess I rely more on the individual. I carry a little card around in my pocket called the 10th Amendment. Where possible, I want to give power back to the states and back to the people. Dole: I used to go home, and my mother would tell me.... "Bob, all I've got's my Social Security and my Medicare. Don't cut it." I wouldn't violate anything my mother said.... I am concerned about health care. I've had the best health care in government hospitals, Army hospitals, and I know its importance. But we've got to fix it.... Stop scaring the seniors, Mr. President. You've already spent $45 million scaring seniors and tearing me apart. I think it's time to have a truce. Dole: Well, I think it s pretty liberal. I'll put that label on it. I mean, you take a look at all the programs you've advocated, Mr. President--thank goodness we had a Republican Congress there.... I've just finished reading a book.... About all the liberal influences in the administration, whether it's the Hollywood elite, or whether it's some of the media elite, or whether it's the labor unions, or whatever. --Excerpts from the first televised debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, October 6, 1996 There were questions as well about alleged improprieties in the Clinton administration. Nevertheless, the main drama during September centered around plans for the upcoming televised presidential and vice-presidential debates. On September 10, Ross Perot selected the author and economist, Pat Choate, as his vice-presidential running-mate. A week later, however, the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates decided to exclude Perot and Choate from the televised debates, on the grounds that only Clinton and Dole had a realistic chance of
THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, 1996 Clinton: The question of what the federal Dole: The president, in the election year, government should do to limit the access to decided, "Well, I ought to do something. I tobacco to young people is one of the biggest haven't done anything on drugs. I've been differences between Senator Dole and me.... AWOL for 44 months. So let's take on We started....to look into whether cigarette smoking." But see, they haven't even done it. companies to advertise, market and distribute They haven't said what's going to happen, tobacco products to our kids. No president had whether they're going to have it declared ever taken on the tobacco lobby before. I did.. addictive.... Once it's a drug, does it apply.. On drugs, I have repeatedly said drugs were only to teenagers or to everybody in America? wrong and illegal and can kill you. Nobody should smoke, young or old. But, particularly, young people should not smoke. And my record is there. It's been there. I've voted eight times, 10 times since 1965. Clinton: I am against quotas. I'm against giving Dole: Well, we may not be there yet, but anybody any kind of preference for something we're not going to get there by giving they're not qualified for. But because I still preferences and quotas.... It ought to be not believe that there is some discrimination and based on gender or ethnicity or color or that not everybody has an opportunity to disability. I'm disabled. I shouldn't have a prove preference. I would like to have one in this race, come to think of it. But I don't get one.... This is America. No discrimination. Discrimination ought to be punished, but there ought to be equal opportunity. Clinton: I hope we can talk about what we're going to do in the future. No attack ever created a job or educated a child or helped a Dole: When you have thirty-some in your administration or in jail or whatever, then you've got an ethical problem. It's public family make ends meet. No insult ever cleaned ethics--not talking about private, we're talking up a toxic-waste dump or helped an elderly about public ethics--when you have 900 [FBI] person. files gathered up by some guy who was a bouncer in a bar and hired as a security officer to collect files. --Excerpts from the second televised debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, October 16, 1996 winning the election. Perot filed a federal lawsuit against the debates commission, but one week later the court ruled against him. The Clinton and Dole campaigns agreed to schedule two presidential debates, without Perot, on October 6 and October 16, and one vice-presidential debate on
October 9. Millions of Americans watched the debates, although the audiences were smaller than they had been four years earlier. In their first debate, in Hartford, Connecticut, Clinton and Dole sparred over the economy, education, Medicare, and tax cuts. Dole accused Clinton of being a liberal, but Clinton retorted, That s what their party always drags out when they get in a tight race. 17 Polls indicated that viewers preferred Clinton s performance 51 percent thought that Clinton had won the debate, compared with 32 percent who said that Dole had won. 18 In another relatively low-key debate on October 9, the vice-presidential candidates, Gore and Kemp, faced off. Once again the Democrats scored a debate victory. Polls showed that the voters thought that Gore had won the debate, 57 percent to 28 percent. 19 The days leading into the final presidential debate brought good news and bad news for the Democratic camp. On October 13, the Dow Jones stock market index broke the 6,000 barrier, an event that the Democratic party seized upon as another sigh that the economy was doing well. But the Clinton administration s moments of success often seemed to be followed by troubles, and this time difficulty involved campaign finance. The Republicans began to attack Clinton and the Democrats for accepting contribution of $485,000 to the Democratic National Committee from the members of an Indonesian banking family and for taking other contributions from foreign sources. The final presidential debate took place on October 16 in San Diego, California; and this time Dole sharply attacked Clinton over what he said were the administration s ethical problems and scandals. For the most part Clinton ignored his rival s attacks. Once again, he led in the post-debate polls, 59 percent to 29 percent. 20 Dole had been counting on the debates to enable him to catch up with Clinton. But the debates had failed to narrow the gap. There were now just nineteen days left before Election Day. On October 23, Dole sent his campaign manager to Dallas to ask Ross Perot to drop his presidential bid and endorse the GOP ticket. However, Perot declared that he was in the race to the finish. 17 USA Today, October 7, 1996, p. A13. 18 USA Today, October 7, 1996, p. A1. 19 www.allpolitics.com, October 9, 1996. 20 USAToday, October 17, 1996, p. A1.
In the final days of the campaign, Clinton urged people to turn out and vote. He also made campaign stops that he hoped would benefit Democratic congressional candidates. Dole launched a dramatic last-minute push to mobilize support a 17- stop, 96-hour sprint during which he campaigned almost around the clock. Perot s campaign finale, on election eve, consisted of four 30-minute infomercials in which he sharply attacked the Clinton presidency. Perot suggested that Clinton, if reelected, would spend much of his second term answering charges of corruption and scandal in his administration. The final polls indicated that there had been some narrowing of Clinton s lead. But all of the major national polls still had Clinton ahead. On Election Day, it was sunny or partly sunny over much of the nation, with high temperatures that reached into the 60s as far north as Nebraska, Illinois, Ohio, and Maryland. There were showers, however, in the states around the Great Lakes. Despite the generally favorable weather, the turnout was low. For the first time in seventy-two years, there were more nonvoters than voters in a presidential election. When the votes were counted, Clinton had won by a margin of 8.4 percentage points over Dole and by more than 7.75 million popular votes. Several noteworthy features marked the voting patterns of 1996: 1. About 9538 million voters went to the polls. The number of people who voted was down by more than eight million from 1992, and the turnout about 48.8 percent was the nation s lowest since 1924. 21 2. President Clinton s share of the total popular vote 49.2 percent was substantially higher than the 43 percent that he received in 1992. But he remained one of eleven American presidents to be elected with less than 50 percent of the vote. He was also one of only three presidents to win two terms while receiving less than half the vote each time. The other two 21 USA Today, November 7, 1996, p. A3.
THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE, 1996 Gore: We are seeking to have vigorous Kemp: Affirmative action should be enforcement of the laws that bar predicated upon need, not equality of reward, discrimination. Now, I want to congratulate not equality of outcome. Quotas have always Mr. Kemp for being a lonely voice in the been against the American ideal. We should Republican Party over the years on this promote diversity, and we should do it the question. It is with some sadness that I refer to way Bob Dole has been talking about, with a the fact that the day after he joined Senator new civil rights agenda based upon expanding Dole's tickets, he announced that he was access to credit and capital, job opportunities, changing his position and was here--thereafter educational choice in our cities... and going to adopt Senator Dole's position to end ultimately a type of ownership and all affirmative action. That's not good for our entrepreneurship. country. Gore: The plan from Senator Dole and Mr. Kemp: A $550 billion tax cut.... Has to be Kemp is a risky, $550 billion tax scheme that viewed against the context of a $50 trillion actually raises taxes on 9 million of the hardest U.S. economy output of goods and services working families.... Again, Mr. Kemp over the next six years. A $550 billion tax cut opposed that and called it unconscionable. in a $50 trillion economy over six years if 1.5 Now it is part of the plan that he is supporting. percent, and the only hole it would blow is a Not only that, though, is would blow a hole in hole in the plans of the administration to try the deficit.... I would also lead to much to tinker with the tax code and defend the deeper cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, indefensible. I would blow up the and the environment. bureaucracy, but it would expand the economy. That's important for America. Gore: The platform on which Mr. Kemp and Kemp: There is no consensus. A constitutional Senator Dole are running pledges a amendment would not pass. We must use constitutional amendment to take away a persuasion, not intimidation. And Bob Dole woman's right to choose, and to have the and Jack Kemp will try to remind the government come in and order that woman to American people of what a tremendous asset do what the government says no matter what our children are and why there should be the circumstances.... We will never allow a protection for innocent human life, including woman's right to choose be taken away. that of the unborn. Gore: [Dole and house speaker Newt Gincrich].... Invited the lobbyists for the biggest polluters in America to come into the Congress and literally rewrite the Clean Was Act and the Clean Air Act. President Clinton stopped them dead in their tracks.... We've already cleaned up more [toxic waste sites] in the last three years than the previous two administrations. Kemp: The only thing [Clinton and Gore].... Have to offer is fear: fear of the environment, fear of children, fear of Medicare, fear of Newt, fear of Republicans, fear of Bob.... We recognize that this country has to live in balance with our environment.... To call a businessman of woman.... Who has a chance to express his or her interest in how to make these laws work, and call them a polluter, is just outrageous. --Excerpts from the first televised debate Al Gore- Jack Kemp debate, October 9, 1996
3. presidents who won two terms without polling 50 percent of the vote were Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson. 4. Perot s 8.5 percent (7.9 million votes) was the fifth largest percentage received by a minor-party or independent candidate in the twentieth century. Only Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Folette, George Wallace, and Perot himself in 1992 had won a larger share of the vote. But at 8.5 percent, Perot s 1996 vote was far less than the 19.7 million votes (19 percent) that he received in 1992. 5. Perhaps the most striking feature of the 1996 election was the gender gap the tendency of women and men to vote differently in the presidential race. Among male voters, Clinton and Dole polled an equal share of the vote there was no lead at all for Clinton. Among women who voted, however, the president led Dole by sixteen percentage points. (See Table 4.) If all the voters had voted the way that American women cast their ballots in 1996, Clinton would probably have won the election by close to 15 million votes, instead of 7.75 million. 6. The state of the economy was strongly reflected in the returns. One third of the voters (33 percent) reported that their family s financial situation was better in 1996 than it had been in 1992. Among that large group of voters, Clinton led Dole by 67 percent to 26 percent. There was a smaller group of voters (20 percent), however, who said that their family s financial situation was worse in 1996 than in 1992. Those voters opted for Dole over Clinton, 57 percent to 28 percent. (See Table 4.) 7. The Clinton tide ran strongly in the East, Midwest, and West. However, there were important centers of Dole strength in four areas most of the Southeast, Indiana, a string of six states in the center of the country running from Texas to the Canadian border, and five of the eight Rocky Mountain states. 8. Based on unofficial returns, by the narrowest of margins about 9.400 votes out of more than 24 million votes cast the Democrats all-southern ticket of Clinton and Gore apparently won the popular vote in the South. It was the first time since 1976, when the Democratic nominated Jimmy Carter of Georgia for president, that the Democrats had help their own or ran ahead in the popular vote in the South. It also enabled the Democrats to carry four states Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee of the former Confederacy. 9. Nevertheless, the South remained a very important regional base for the Republican Party in presidential voting. In the eleven states of the former Confederacy, Dole won a solid majority of the electoral votes and, as noted, ran almost even with Clinton in the popular vote 46 percent to 46
percent. In the rest of the country, Clinton led Dole by a sizable margin 50.2 percent to 38.6 percent. 10. In the presidential race, the most Democratic region was the Northeast, where Clinton outpolled Dole by 56 percent to 35 percent. In the Midwest the outcome was closer. There, Clinton ran ahead of Dole 48 percent to 41 percent. 22 11. Next to the Northeast, the Democrats most solid regional stronghold was the group of Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington with their seventy-two electoral votes. In the section of the country, Clinton led Dole by a decisive margin, 53 percent to 39 percent. 12. In the Rocky Mountain states, a region Ronald Reagan carried most of the states by landslide margins in the 1980s, Dole ran ahead of Clinton in 1996 by 47 percent to 43 percent. Perot, who in 1992 had polled nearly TABLE 4 Clinton Dole Perot Who Voted in 1996 All (100%) 50% 42% 8% Men (48) 44 44 10 Women (52) 54 38 7 Whites (83) 44 45 9 Blacks (10) 84 12 4 Hispanics (5) 73 20 5 Didn't complete high school (6) 60 28 11 High school grad (23) 52 35 13 Some college (27) 49 39 10 College grad (26) 44 46 7 Postgrad (17) 52 39 5 Age 18-29 (17) 53 34 10 30-44 (33) 49 41 9 45-59 (26) 49 49 9 60 and up (26) 49 43 7 Family Income*: Less than $15,000 (14) 60 27 11 $15,000-29,999 (11) 54 36 9 $30,000-49,999 (27) 49 40 10 $50,000-74,999 (21) 47 44 7 $75,000 or more (18) 42 50 7 Protestants (55) 43 47 9 Catholics (29) 54 37 9 22 The Midwest includes the five Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the Prairie states of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, along with Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.
TABLE 4 (continued) Who Voted in 1996 Jews (3) 78 16 3 Family financial situation compared with 1988: Better (33) 67 26 6 Worse (20) 28 57 13 About the same (44) 46 44 8 Democrats (40) 84 10 5 Republicans (34) 13 80 6 Independents (26) 43 35 17 Liberals (20) 78 11 7 Moderates (47) 57 32 9 Conservatives (33) 20 71 8 1992 votes: Clinton (44) 85 9 4 Bush (34) 13 82 4 Perot (12) 22 44 32 First-time voters (9) 54 34 11 Union households (24) 60 29 9 Nonunion households (76) 46 44 8 Religious Right (16) 26 65 8 Source: Voter News Service exit polls for 1996 in National Journal, November 9, 1996, p. 2407. one vote in every four in the area (24.5 percent) saw his total drop to 9.6 percent. Nevertheless, among the eight states in the Rocky Mountain region Clinton was the winner in three New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. No Democrat had carried Arizona since Harry Truman won there in 1948. 13. As in 1992, Clinton ran well among some traditionally Democratic groups among which Reagan had made heavy inroads in the 1980s. Among members of union households, Clinton led 60 percent to 29 percent. Exit polls also showed that Clinton did well among two groups that had remained Democratic in the 1980s and in 1992: Clinton was backed by 84 percent of black voters and by 78 percent of Jewish voters. (See Table 4.) 14. Hispanic Americans, who voted 62 percent to 24 percent for Clinton in 1992, were even more pro-clinton four years later as they backed Clinton over Dole by more than three to one 73 percent to 20 percent. Hispanic Americans were also one of the few major groups in the United States whose voting turnout increased in 1996. Close to five million Hispanic
Americans went to the polls in 1996 (compared with four million in 1992); and voting shifts toward Clinton in Hispanic American neighborhoods were a key factor in President Clinton s victories in Florida and Arizona. 23 15. The eleven contests for governor in 1996 left Republican governors in power in most states and the balance between the parties unchanged. Republicans continued to control thirty-two governorships, and the Democrats controlled seventeen. (One governor in 1996 was an independent.) 16. Despite the Democratic presidential victory for Bill Clinton, the Republicans won the important battle for control of the House of Representatives. The Democrats made a modest net gain of seats to bring the House membership to 206 Democratic and 226 Republicans, with two House contests still to be decided. In addition, there was one independent member of Congress from Vermont. The Republicans overall majority in the House was the narrowest by wither party since 1954. 17. In the Senate, the Republicans gained two seats, increasing their margin of control. The new Senate had fifty-five Republicans and forty-five Democrats. The election left new Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, former Senator Dole s successor, with the largest Republican Senate majority since 1929. 18. The 1996 elections also left the Republicans and Democrats with an equal number of seats to defend in the next battle for control of the Senate the midterm congressional elections of 1998. Thirty-four Senate seats were to be filled in the midterm elections of 1998. Of these seventeen by Democrats. 24 19. Perhaps the most important point of all about the 1996 election was that for two years, at least, there would continue to be divided government in Washington. The Democratic Party was in control of the presidency; the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. How the Democratic president and the Republican congressional leaders shared their power would go a long way toward determining how their parties would fare in future elections. It would also shape the quality and the effectiveness of the government that the American people had elected. 23 New York Times, November 10, 1996, p. 1, 27. 24 National Journal, November 9, 1996, p. 2438.