Considering his high approval ratings, why did Clinton fail to capture the popular vote in 1996?

[Obama24]

I understand the fact that a good chunk of Americans were not enthusiastic about either choice in 1992, but by 1996, Clinton had a pretty solid record, there was no major scandal dogging his Presidency yet, the economy was robust, and his approval ratings were consistently high.

Why didn't he break 50% or above in the popular vote - was Perot solely to blame here?

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Considering Clinton was 49% even with Perot in the race, I would say yes Clinton definitely would have gotten to 50.1% with him out...probably even higher. In fact, I think Clinton's share of the two-party vote almost exactly matched his approval rating at the time (which was high, but not as high as it would be for most of his second term).

[kyc0705]

Clinton underperformed the polls by several points. I would guess low turnout was also a major factor. There was never a point in the election when it seemed like he was in any danger of losing, and so he had a large base of support that was not all that motivated around the margins.

[TML]

Polls during the 1996 election cycle had Clinton above 50% during many stretches of time, but they ended up having a rather terrible cycle that year: the final NPV polling average as of Election Day, as calculated (retroactively) using 538’s polling model would have been D+12.8, which turned out to be 4.3 points above the actual NPV margin of D+8.5. Likewise, the final GCB polling average would have been D+5.4, which was 5.1 points above the actual House NPV of D+0.3 (and this House polling error probably turned what was expected to be a Democratic flip of the House into a Republican hold of that chamber).

[vitoNova]

Because it was the decade of "S.F.W."

I actually never watched the movie.  I just know the white guy from Blade starred in it (another movie I never watched in its entirety, other than snippets on Canal+ and HBO)

[wnwnwn]

Low turnout and some alineate progressives.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Polls during the 1996 election cycle had Clinton above 50% during many stretches of time, but they ended up having a rather terrible cycle that year: the final NPV polling average as of Election Day, as calculated (retroactively) using 538’s polling model would have been D+12.8, which turned out to be 4.3 points above the actual NPV margin of D+8.5. Likewise, the final GCB polling average would have been D+5.4, which was 5.1 points above the actual House NPV of D+0.3 (and this House polling error probably turned what was expected to be a Democratic flip of the House into a Republican hold of that chamber).

Where can you find retroactive 538 polling data

[Republican Party Stalwart]

Others have basically already answered this, but:

1) alienated progressive/left/liberal-leaning voters

2) Perot and however many voted he may have taken away from Clinton (even if he took more votes away from Dole)

3) Low voter turnout because:

• there was no bad economy to animate voters to go to the polls over.
• Dole and his platform were not perceived by anyone to be any substantial threat to the then-good state of the economy.
• Clinton and Dole's platforms (and arguably also Perot's platform even if to a lesser extent) were all essentially the same (or at least similar enough such that the sorts of people most inclined not to vote - including disaffected anti-establishmentarian types, low-info would-be voters, and poor/lumpenprole/under-15k a year/under-50k a year would-be voters - indeed did not do so).

[Open Source Intelligence]

Should also be mentioned that national Republicans made the decision some point before the election that Dole was losing and instead they put all their time, money, and energy into the House, which they succeeded in doing.

[President Johnson]

Considering Clinton was 49% even with Perot in the race, I would say yes Clinton definitely would have gotten to 50.1% with him out...probably even higher. In fact, I think Clinton's share of the two-party vote almost exactly matched his approval rating at the time (which was high, but not as high as it would be for most of his second term).

I think without Perot, Clinton would have won the popular around 52-45% in the end. And a few states like Arizona or Nevada going to Dole instead.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Clinton was favored to win by double digits, and he only won by 8 points.  People thought him a weasel and that limited his appeal with independent voters.

[Podgy the Bear]

Throughout much of the 1996 campaign, there was some expectation that Clinton would cross 400 electoral votes.  He could have easily won GA again (but the campaign pulled out several weeks before to focus on FL), and he was very much in target to pick up CO (again), VA, and MS--he had won neighboring AR and LA by big margins.  Plus, there was talk that he could have taken TX with a big effort.

Here are my thoughts on why Clinton didn't end up getting the PV majority.

1) Low turnout--he had this election won in the summer of 1996, and everyone knew it.  I remember that November 1996 was a busy time in my work schedule.  No early voting or anything like that.
And if it weren't for the close Senate election in GA that year (Max Cleland won by a slim percentage), I probably wouldn't have made the effort to vote. 

2) The issue with the Chinese campaign contributions created considerable controversy in October, and that caused some loss of support for Clinton.

3) And Robert Dole's nonstop 96 hour campaigning the weekend before the election gained a lot of positive coverage (a 73 year old man going without sleep for several days) and brought back much of the Republican base to turn out for him.  I don't think Dole broke 40 percent in any poll that year and he was running 12-16 points behind throughout, but he ended getting up 41 percent and cutting the deficit to 8 points.