Were Clinton 1996-Bush 2000 voters as common as the maps make it appear?

[darklordoftech]

Or were most of Bush’s gains over Dole from Perot voters, generational turnover, migration, etc.?

[538Electoral]

Likely a mix of both.

[Sumner 1868]

They were very common in the rural West and the South, but elsewhere was mostly Perot turnover.

[Hydera]

62% of Perot voters went to Bush helped by Perot endorsing him as well as the remaining Perot voters in 1996 being somewhere on the right-wing spectrum. Elsewhere he got a lot of mostly rural socially conservative Clinton voters.

[One Term Floridian]

I imagine most of W’s gains in states like WV, AR, TN & MO came from former Clinton voters. All he needed was just one to stay Dem to win the whole thing.

[Lechasseur]

I read somewhere that 7% of the 2000 electorate were Clinton-Bush voters, so they were common enough

[brucejoel99]

They were probably a statistically significant group, if nothing else.

[mianfei]

I read somewhere that 7% of the 2000 electorate were Clinton-Bush voters, so they were common enough

Of course, 7 percent of the electorate could be a huge number of counties covering a huge area. Based on the 1992 election, 7 percent of the electorate could amount to about half the nation’s counties, if one orders counties by population.

It would be interesting to do what I call the “Koran analogy” (analogising to the thirty juz‘ used by Muslims to recite the Koran) by:

• grouping the nation’s counties into thirty as-nearly-as-possible equal groups from largest to smallest.
• comparing the trends of voters in each group (of course none of the groups will be perfectly homogenous)

I am sure you would find that in every election since 1996, the smaller counties trend more Republican than the larger ones, and dramatically so if one looked at reasonably equal numbers of voters in counties of different sizes.

[Calthrina950]

I imagine most of W’s gains in states like WV, AR, TN & MO came from former Clinton voters. All he needed was just one to stay Dem to win the whole thing.

There were also significant numbers of Perot-Bush voters in those states as well. Dole received only 37% of the vote in Arkansas and West Virginia in 1996.

[sting in the rafters]

A fair contingent flipped due to Gore's environmental stances. Dubya filling in the 3rd-party vote from Perot didn't play as large of a factor as one would think. Exit polls suggests Perot took slightly more from self-described conservatives than liberals in 96 and Dubya vastly improved with self-described moderates over Dole (45% vs. 33%), however the sheer math of the third party vote decreasing by 5.6 million, Gore gaining 4 million votes over Clinton, and Bush gaining 11 million votes on Dole/Kemp suggests the ultimate effect of Clinton-Bush and Perot-Bush voters is overstated.


So where did Bush mostly improve vs. Gore? Well, a good chunk came with voters who couldn't be bothered to show up at all in the previous cycle. Turnout rose from 49%-51% - a small increase on the surface, though bear in mind that's slightly larger than the difference from 04 to 08. Clinton's centrist approach (e.g. family leave, strong Medicare management, mass incarceration combined with gun control, DOMA, welfare reform) and the post-Cold War peace and prosperity not only pulled in Reagan Democrats, but induced enough for some Rs/indies to simply not vote at all. Dole's lackluster candidacy didn't exactly rally GOP support either.

At the same time, triangulation led to disaffected liberals and leftists feeling locked out by the bipartisan consensus. It's these types of scenes that led to disagreement in the Democratic party over trade to this day and RATM protesting outside of the 2000 DNC.  Gore being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time between trying to hold together Clinton's coalition and shoring up his left flank against Nader gave Dubya an opening to emphasize his conservative credentials. The result was Dubya both bringing in disaffected 3rd-party voters as well as those who sat on the sidelines.