Who stayed home or voted for Gore because of Bush's DUI?

[Lechasseur]

If I remember correctly, I once read that on election night Bush and his whole group with him expected to lose, because of the DUI surprise that they believed would encourage evangelicals to stay home, and when the networks initially called Florida for Gore, Bush basically accepted that he had lost.

Of course, the fact that he ended up not losing, makes you wonder if there was even anything to that. I mean I'm sure there as at least one would-be evangelical Bush voter who did stay home over the DUI, but was it anything substantial? Probably not.

From when it first became clear that Bush was going to run until the DUI came out, it was thought that Bush would win the popular vote and would unambigiously win the Electoral College. The fact that this didn't happen led Rove to conclude that the DUI made a difference.

Yeah I think he lost enough votes over that that it turned the election essentially into a tie. Had the DUI not come out, he would have won NM, OR and WI at least along with winning FL without any doubt and he would have won the PV.