Why was the GWB campaign so obssessed with California?

[tagimaucia]

Its understandable why it would be seen as a big prize, but they were never, ever realistically close enough to win it.  Yet very close to election day they were investing huge sums of money there. Gore ended up winning by 12. The public polls did appear a bit closer than the final result, but they were still mostly in the high single digits.

Did they really think Bush could win it?  Were they unskewing polls a la Romney's campaign in 2012 to convince themselves?  Was this some kind of galaxy-brained way of getting Gore to also waste money there to defend it(?!)  If things tip slightly differently in Florida, voting-wise or legally, this would have gone down as an all time stupid, hubristic campaign blunder, right?

https://twitter.com/xenocryptsite/status/1308097153982701569

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

3 days before the election there was the big Bush DUI scandal, which cratered his support among evangelicals. Labor unions and the Democrats had a fantastic turnout operation in 2000, which shocked Karl Rove, as the Democratic ground game was stronger that year. Bush was ahead by around 4-5 points in the polls in late October.

What is ironic is in the dying days of the 2000 election, Al Gore camped out in FL, while Dubya was in CA.

[Mr. Smith]

Reagan, simple as that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CA had a massive Republican delegation, the largest of any state at the time since Texas still had a majority D delegation and was smaller. They insisted on him helping the top of the ticket to carry them across to victory.

[Suburbia]

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

[MATTROSE94]

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

I agree. In retrospect, Georg W. Bush should have won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon, Washington, and California in addition to the states he actually won.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

I agree. In retrospect, Georg W. Bush should have won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon, Washington, and California in addition to the states he actually won.

Hell yeah, as a matter of fact, Bush 43 would have won all 50 states in 2000!!! Landslide. Blowout. Historic!!!

[Bootes Void]

i think it might have been bait. you would have to be really silly to think Bush would have won California

[Suburbia]

i think it might have been bait. you would have to be really silly to think Bush would have won California

It's not bait, Bush campaigned in California for months, even spending the last days of the 2000 campaign in California campaigning with John McCain to reach Independent voters in Fresno and Burbank......

I would say CA ceased being a swing state in 2000.....Dole had campaigned a lot in CA in 1996 as well

http://p2000.us/statevisitf.html

[darklordoftech]

Maybe Rove was expecting something resembling the 1988 map and wasn’t aware of red state-blue-state polarization until election night?

[Brother Jonathan]

I think the Bush campaign, in addition to the other factors noted, thought that they really had a chance of winning over Hispanic voters. Just in general, the Bush campaign in 2000 seemed really interested in bringing non-white voters into the GOP. A lot of GOP strategists at the time saw Hispanic voters as "values voters" who just had to be brought into the GOP fold and generally people thought that Bush was well-positioned to do that. I don't think they really thought they could win California, but it was probably part of their own "dream" scenario.

[DINGO Joe]

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

I wish this type of elections were today.

Where a Republican is in California campaigning and a Democrat is in Missouri campaigning.

Bush could have won California....

I agree. In retrospect, Georg W. Bush should have won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon, Washington, and California in addition to the states he actually won.

Hell yeah, as a matter of fact, Bush 43 would have won all 50 states in 2000!!! Landslide. Blowout. Historic!!!

Well, yeah, if it had been Jeb!

[Chips]

54 electoral votes.

[TDAS04]

California wasn’t that far to the left of the nation in 1996.  Dole overperformed there, so maybe that’s why the Bush campaign thought it could be close.

[Chips]

California wasn’t that far to the left of the nation in 1996.  Dole overperformed there, so maybe that’s why the Bush campaign thought it could be close.

Also true.