2000: New election in Florida in December

[President Johnson]

Not sure this is legally possible, but assuming it was: What if by December 2000 it was decided repeat the entire presidential election in Florida with "normal" paper ballots?

If you watched Season 5 in House of Cards, the presidential election in Ohio is repeated in January since no result was certified in November. Frank Underwood ultimately won and with it, the presidency.

Who would have won a revote in Florida in 2000?

[Epaminondas]

The only revote I can think of was New Hampshire in 1974, and the effect was quite clear: a runaway Democratic win as the risk of a GOP takeover crystallised.

Have there been any others?

[Roll Roons]

The only revote I can think of was New Hampshire in 1974, and the effect was quite clear: a runaway Democratic win as the risk of a GOP takeover crystallised.

Have there been any others?

NC-09 earlier this year, which resulted in a close but clear GOP win, albeit in a fairly red district.

[brucejoel99]

I have a feeling that Bush would win. Once the election was (prematurely) called for him on Election Night, he was never not gonna be generally perceived as the winner of Florida. If a new election were held, I think it'd be similar to the 2019 British election, with a plurality (if not a majority) of people just voting for Bush because they wanna move on from the whole debacle & get it all over with, a-la Brexit.

[SingingAnalyst]

I honestly don't know, but I'd give a slight edge to Gore, for reasons I will describe later.

To begin with, voters on Election Day don't know what the rest of the nation will decide. Voters in a runoff election do. In 2008, in the US Senate race in GA, neither Jim Martin (D) nor Saxby Chambliss (R) received a majority on Nov. 4, so they participated in a runoff 4 weeks later. Saxby won convincingly, 57-43, once voters knew Obama was President-elect and that Dems would have a convincing majority in both House and Senate.

As for the NC-9 special election, I am surprised the Dems made it as close as they did; I have little doubt that, had there been a re-vote in December 2018, the GOP candidate would have won convincingly, now that voters knew the Dems would retake Congress the following month.

So... where does that leave FL in Dec. 2000?

Based on statistical analysis, regression analysis, the laws of probability, etc. if everyone in FL voted as they planned to on Election Day, and if the final official Bush margin of victory were 537 as IRL, Gore would win by a few thousand votes (due to Palm Beach Buchanan voters correctly voting for Gore).

Otherwise, we have the tension between (1) Bush being the perceived winner and (2) voters knowing that Gore won the PV. I'm not sure which would prevail, but for the sake of argument I'd say Gore.

[538Electoral]

Bush still. Maybe by 5,000 votes or something like that.