1992 election with no Ross Perot drop-out

[Fuzzy Bear]

At the end of the race, it appeared that Clinton was slipping a bit, Perot was moving up, and Bush was static, moving up just slightly.  Had the race gone on another month, Perot (A) would have carried some states, and (B) may have thrown the election into the House of Representatives.

The Perot vote was, essentially, a Republican constituency, being made up of disaffected Republicans, conservative-leaning independents, and the kind of Nixon-Reagan Democrat that may have been a union member or from a union household but who was old-schoolish and probably hadn't voted for any Democrats for Presiident save for LBJ in 1964 and Carter in 1976.  Perot did poorly in the South, but what would conservative Southern voters have done if it seemed as if Perot emerged as the main threat to Clinton?

I believe that, in those circumstances, Perot would have bested Clinton in the South.  I think he'd have carried Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina.  I tend to think he'd have carried Florida as well.  For this to happen, however, Perot would have had to have presented himself as "the only Republican who can beat Clinton" and this would have had to be done deftly, without losing the independent appeal he had.  In such a scenario, Pat Buchanan would have been a likely running mate; his endorsement, at a minimum, would have been forthcoming. 

The GOP, however, was not going to have this.  Perot was a Republican apostate, whereas Bill Clinton was a fellow insider.  Better to lose to a fellow insider than to a guy with enough money to rewrite the rules by himself.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Clinton 290
Bush 237
Perot 11

[SingingAnalyst]

Didn't Perot drop out upon Clinton's nomination on July 16, 1992, stating something to the effect of the democratic party has been revitalized? I think he would have done slightly better had he not dropped out, and would have taken more votes from Clinton than from Bush.

Clinton 41% / 352 EV
Bush 37% / 185 EV
Perot 21% / 1 EV

[HankW501]

If every state cast its electoral votes in proportion to its popular votes (as close as possible) in 1992, here's how the election would have gone:

State	Clinton/Gore	Bush/Quayle	Perot/Stockdale
AL	4	4	1
AK	1	1	1
AZ	3	3	2
AR	3	2	1
CA	25	18	11
CO	3	3	2
CT	3	3	2
DE	1	1	1
DC	3
FL	10	10	5
GA	6	5	2
HI	2	1	1
ID	1	2	1
IL	11	7	4
IN	5	5	2
IA	3	3	1
KS	2	2	2
KY	4	3	1
LA	4	4	1
ME	2	1	1
MD	5	4	1
MA	6	3	3
MI	8	7	3
MN	5	3	2
MS	3	3	1
MO	5	4	2
MT	1	1	1
NE	2	2	1
NV	2	1	1
NH	2	1	1
NJ	7	6	2
NM	2	2	1
NY	17	11	5
NC	6	6	2
ND	1	1	1
OH	9	8	4
OK	3	3	2
OR	3	2	2
PA	11	8	4
RI	2	1	1
SC	3	4	1
SD	1	1	1
TN	5	5	1
TX	12	13	7
UT	1	2	2
VT	1	1	1
VA	5	6	2
WA	5	3	3
WV	2	2	1
WI	5	4	2
WY	1	1	1
Totals	237	197	104

Since nobody would have had the minimum of 270 votes, the House of Representatives would have elected the president, and the Senate would have elected the vice president.

When the House of Representatives elects the president, each state coalition votes among themselves from among the top three electoral vote recipients, then each state casts one vote.  A minimum of 26 votes (absolute majority) is required to win.  Voting is repeated until someone receives an absolute majority of votes.  Assuming that every Democrat would have voted for Clinton and every Republican would have voted for Bush, here's how the House would have voted:

State	Clinton	Bush	Perot	No Vote (Tie)
AL	1
AK		1
AZ				1
AR				1
CA	1
CO		1
CT				1
DE		1
FL		1
GA	1
HI	1
ID				1
IL	1
IN	1
IA		1
KS				1
KY	1
LA	1
ME				1
MD				1
MA	1
MI	1
MN	1
MS	1
MO	1
MT	1
NE		1
NV				1
NH				1
NJ	1
NM		1
NY	1
NC	1
ND	1
OH	1
OK	1
OR	1
PA	1
RI				1
SC				1
SD	1
TN	1
TX	1
UT	1
VT	1
VA	1
WA	1
WV	1
WI		1
WY		1
Totals	30	9	0	11

Assuming that every Democratic Senator would have voted for Gore and every Republican Senator would have voted for Quayle, here's how the Senate would have voted (a minimum of 51 votes is required to win):

State	Gore	Quayle
AL	2
AK		2
AZ	1	1
AR	2
CA	2
CO	1	1
CT	2
DE	1	1
FL	1	1
GA	1	1
HI	2
ID		2
IL	2
IN		2
IA	1	1
KS		2
KY	1	1
LA	2
ME	1	1
MD	2
MA	2
MI	2
MN	1	1
MS		2
MO		2
MT	1	1
NE	2
NV	2
NH		2
NJ	2
NM	1	1
NY	1	1
NC		2
ND	2
OH	2
OK	1	1
OR		2
PA	1	1
RI	1	1
SC	1	1
SD	1	1
TN	2
TX	1	1
UT		2
VT	1	1
VA	1	1
WA	1	1
WV	2
WI	2
WY		2
Totals	57	43

[Kingpoleon]

189: Businessman Ross Perot(I-TX)/Vice Admiral James Stockdale(I-CA) - 35.3%
183: Pres. George Bush(R-TX)/Vice Pres. Dan Quayle(R-IN) - 32.2%
166: Gov. Bill Clinton(D-AR)/Sen. Sam Nunn(D-GA) - 31.7%
Other: 0.6%

If the House fails to elect Perot, I guarantee you he wins a majority and 42.5%+ of the popular vote in 1996.

[Stan]

380 - Clinton/Gore 37,9
114 - Bush/Quayle 31,0
44 - Perot/Stockdale 29,2

[Dancing with Myself]

A lot depends on how Perot behaves. If he sticks to his core ideals and plans and avoids drama and arguments he could have done alright. But then again that's Perot we are talking about.  He was going through campaign advisers and workers left and right they left due to his backstage behavior.  He wouldn't listen to them and made rash decisions. Then Republicans started irritating him behind the scenes supposedly. If that was true he should have done a better job of getting evidence and releasing it. Bush would have been done then.

But I got sidetracked. He would have drawn from both equally but Bush in particular would have hurt. He was suffering a bad case of party fatigue then add the split it was impossible. Everyone was getting tired of the Reagan era.

Clinton could have either benefited or struggled.  He would have had the post convention bounce but probably not as big. Most of it was Perot fans coming over thanks to his withdrawal during the convention it was inevitable. Without him gone Clinton would have rose but maybe by half of what most polls were saying if lucky. He would have to change things up because attacking Bush with the "It's the economy, stupid," tags wouldn't have impacted much vs. Perot especially if he was more powerful and a threat.

Debate wise it would go the same. Clinton and Perot does well Bush falters and is stuck in third.

This is Clinton's best and biggest win. Bush get's 2nd place in EV's but Perot is second in the popular vote. Perot and Bush hurt each other so much that Clinton rolls easily in many states especially in the south and east.




This would be a EV tie imo:

Bush does a little better here but both him and Perot hurt each other. However Clinton doesn't get going like he needs to and it goes to House where he wins. Perot screams bloody murder and is a loud voice going into 96.





And Finally a Perot win against all odds:

This one's pretty wacky but he had a chance to win but he would have to be perfect. Mainly by focusing on the hard hit industry and mid west  states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and getting Texas and Cali would do it. Clinton does well in his natural states but misses on the power traingle (as I call it,) states of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Bush is DOA but helps Perot by C-blocking Clinton in the South and Indiana. More or less this a three party version of 1976. Bush wins the south except Clinton's 92 states, Clinton wins the base Dem states and the 92 south states, and Perot wins the Ford States and gets the power triangle except Indiana to pull it out.



Now hate away..

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Perot wouldn't have won, but he could've potentially thrown the election to the House, where he still wouldn't have won because the House would've picked Clinton.

380 - Clinton/Gore 37,9
114 - Bush/Quayle 31,0
44 - Perot/Stockdale 29,2

Generally, I think something like this would be the outcome.

[Burke859]

As previous posters have said, when Perot re-entered the race, pollsters had Bush at just about the same position in the polls at which he would ultimately finish the race --- the mid-to-upper 30s.  I posit that Bush's position was set in stone, and that those voters who decided it was time for a change were either going to vote for Clinton or Perot.  If Perot hadn't dropped out of the race, he would have been seen as less volatile and gotten more of those voters who didn't want to vote for Bush.  However, he also would have still likely selected a dud of a running mate (probably not Stockdale, but Perot had that McCain-like streak of making poor maverick choices), and he would probably still have seemed a bit off during the debates (with Clinton still seeming smooth).  So I doubt that Perot would have gone dramatically beyond his 19 percent of the national vote, but he would have taken a few more Clinton voters.

Just for fun, I've bumped Perot's vote share from 19 percent of the vote to 25 percent of the vote.  This means that Clinton's vote share goes from 43 percent to 37 percent, tying the popular vote with Bush.  I've made the same adjustment across the board in each state.  I realize that the swing wouldn't be uniform, but just for the sake of argument I've done it that way.  Here's what I came up with:

Bush wins re-election with 271 electoral votes.  Clinton wins 263 electoral votes, and Perot wins Maine's 4 electoral votes.  I may have cheated a bit by keeping Tennessee in the Clinton column, but I assume that Gore's favorite son status would push Clinton over the edge there.

Note that the red state/blue state divide from 2000 is already showing in this map.  And all it took was taking 6 percent of the national vote from Clinton, uniform across all states, and giving it to Perot.  The red-blue divide was already forming, it's just that no one knew it yet.

Final result:

Bush-Quayle: 37 percent
Clinton-Gore: 37 percent
Perot-Kassebaum: 25 percent

[brucejoel99]

Perot was already in decline before he withdrew as the novelty had worn off & he was receiving increasing scrutiny just as Clinton began receiving increasing strength. So ironically, by withdrawing & then suddenly re-entering later on, Perot may actually have gotten *more* votes IOTL than he would've gotten had he stayed in the race all along.

[W]

Bump, pretty curious for more takes on this. I'm gonna make a map in a little bit.

[morgankingsley]

Perot wins Montana, Nevada, and Maine