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The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial
presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...
, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, the governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, won the election, defeating incumbent
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nom ...
. It was the fourth of five American presidential elections, and the first since
1888 In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late ...
, in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote, and is considered one of the closest elections in US history, with longstanding controversy surrounding the ultimate results. Incumbent Bill Clinton was ineligible for a third term, and Gore secured the Democratic nomination with relative ease, defeating a challenge by former Senator
Bill Bradley William Warren Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He served three terms as a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey (1979–1997). He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination ...
. Bush was seen as the early favorite for the Republican nomination and despite a contentious primary battle with Senator John McCain and others, secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. Bush chose former
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...
as his running mate, while Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman. Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Due to President Bill Clinton's
sex scandal Public scandals involving allegations or information about possibly immoral sexual activities are often associated with the sexual affairs of film stars, politicians, famous athletes, or others in the public eye. Sex scandals receive attenti ...
with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent
impeachment Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...
, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton. Republicans denounced Clinton's indiscretions, while Gore criticized Bush's lack of experience. On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the electoral votes of the state of Florida still undecided. The returns showed that Bush had won Florida by such a close margin that state law required a
recount An election recount is a repeat tabulation of votes cast in an election that is used to determine the correctness of an initial count. Recounts will often take place if the initial vote tally during an election is extremely close. Election reco ...
. A month-long series of legal battles led to the highly controversial 5–4 Supreme Court decision ''
Bush v. Gore ''Bush v. Gore'', 531 U.S. 98 (2000), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the ...
'', which ended the recount. The recount having been ended, Bush won Florida by 537 votes, a margin of 0.009%. The Florida recount and subsequent litigation resulted in major post-election controversy, and with speculative analysis suggesting that limited county-based recounts would likely have confirmed a Bush victory, whereas a statewide recount would likely have given the state to Gore. Ultimately, Bush won 271 electoral votes, one vote more than the 270-to-win majority, despite Gore receiving 543,895 more votes (a margin of 0.52% of all votes cast). Bush flipped 11 states that had voted Democratic in
1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
:
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage la ...
, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.


Background

Article Two of the United States Constitution dictates that the President and Vice President of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for a period of at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the political parties, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position. Traditionally, the primary elections are
indirect election An indirect election or ''hierarchical voting'' is an election in which voters do not choose directly among candidates or parties for an office (direct voting system), but elect people who in turn choose candidates or parties. It is one of the old ...
s where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the president and vice president. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and former
Governor of Arkansas A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...
, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to the
Twenty-second Amendment The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person is eligible for election to the office of President of the United States to two, and sets additional eligibility conditions for ...
; in accordance with Section1 of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2001.


Republican Party nomination


Withdrawn candidates


Primaries

Bush became the early front-runner, acquiring unprecedented funding and a broad base of leadership support based on his governorship of Texas and the Bush family's name recognition and connections in American politics. Former cabinet member George Shultz played an important early role in securing establishment Republican support for Bush. In April 1998, he invited Bush to discuss policy issues with experts including
Michael Boskin Michael Jay Boskin (born September 23, 1945) is the T. M. Friedman Professor of Economics and senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He also is chief executive officer and president of Boskin & Co., an economic consulting comp ...
, John Taylor, and Condoleezza Rice, who later became his Secretary of State. The group, which was "looking for a candidate for 2000 with good political instincts, someone they could work with", was impressed, and Shultz encouraged him to enter the race. Several aspirants withdrew before the
Iowa Caucus The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. state of Iowa. Unlike primary elections in most other U.S. states, where registered voters go to polling places to cast ballo ...
because they did not secure funding and endorsements sufficient to remain competitive with Bush. These included
Elizabeth Dole Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford Dole (née Hanford; born July 29, 1936)Mary Ella Cathey Hanford, "Asbury and Hanford Families: Newly Discovered Genealogical Information" ''The Historical Trail'' 33 (1996), pp. 44–45, 49. is an American attorn ...
,
Dan Quayle James Danforth Quayle (; born February 4, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 44th vice president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republic ...
, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Smith.
Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, ...
dropped out to run for the Reform Party nomination. That left Bush, John McCain,
Alan Keyes Alan Lee Keyes (born August 7, 1950) is an American politician, political activist, author, and perennial candidate who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1985 to 1987. A member of the Repub ...
,
Steve Forbes Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (; born July 18, 1947) is an American publishing executive and politician who is the editor-in-chief of ''Forbes'', a business magazine. He is the son of longtime ''Forbes'' publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandso ...
, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch as the only candidates still in the race. On January 24, Bush won the Iowa caucus with 41% of the vote. Forbes came in second with 30% of the vote. Keyes received 14%, Bauer 9%, McCain 5%, and Hatch 1%. Two days later, Hatch dropped out and endorsed Bush. The national media portrayed Bush as the establishment candidate. With the support of many moderate Republicans and Independents, McCain portrayed himself as a crusading insurgent who focused on campaign reform. On February 1, McCain won a 49–30% victory over Bush in the
New Hampshire primary The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
. Bauer subsequently dropped out, followed by Forbes, who came in third in the Delaware primary. This left three candidates. In the
South Carolina primary The South Carolina presidential primary is an open primary election which has become one of several key early-state presidential primaries in the process of the Democratic and Republican Parties choosing their respective general election nominees ...
, Bush soundly defeated McCain. Some McCain supporters accused the Bush campaign of mudslinging and dirty tricks, such as push polling that implied that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was an African-American child he fathered out of wedlock. McCain's loss in South Carolina damaged his campaign, but he won both Michigan and his home state of Arizona on February 22. (The primary election that year also affected the
South Carolina State House The South Carolina State House is the building housing the government of the U.S. state of South Carolina, which includes the South Carolina General Assembly and the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. Located in th ...
, when a controversy about the Confederate flag flying over the capitol dome prompted the state legislature to move the flag to a less prominent position at a Civil War memorial on the capitol grounds. Most GOP candidates said the issue should be left to South Carolina voters, but McCain later recanted and said the flag should be removed.) On February 24, McCain criticized Bush for accepting the endorsement of
Bob Jones University , motto_lang = Latin , mottoeng = We seek, we trust , top_free_label = , top_free = , type = Private university , established = , closed = , f ...
despite its policy banning interracial dating. On February 28, McCain also referred to Jerry Falwell and televangelist Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance," a term he distanced himself from during his 2008 bid. He lost Virginia to Bush on February 29. On Super Tuesday, March 7, Bush won New York, Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, California, Maryland, and Maine. McCain won Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts but dropped out of the race. McCain became the Republican presidential nominee 8 years later, but lost the general election to
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. On March 10, Keyes got 21% of the vote in Utah. Bush took the majority of the remaining contests and won the Republican nomination on March 14, winning his home state of Texas and his brother Jeb's home state of Florida, among others. At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush accepted the nomination. Bush asked former
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...
to head up a team to help select a running mate for him, but ultimately chose Cheney himself as the vice presidential nominee. While the U.S. Constitution does not specifically disallow a president and a vice president from the same state, it prohibits electors from casting both of their votes for persons from their own state. Accordingly, Cheney—who had been a resident of Texas for nearly 10 years—changed his voting registration back to Wyoming. Had Cheney not done this, either he or Bush would have forfeited his electoral votes from Texas. ;Delegate totals *Governor George W. Bush 1526 *Senator John McCain 275 *Ambassador Dr. Alan Keyes 23 *Businessman Steve Forbes 10 *Gary Bauer 2 *None of the Names Shown 2 *Uncommitted 1


Democratic Party nomination


Withdrawn candidates


Primary

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nom ...
from Tennessee was a consistent front-runner for the nomination. Other prominent Democrats mentioned as possible contenders included
Bob Kerrey Joseph Robert Kerrey (born August 27, 1943) is an American politician who served as the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 1989 to 2001. Before entering politics, he served in the Vie ...
, Missouri Representative
Dick Gephardt Richard Andrew Gephardt (; born January 31, 1941) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician who served as a United States Representative from Missouri from 1977 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was House Majority Leader fr ...
, Minnesota Senator
Paul Wellstone Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. A me ...
, and actor and director
Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty ( né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director ...
. Of these, only Wellstone formed an
exploratory committee In the election politics of the United States, an exploratory committee is an organization established to help determine whether a potential candidate should run for an elected office. They are most often cited in reference to candidates for pre ...
. Running an insurgency campaign, Bradley positioned himself as the alternative to Gore, who was a founding member of the centrist
Democratic Leadership Council The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 and closed in 2011. Founded and directed by Al From, prominent members include Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (who was elected president in 1992 and 1996), Delaware Senator Joe Biden (e ...
. While former basketball star
Michael Jordan Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the g ...
campaigned for him in the early primary states, Bradley announced his intention to campaign "in a different way" by conducting a positive campaign of "big ideas." His campaign's focus was a plan to spend the record-breaking budget surplus on a variety of social welfare programs to help the poor and the middle class, along with campaign finance reform and gun control. Gore easily defeated Bradley in the primaries, largely because of support from the Democratic Party establishment and Bradley's poor showing in the Iowa caucus, where Gore successfully painted Bradley as aloof and indifferent to the plight of farmers. The closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary. On March 14, Gore clinched the Democratic nomination. None of Bradley's delegates were allowed to vote for him, so Gore won the nomination unanimously at the Democratic National Convention. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was nominated for vice president by voice vote. Lieberman became the first
Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...
ever to be chosen for this position by a major party. Gore chose Lieberman over five other finalists: Senators Evan Bayh,
John Edwards Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents Geor ...
, and
John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he p ...
,
House Minority Leader Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives, also known as floor leaders, are congresspeople who coordinate legislative initiatives and serve as the chief spokespersons for their parties on the House floor. These leaders are ele ...
Dick Gephardt Richard Andrew Gephardt (; born January 31, 1941) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician who served as a United States Representative from Missouri from 1977 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was House Majority Leader fr ...
, and
New Hampshire Governor The governor of New Hampshire is the head of government of New Hampshire. The governor is elected during the biennial state general election in November of even-numbered years. New Hampshire is one of only two states, along with bordering ...
Jeanne Shaheen Cynthia Jeanne Shaheen ( ; née Bowers, born January 28, 1947) is an American retired educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Hampshire since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Shaheen served as the 78 ...
. Delegate totals: *Vice President Albert Gore Jr. 4328 *
Abstention Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not go to vote (on election day) or, in parliamentary procedure, is present during the vote, but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with ...
s 9


Other nominations


Reform Party nomination

* Reform Party candidates **
Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, ...
from Virginia, former speechwriter and senior advisor to President Richard Nixon **
John Hagelin John Samuel Hagelin (born June 9, 1954) is the leader of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement in the United States. He is president of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa, and honorary chair of its board of t ...
from Iowa, Ph.D., past and then-current
Natural Law Party The Natural Law Party (NLP) is a transnational party founded in 1992 on "the principles of Transcendental Meditation", the laws of nature, and their application to all levels of government. At its peak, it was active in up to 74 countries; it co ...
candidate ** Donald Trump from
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * ...
, had left the Republican Party in 1999 due to conflicting ideas on key issues The nomination went to Pat Buchanan and running mate
Ezola Foster Ezola Broussard Foster (August 9, 1938 – May 22, 2018) was an American conservative political activist, writer, and politician. She was president of the interest group Black Americans for Family Values, author of the book ''What's Right for All ...
from California over the objections of party founder Ross Perot and despite a rump convention nomination of
John Hagelin John Samuel Hagelin (born June 9, 1954) is the leader of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement in the United States. He is president of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa, and honorary chair of its board of t ...
by the Perot faction. In the end, the
Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Camp ...
sided with Buchanan, and that ticket appeared on 49 of 51 possible ballots.


Association of State Green Parties nomination

* Green Party candidates: ** Ralph Nader from Connecticut – 295 ** Jello Biafra from California – 10 ** Stephen Gaskin from Tennessee – 11 **
Joel Kovel Joel Stephen Kovel (August 27, 1936 – April 30, 2018) was an American scholar and author known as a founder of eco-socialism. Kovel became a psychoanalyst, but he abandoned psychoanalysis in 1985. Background Kovel was born on August 27, 19 ...
from New York – 3 **Abstain – 1 The Greens/Green Party USA, the then-recognized national party organization, later endorsed Nader for president and he appeared on the ballots of 43 states and DC.


Libertarian Party nomination

File:HarryBrowneLPCon1998 (cropped2).jpg, Writer
Harry Browne Harry Edson Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) was an American writer, politician, and investment advisor. He was the Libertarian Party's Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000. He authored 12 books that in total have ...

from Tennessee
( campaign) File:Art Olivier (105415391) (cropped).jpg,
Art Olivier Arthur C. Olivier (born August 24, 1957) is an American politician. He is the former mayor of Bellflower, California and was the Libertarian candidate for Vice President in the United States presidential election in 2000 as the running mate of p ...

Mayor (1998–1999) of Bellflower, California
( campaign)
* Libertarian Party candidates delegate totals: **
Harry Browne Harry Edson Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) was an American writer, politician, and investment advisor. He was the Libertarian Party's Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000. He authored 12 books that in total have ...
from Tennessee – 493 **
Don Gorman Donald Gorman (born 1937 or 1938) is a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. He was first elected in 1992 to represent Deerfield, and was re-elected in 1994, serving four terms. Gorman was elected to the New Hampshire Hous ...
from New Hampshire – 166 **
Jacob Hornberger Jacob George Hornberger (born January 1, 1950) is an American attorney, author, and politician who was a Libertarian candidate for president in 2000 and 2020. He is the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation. Early life Horn ...
from Virginia – 120 ** Barry Hess from Arizona – 53 **None of the Above – 23 **other write-ins – 15 **David Hollist from California – 8 The Libertarian Party's National Nominating Convention nominated
Harry Browne Harry Edson Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) was an American writer, politician, and investment advisor. He was the Libertarian Party's Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000. He authored 12 books that in total have ...
from Tennessee and
Art Olivier Arthur C. Olivier (born August 24, 1957) is an American politician. He is the former mayor of Bellflower, California and was the Libertarian candidate for Vice President in the United States presidential election in 2000 as the running mate of p ...
from California for president and vice president. Browne was nominated on the first ballot and Olivier received the vice presidential nomination on the second ballot. Browne appeared on every state ballot except Arizona's, due to a dispute between the Libertarian Party of Arizona (which instead nominated
L. Neil Smith Lester Neil Smith III (May 12, 1946 – August 27, 2021), better known as L. Neil Smith, was an American libertarian science fiction author and political activist. His works include the trilogy of Lando Calrissian novels, all published in 1983 ...
) and the national Libertarian Party.


Constitution Party nomination

* Constitution Party candidates: ** Howard Phillips **
Herb Titus Herbert William "Herb" Titus (October 17, 1937 – June 20, 2021) was an American attorney, writer, and politician. He was a candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1996 U.S. presidential election on the Constitution Party ...
**Mathew Zupan ** Bob Smith U.S. Senator from New Hampshire (1990-2003)
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from NH-01 (1985-1990) ''Withdrew: August 17, 1999'' The Constitution Party nominated Howard Phillips from Virginia for a third time and Curtis Frazier from Missouri. It was on the ballot in 41 states.


Natural Law Party nomination

*
John Hagelin John Samuel Hagelin (born June 9, 1954) is the leader of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement in the United States. He is president of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa, and honorary chair of its board of t ...
from Iowa and
Nat Goldhaber A. Nathaniel ("Nat") Goldhaber is an American venture capitalist, computer entrepreneur and politician. Goldhaber helped found Maharishi International University and was special assistant to lieutenant governor William Scranton III and founder ...
from California The
Natural Law Party The Natural Law Party (NLP) is a transnational party founded in 1992 on "the principles of Transcendental Meditation", the laws of nature, and their application to all levels of government. At its peak, it was active in up to 74 countries; it co ...
held its national convention in
Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...
, on August 31–September 2, unanimously nominating a ticket of Hagelin/Goldhaber without a roll-call vote. The party was on 38 of the 51 ballots nationally.


Independents

* Bob Smith U.S. Senator from New Hampshire (1990-2003)
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from NH-01 (1985-1990) ''Withdrew: October 28, 1999''


General election campaign

Although the campaign focused mainly on domestic issues, such as the projected budget surplus, proposed reforms of Social Security and Medicare, health care, and competing plans for tax relief, foreign policy was often an issue. Bush criticized the
Clinton administration Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over ...
's policies in Somalia, where 18 Americans died in 1993 trying to make peace among warring factions, and in the Balkans, where United States peacekeeping troops perform a variety of functions. "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called
nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. According to ...
", Bush said in the second presidential debate. Bush also pledged to bridge partisan gaps, claiming the atmosphere in Washington stood in the way of progress on necessary reforms. Gore, meanwhile, questioned Bush's fitness for the job, pointing to gaffes Bush made in interviews and speeches and suggesting he lacked the necessary experience to be president. Bill Clinton's
impeachment Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...
and the
sex scandal Public scandals involving allegations or information about possibly immoral sexual activities are often associated with the sexual affairs of film stars, politicians, famous athletes, or others in the public eye. Sex scandals receive attenti ...
that led up to it cast a shadow on the campaign. Republicans strongly denounced the Clinton scandals, and Bush made a promise to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House a centerpiece of his campaign. Gore studiously avoided the Clinton scandals, as did Lieberman, even though Lieberman had been the first Democratic senator to denounce Clinton's misbehavior. Some observers theorized that Gore chose Lieberman in an attempt to separate himself from Clinton's past misdeeds and help blunt the GOP's attempts to link him to his boss. Others pointed to the passionate kiss Gore gave his wife during the Democratic Convention as a signal that despite the allegations against Clinton, Gore himself was a faithful husband. Gore avoided appearing with Clinton, who was shunted to low-visibility appearances in areas where he was popular. Experts have argued that this could have cost Gore votes from some of Clinton's core supporters. Ralph Nader was the most successful of the third-party candidates. His campaign was marked by a traveling tour of large "super-rallies" held in sports arenas like Madison Square Garden, with retired
talk show host Below is a list of talk show hosts, sorted alphabetically by their surnames. __NOTOC__ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z See also * List of game show hosts This is a list o ...
Phil Donahue Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935) is an American media personality, writer, film producer and the creator and host of ''The Phil Donahue Show''. The television program, later known simply as ''Donahue'', was the first talk show forma ...
as master of ceremonies. After initially ignoring Nader, the Gore campaign made a pitch to potential Nader supporters in the campaign's final weeks, downplaying his differences with Nader on the issues and arguing that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were and that Gore had a better chance of winning than Nader. On the other side, the
Republican Leadership Council The Republican Leadership Council (RLC or RLC-PAC) was founded in 1993 as the Committee for Responsible Government. It was a United States political advocacy group and political action committee that promoted Republican candidates who choose a pl ...
ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in an effort to split the liberal vote. Nader said his campaign's objective was to pass the 5-percent threshold so his Green Party would be eligible for matching funds in future races. Vice-presidential candidates Cheney and Lieberman campaigned aggressively. Both camps made numerous campaign stops nationwide, often just missing each other, such as when Cheney,
Hadassah Lieberman Hadassah Lieberman ( Freilich; born March 28, 1948) is the second wife of former United States Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Life and work Hadassah Freilich Lieberman was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (a past report erroneously stated ...
, and
Tipper Gore Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore (née Aitcheson; born August 19, 1948) is an American social issues advocate, activist, photographer and author who was the second lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She was married to Al Gore, the 45th v ...
attended Chicago's
Taste of Polonia The Taste of Polonia is a Chicago festival held at the Copernicus Cultural and Civic Center in the Jefferson Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States every Labor Day weekend since 1980. It is the Copernicus Foundat ...
over
Labor Day Weekend Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United S ...
.


Presidential debates

After the 1996 presidential election, the
Commission on Presidential Debates The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is a nonprofit corporation established in 1987 under the joint sponsorship of the Democratic and Republican political parties in the United States. The CPD sponsors and produces debates for U.S. ...
set new candidate selection criteria. The new criteria required third-party candidates to poll at least 15% of the vote in national polls in order to take part in the CPD-sponsored presidential debates. Nader was blocked from attending a closed-circuit screening of the first debate despite having a ticket, and barred from attending an interview near the site of the third debate (
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University i ...
) despite having a "perimeter pass". Nader later sued the CPD for its role in the former incident. A settlement was reached that included an apology to him.


Notable expressions and phrases

* Lockbox/Rainy Day fund: Gore's description of what he would do with the federal budget surplus. * Fuzzy math: a term used by Bush to dismiss the figures used by Gore. Others later turned the term against Bush. * Al Gore invented the Internet: an interpretation of Gore's having said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet," meaning that he was on the committee that funded the research leading to the Internet's formation. *"
Strategery The word "strategery" ( ) was used in a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch, written by James Downey, airing October 7, 2000, which satirized the performances of George W. Bush and Al Gore, two candidates for President of the United States, during the ...
": a phrase uttered by '' Saturday Night Live''s Bush character (portrayed by Will Ferrell), which Bush staffers jokingly picked up to describe their operations.


Results

With the exceptions of Florida, Maryland, and Gore's home state of Tennessee, Bush carried the Southern states by comfortable margins (including Clinton's home state of Arkansas) and also won Ohio, Indiana, most of the rural
Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. ...
farming states, most of the Rocky Mountain states, and Alaska. Gore balanced Bush by sweeping the Northeastern United States (with the exception of New Hampshire, which Bush won narrowly), the Pacific Coast states, Hawaii, New Mexico, and most of the Upper Midwest. As the night wore on, the returns in a handful of small-to-medium-sized states, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon and New Mexico (Gore by 355 votes) were extremely close, but the election came down to Florida. As the final national results were tallied the following morning, Bush had clearly won 246 electoral votes and Gore 250, with 270 needed to win. Two smaller states—Wisconsin (11 electoral votes) and Oregon (7)—were still too close to call, but Florida's 25 electoral votes would be decisive regardless of their results. The election's outcome was not known for more than a month after voting ended because of the time required to count and recount Florida's ballots.


Florida recount

Between 7:50 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST on November 7, just before the polls closed in the largely Republican Florida panhandle, which is in the Central time zone, all major television news networks (
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by t ...
,
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are ...
, FOX,
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
, and
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
) declared that Gore had won Florida. They based this prediction substantially on exit polls. But in the vote, Bush began to take a wide lead early in Florida, and by 10 p.m. EST, the networks had retracted their predictions and placed Florida back in the "undecided" column. At approximately 2:30 a.m. on November 8, with 85% of the vote counted in Florida and Bush leading Gore by more than 100,000 votes, the networks declared that Bush had carried Florida and therefore been elected president. But most of the remaining votes to be counted in Florida were in three heavily Democratic counties— Broward,
Miami-Dade Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...
, and Palm Beach—and as their votes were reported Gore began to gain on Bush. By 4:30 a.m., after all votes were counted, Gore had narrowed Bush's margin to under 2,000 votes, and the networks retracted their declarations that Bush had won Florida and the presidency. Gore, who had privately conceded the election to Bush, withdrew his concession. The final result in Florida was slim enough to require a mandatory recount (by machine) under state law; Bush's lead dwindled to just over 300 votes when it was completed the day after the election. On November 8, Florida Division of Elections staff prepared a press release for
Florida Secretary of State The Secretary of State of Florida is an executive officer of the state government of the U.S. state of Florida, established since the original 1838 state constitution. Like the corresponding officials in other states, the original charge of th ...
Katherine Harris Katherine Harris (born April 5, 1957) is a former American politician. A Republican, Harris served in the Florida Senate from 1994 to 1998, as Secretary of State of Florida from 1999 to 2002, and as a member of the United States House of Repre ...
that said overseas ballots must be "postmarked or signed and dated" by Election Day. It was never released. A count of the overseas ballots later boosted Bush's margin to 930 votes. (According to a report by ''The New York Times'', 680 of the accepted overseas ballots were received after the legal deadline, lacked required postmarks or a witness signature or address, or were unsigned or undated, cast after election day, from unregistered voters or voters not requesting ballots, or double-counted.) Most of the post-electoral controversy revolved around Gore's request for hand recounts in four counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia), as provided under Florida state law. Harris, who also co-chaired Bush's Florida campaign, announced she would reject any revised totals from those counties if they were not turned in by 5 p.m. on November 14, the statutory deadline for amended returns. The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 26, a decision later
vacated A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. ...
by the
U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. Miami-Dade eventually halted its recount and resubmitted its original total to the state canvassing board, while Palm Beach County failed to meet the extended deadline, turning in its completed recount results at 7 p.m., which Harris rejected. On November 26, the state canvassing board certified Bush as the winner of Florida's electors by 537 votes. Gore formally contested the certified results. A state court decision overruling Gore was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered a recount of over 70,000 ballots previously rejected as undervotes by machine counters. The U.S. Supreme Court halted that order the next day, with
Justice Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectua ...
issuing a concurring opinion that "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner" (Bush). On December 12, the Supreme Court ruled in a
per curiam decision In law, a ''per curiam'' decision (or opinion) is a ruling issued by an appellate court of multiple judges in which the decision rendered is made by the court (or at least, a majority of the court) acting collectively (and typically, though not ...
(asserted as a 7–2 vote) that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling requiring a statewide recount of ballots was unconstitutional on equal protection grounds, and in a 5–4 vote reversed and remanded the case to the Florida Supreme Court for modification before the optional "safe harbor" deadline, which the Supreme Court argued that Florida court had said the state intended to meet. With only two hours remaining until the December 12 deadline, the Supreme Court's order effectively ended the recount, and the previously certified total held. Even if the Supreme Court had decided differently in ''Bush v. Gore'', the Florida Legislature had been meeting in Special Session since December 8 with the purpose of selecting of a slate of electors on December 12 should the dispute still be ongoing. Had the recount gone forward, it would have awarded those electors to Bush, based on the state-certified vote, and Gore's likely last recourse would have been to contest the electors in the United States Congress. The electors would then have been rejected only if both houses agreed to do so.


National results

Though Gore came in second in the electoral vote, he received 543,895 more popular votes than Bush, making him the first person since Grover Cleveland in
1888 In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late ...
to win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College. Gore failed to win the popular vote in his home state, Tennessee, which both he and his father had represented in the Senate, making him the first major-party presidential candidate to have lost his home state since
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 p ...
lost South Dakota in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
. Furthermore, Gore lost West Virginia, a state that had voted Republican only once in the previous six presidential elections. Before the election, the possibility that different candidates would win the popular vote and the Electoral College had been noted, but usually with the expectation of Gore winning the Electoral College and Bush the popular vote. The idea that Bush could win the Electoral College and Gore the popular vote was not considered likely. This was the first time since 1928 when a non-incumbent Republican candidate won West Virginia. The Electoral College results were the closest since
1876 Events January–March * January 1 ** The Reichsbank opens in Berlin. ** The Bass Brewery Red Triangle becomes the world's first registered trademark symbol. * February 2 – The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs is ...
, making this election the second-closest Electoral College result in history and the third-closest popular vote victory. Gore's 266 electoral votes is the highest for a losing nominee. Bush was the first Republican in American history to win the presidency without carrying Vermont, Illinois, or New Mexico, as well as the second Republican to win the presidency without carrying California after
James A. Garfield James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his death six months latertwo months after he was shot by an assassin. A lawyer and Civil War gene ...
in
1880 Events January–March * January 22 – Toowong State School is founded in Queensland, Australia. * January – The international White slave trade affair scandal in Brussels is exposed and attracts international infamy. * February � ...
, and Pennsylvania, Maine, and Michigan after Richard Nixon in
1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...
, as well as the first winning Republican not to receive any electoral votes from California as Garfield received one electoral vote in 1880. Bush was the first Republican to win without New Jersey, Delaware, or Connecticut since 1888. As of 2020, Bush is the last Republican nominee to win New Hampshire. No state in the Northeast has voted Republican since except for Pennsylvania in 2016. This marked the first time since Iowa entered the union in 1846 in which the state voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in four elections in a row and the last time until 2020 that Iowa did not vote for the overall winner. This election was the first time since 1976 that New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Illinois, New Mexico, Michigan, and California voted for the losing candidate, as well as the first since 1980 that Maryland did so, the first since 1948 that Delaware did so, and the first since 1968 that Pennsylvania did so. There were two counties in the nation that had voted Republican in
1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
and voted Democratic in 2000:
Charles County, Maryland Charles County is a county in Southern Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert (1637–1715), third Baron Baltimore. Charles County is part of the W ...
, and Orange County, Florida, both rapidly diversifying counties. The 2000 election was also the last time a Republican won a number of populous urban counties that have since turned into Democratic strongholds. These include
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Mecklenburg County is a county located in the southwestern region of the state of North Carolina, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,115,482, making it the second-most populous county in North Carolina (after Wa ...
(Charlotte); Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis), Fairfax County, Virginia (DC suburbs), and Travis County, Texas (Austin). In
2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh c ...
, Republican Donald Trump lost Mecklenburg by 30%, Marion by 23%, Fairfax by 36%, and Travis by 38%. Conversely, as of 2020, Gore is the last Democrat to have won any counties at all in Oklahoma. :Source: File:2000 United States presidential election results map by county.svg, Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote. File:Nader2000percentagebycounty.svg, Vote share by county for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. Darker shades indicate a stronger Green performance. File:2000prescountymap2.PNG, Election results by county. File:2000 Presidential Election, Results by Congressional District.png, Election results by congressional district.


Results by state


Arizona results

*The Libertarian Party of Arizona had ballot access but opted to supplant Browne with
L. Neil Smith Lester Neil Smith III (May 12, 1946 – August 27, 2021), better known as L. Neil Smith, was an American libertarian science fiction author and political activist. His works include the trilogy of Lando Calrissian novels, all published in 1983 ...
. In Arizona, Smith received 5,775 votes, or 0.38% of the Arizona vote. Adding Smith's 5,775 votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, the total votes cast for president for the Libertarian Party in 2000 was 390,206, or 0.37% of the national vote.


Maine and Nebraska district results

Maine and Nebraska each allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In both states, two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district. The votes for each candidate are only singly counted in the column totals.


Close states

States where the margin of victory was less than 1% (55 electoral votes): # ''Florida, 0.009% (537 votes) (tipping point state)'' # New Mexico, 0.061% (366 votes) # Wisconsin, 0.22% (5,708 votes) # Iowa, 0.31% (4,144 votes) # Oregon, 0.44% (6,765 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 1% but less than 5% (84 electoral votes): # New Hampshire, 1.27% (7,211 votes) # Maine's 2nd Congressional District, 1.87% (5,660 votes) # Minnesota, 2.40% (58,607 votes) # Missouri, 3.34% (78,786 votes) # Ohio, 3.51% (165,019 votes) # Nevada, 3.55% (21,597 votes) # Tennessee, 3.86% (80,229 votes) # Pennsylvania, 4.17% (204,840 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 5% but less than 10% (84 electoral votes): # Maine, 5.11% (33,335 votes) # Michigan, 5.13% (217,279 votes) # Arkansas, 5.44% (50,172 votes) # Washington, 5.58% (138,788 votes) # Arizona, 6.29% (96,311 votes) # West Virginia, 6.32% (40,978 votes) # Louisiana, 7.68% (135,527 votes) # Maine's 1st Congressional District, 7.93% (27,675 votes) # Virginia, 8.04% (220,200 votes) # Colorado, 8.36% (145,518 votes) # Vermont, 9.94% (29,247 votes)


Statistics

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican) # Glasscock County, Texas 92.47% #
Ochiltree County, Texas Ochiltree County ( ) is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 10,015. The county seat is Perryton. The county was created in 1876 and organized in 1889. and is named for Wi ...
90.72%
#
Hansford County, Texas Hansford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 5,285. Its county seat is Spearman. The county was created in 1876 and organized in 1889. It is named for John M. Hansford, a Texas stat ...
89.75%
#
Harding County, South Dakota Harding County is a county in the U.S. state of South Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,311, making it the third-least populous county in South Dakota. Its county seat is Buffalo. Harding County was established as a county ...
88.92%
#
Carter County, Montana Carter County is a county located in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,415, making it the seventh-least populous county in Montana. The county seat is Ekalaka. History Carter County was named for Thomas ...
88.84%
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic) # Macon County, Alabama 86.80% #
Bronx County, New York The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York ...
86.28%
# Shannon County, South Dakota 85.36% #
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
85.16%
# City of Baltimore, Maryland 82.52% Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other) # San Miguel County, Colorado 17.20% #
Missoula County, Montana Missoula County is located in the State of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 117,922, making it Montana's third-most populous county. Its county seat and largest city is Missoula. The county was founded in 1860. Missoula Coun ...
15.03%
#
Grand County, Utah Grand County is a county on the east central edge of the U.S. state of Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 9,225. Its county seat and largest city is Moab. History Evidence of indigenous occupation ...
14.94%
# Mendocino County, California 14.68% # Hampshire County, Massachusetts 14.59%


Ballot access

Although the Libertarian Party had ballot access in all fifty United States plus D.C., Browne's name only appeared on the ballot in forty-nine United States plus D.C. The Libertarian Party of Arizona opted to place
L. Neil Smith Lester Neil Smith III (May 12, 1946 – August 27, 2021), better known as L. Neil Smith, was an American libertarian science fiction author and political activist. His works include the trilogy of Lando Calrissian novels, all published in 1983 ...
on the ballot in Browne's place. When adding Smith's 5,775 Arizona votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, that brings the total presidential votes cast for the Libertarian Party in 2000 to 390,206.


Voter demographics

Source:
Voter News Service The Voter News Service was an exit polling consortium formed in 1990 by six major U.S. news media organizations. Its mission was to provide results for United States presidential elections, so that individual organizations and networks would not h ...
exit poll from the
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research __NOTOC__ The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University is the world's oldest archive of social science data and the largest specializing in data from public opinion surveys. It's collection includes over 24,000 datasets and ...
(13,225 surveyed)


Aftermath

After Florida was decided and Gore conceded,
Texas Governor The governor of Texas heads the state government of Texas. The governor is the leader of the executive and legislative branch of the state government and is the commander in chief of the Texas Military. The current governor is Greg Abbott, w ...
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
became the president-elect and began forming his transition committee. In a speech on December 13, in the Texas House of Representatives chamber, Bush stated he was reaching across party lines to bridge a divided America, saying, "the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background."


Post-recount

On January 6, 2001, a
joint session of Congress A joint session of the United States Congress is a gathering of members of the two chambers of the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Joint sessions can be held ...
met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them members of the all-Democratic
Congressional Black Caucus The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is a caucus made up of most African-American members of the United States Congress. Representative Karen Bass from California chaired the caucus from 2019 to 2021; she was succeeded by Representative Joyce B ...
, rose one by one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. But pursuant to the Electoral Count Act, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator. No senator co-sponsored these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Therefore, Gore, who presided in his capacity as
President of the Senate President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for ...
, ruled each of these objections out of order. Subsequently, the joint session of Congress on January 7, 2001, certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. He served for the next eight years. Gore has not, as of 2021, considered another presidential run, endorsing Howard Dean's candidacy during the 2004 Democratic primary and remaining neutral in the Democratic primaries of 2008, 2016 and 2020. The first independent recount of undervotes was conducted by the ''Miami Herald'' and ''USA Today''. The commission found that under most scenarios for completion of the initiated recounts, Bush would have won the election, but Gore would have won using the most generous standards for undervotes. Ultimately, a media consortium—comprising ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', Tribune Co. (parent of the ''Los Angeles Times''), Associated Press, CNN, ''The Palm Beach Post'' and the ''St. Petersburg Times''—hired NORC at the University of Chicago to examine 175,010 ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted; these ballots contained undervotes (ballots with no machine-detected choice made for president) and overvotes (ballots with more than one choice marked). Their goal was to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process. Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over all the ballots in question had been resolved by applying statewide any of five standards that would have met Florida's legal standard for recounts, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes. (Any analysis of NORC data requires, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes to agree or instead, for all three to agree.) For all undervotes and overvotes statewide, these five standards are:Freeman, Steven & Bleifuss, Joel. ''Was the 2000 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count''. Seven Stories Press, 2006, pp. 41–47. *Prevailing standard – accepts at least one detached corner of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. *County-by-county standard – applies each county's own standards independently. *Two-corner standard – accepts at least two detached corners of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. *Most restrictive standard – accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent. *Most inclusive standard – applies uniform criteria of "dimple or better" on punch marks and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on the 12th) to consider the question of including overvotes as well as undervotes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood of including overvotes in the recount."The Final Word? New Documents Raise Questions About News Media's Findings On The 2000 Presidential Election"
(archived fro
the original
on October 30, 2008)
Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court ruling, Gore does, in fact, more than make up the deficit". Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's analysis of the NORC study and media coverage of it supports these interpretations and criticizes the coverage of the study by media outlets such as '' The New York Times'' and the other media consortium members. Further, according to sociologists Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza, the 2000 election might have gone to Gore if the disenfranchised population of Florida had voted. Florida law disenfranchises convicted felons, requiring individual applications to regain suffrage. In a 2002 ''American Sociological Review'' article, Uggen and Manza found that the released felon vote could have altered the outcome of seven senatorial races between 1978 and 2000, and the 2000 presidential election. Matt Ford noted their study concluded, "if the state's 827,000 disenfranchised felons had voted at the same rate as other Floridians, Democratic candidate Al Gore would have won Florida—and the presidency—by more than 80,000 votes."Matt Ford, "Restoring Voting Rights for Felons in Maryland"
, ''The Atlantic,'' February 9, 2016, accessed March 23, 2016
The effect of Florida's law is such that in 2014, purportedly " re than one in ten Floridians—and nearly one in four African-American Floridians—are shut out of the polls because of felony convictions."


Voting machines

Because the 2000 presidential election was so close in Florida, the federal government and state governments pushed for election reform to be prepared by the 2004 presidential election. Many of Florida's 2000 election night problems stemmed from
usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...
and ballot design factors with voting systems, including the potentially confusing "
butterfly ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...
." Many voters had difficulties with the paper-based
punch card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
voting machines and were either unable to understand the voting process or unable to perform it. This resulted in an unusual number of
overvote An overvote occurs when one votes for more than the maximum number of selections allowed in a contest. The result is a spoiled vote which is not included in the final tally. One example of an overvote would be voting for two candidates in a singl ...
s (voting for more candidates than is allowed) and
undervote An undervote occurs when the number of distinct choices selected by a voter in a contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a single choice contest. In a contested election, an undervote can be ...
s (voting for fewer than the minimum candidates, including none at all). Many undervotes were caused by voter error, unmaintained punch card voting booths, or errors having to do merely with the characteristics of punch card ballots (resulting in hanging, dimpled, or pregnant chads). A proposed solution to these problems was the installation of modern
electronic voting Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone ''electronic voting machines'' ( ...
machines. The 2000 presidential election spurred the debate about election and voting reform but did not end it. In the aftermath of the election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed to help states upgrade their election technology in the hopes of preventing similar problems in future elections. But the electronic voting systems that many states purchased to comply with HAVA actually caused problems in the 2004 presidential election.


Exit polling and declaration of vote winners

The
Voter News Service The Voter News Service was an exit polling consortium formed in 1990 by six major U.S. news media organizations. Its mission was to provide results for United States presidential elections, so that individual organizations and networks would not h ...
's reputation was damaged by its treatment of Florida's presidential vote in 2000. Breaking its own guidelines, VNS called the state as a win for Gore 12 minutes before polls closed in the Florida Panhandle. Although most of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone, counties in the Panhandle, in the Central Time Zone, had not yet closed their polls. Discrepancies between the results of exit polls and the actual vote count caused the VNS to change its call twice, first from Gore to Bush and then to "too close to call." Due in part to this (and other polling inaccuracies) the VNS was disbanded in 2003. According to Bush adviser Karl Rove, exit polls early in the afternoon on election day showed Gore winning by three percentage points, but when the networks called the state for Gore, Bush led by about 75,000 votes in raw tallies from the
Florida Secretary of State The Secretary of State of Florida is an executive officer of the state government of the U.S. state of Florida, established since the original 1838 state constitution. Like the corresponding officials in other states, the original charge of th ...
. Charges of media bias were leveled against the networks by Republicans, who claimed that the networks called states more quickly for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. Congress held hearings on this matter, at which the networks claimed to have no intentional bias in their election night reporting. A study of the calls made on election night 2000 indicated that states carried by Gore were called more quickly than states won by Bush; however, notable states carried by Bush, such as New Hampshire and Florida, were very close, and close states won by Gore, such as Iowa, Oregon, New Mexico and Wisconsin, were called late as well. The early call of Florida for Gore has been alleged to have cost Bush several close states, including Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin. In each of these states, Gore won by less than 10,000 votes, and the polls closed after the networks called Florida for Gore. Because the Florida call was widely seen as an indicator that Gore had won the election, it is possible that it depressed Republican turnout in these states during the final hours of voting, giving Gore the slim margin by which he carried each of them. The call may have also affected the outcome of the Senate election in Washington state, where incumbent Republican Slade Gorton was defeated by approximately 2,000 votes.


Ralph Nader "spoiler" controversy

Many Gore supporters claimed that third-party candidate Nader acted as a
spoiler Spoiler is a security vulnerability on modern computer central processing units that use speculative execution. It exploits side-effects of speculative execution to improve the efficiency of Rowhammer and other related memory and cache attacks. ...
in the election, under the presumption that Nader voters would have voted for Gore had Nader not been in the race. Nader received 2.74 percent of the popular vote nationwide, getting 97,000 votes in Florida (by comparison, there were 111,251 overvotes) and 22,000 votes in New Hampshire, where Bush beat Gore by 7,000 votes. Winning either state would have won the general election for Gore. Defenders of Nader, including Dan Perkins, argued that the margin in Florida was small enough that Democrats could blame any number of third-party candidates for the defeat, including
Workers World Party The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-stan ...
candidate Monica Moorehead, who received 1,500 votes. Nader's reputation was hurt by this perception, which may have hindered his goals as an activist. For example, ''
Mother Jones Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She ...
'' wrote about the so-called "rank-and-file liberals" who saw Nader negatively after the election and pointed out that
Public Citizen Public Citizen is a non-profit, progressive consumer rights advocacy group and think tank based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a branch in Austin, Texas. Lobbying efforts Public Citizen advocates before all three branches of the Unit ...
, the organization Nader founded in 1971, suffered a drop in contributions. ''Mother Jones'' also cited a Public Citizen letter sent out to people interested in Nader's relation with the organization at that time, with the disclaimer: "Although Ralph Nader was our founder, he has not held an official position in the organization since 1980 and does not serve on the board. Public Citizen—and the other groups that Mr. Nader founded—act independently." Democratic party strategist and
Democratic Leadership Council The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 and closed in 2011. Founded and directed by Al From, prominent members include Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (who was elected president in 1992 and 1996), Delaware Senator Joe Biden (e ...
(DLC) chair
Al From Al From (born May 31, 1943) is the founder and former CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council. His ideas and political strategies during the past quarter century played a central role in the resurgence of the modern Democratic Party. From is the ...
expressed a different view. In the January 24, 2001, issue of the DLC's ''Blueprint'' magazine he wrote, "I think they're wrong on all counts. The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race." In an online article published by ''
Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...
'' on Tuesday, November 28, 2000, Texan progressive activist
Jim Hightower James Allen Hightower (born January 11, 1943) is an American syndicated columnist, progressive political activist, and author. From 1983 to 1991 he served as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. He publishes a monthly ...
claimed that in Florida, a state Gore lost by only 537 votes, 24,000 Democrats voted for Nader, while another 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush. According to Hightower, 191,000 self-described liberals in Florida voted for Bush, while fewer than 34,000 voted for Nader.


Press influence on race

In their 2007 book ''The Nightly News Nightmare: Network Television's Coverage of US Presidential Elections, 1988–2004'', professors Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter said that most media outlets influenced the outcome of the election through the use of
horse race journalism Horse race journalism is political journalism of elections that resembles coverage of horse races because of the focus on polling data and public perception instead of candidate policy, and almost exclusive reporting on candidate differences rathe ...
. Some liberal supporters of Al Gore argued that the media had a bias against Gore and in favor of Bush. Peter Hart and Jim Naureckas, two commentators for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), called the media "serial exaggerators" and took the view that several media outlets were constantly exaggerating criticism of Gore: they further argued that the media falsely claimed Gore lied when he claimed he spoke in an overcrowded science class in Sarasota, Florida, and that the media gave Bush a pass on certain issues, such as Bush allegedly exaggerating how much money he signed into the annual Texas state budget to help the uninsured during his second debate with Gore in October 2000. In the April 2000 issue of ''
Washington Monthly ''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alternat ...
'', columnist Robert Parry wrote that media outlets exaggerated Gore's supposed claim that he "discovered" the
Love Canal Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a landfill that became the site of an enormous environmental disaster in the 1970s. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals harmed the health of hund ...
neighborhood in
Niagara Falls, New York Niagara Falls is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and named after the fame ...
during a campaign speech in Concord, New Hampshire on November 30, 1999, when he had only claimed he "found" it after it was already evacuated in 1978 because of chemical contamination. '' Rolling Stone'' columnist
Eric Boehlert Eric Boehlert (December 6, 1965 – April 4, 2022) was an American journalist, writer, and media critic. He was a senior fellow at Media Matters for America for ten years and a staff writer at both ''Salon'' and ''Billboard''. In 2020, Boehler ...
also alleged media outlets exaggerated criticism of Gore as early as July 22, 1999, Boehlert, Eric, (December 6, 2001), "The Press v. Al Gore", '' Rolling Stone'' when Gore, known for being an environmentalist, had a friend release 500 million gallons of water into a drought-stricken river to help keep his boat afloat for a photo shoot; Boehlert claimed that media outlets exaggerated the actual number of gallons that were released, as they claimed it was 4 billion.


Effects on future elections and Supreme Court

A number of subsequent articles have characterized the election in 2000, and the Supreme Court's decision in ''Bush v. Gore'', as damaging the reputation of the Supreme Court, increasing the view of judges as partisan, and decreasing Americans' trust in the integrity of elections. The number of lawsuits brought over election issues more than doubled following the 2000 election cycle, an increase Richard L. Hasen of UC Irvine School of Law attributes to the "Florida fiasco".


See also

* List of conspiracy theories#2000 election depends on Florida * 2000 United States gubernatorial elections *
2000 United States House of Representatives elections The 2000 United States House of Representatives elections on November 7, 2000 coincided with the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States. The Republican Party won 221 seats, while the Democratic Party won 212 and independents ...
*
2000 United States Senate elections The 2000 United States Senate elections were held on November 7, 2000. The elections coincided with other federal and state elections, including the presidential election which was won by Republican George W. Bush. It featured a number of fiercel ...
*
First inauguration of George W. Bush The first inauguration of George W. Bush as the 43rd president of the United States took place on Saturday, January 20, 2001, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 54th inauguration and marked the comme ...
*
List of close election results This is a list of close election results on the national level and within administrative divisions. It lists results that have been decided by a margin of less than 1 vote in 1,000 (a margin of less than 0.1 percentage points): single-winner elec ...
* Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns


Footnotes


References


Further reading


Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Journal articles

* * * *Tribe, Laurence H.: "''Erog .v Hsub'' and its Disguises: Freeing ''Bush v. Gore'' from its Hall of Mirrors", 115 ''Harvard Law Review'' 170 (November 2001). *Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden (2013), "Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures", Quarterly Journal of Political Science: Vol. 8: No. 3, pp 239–269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00012033


Papers

*Keating, Dan ('' The Washington Post'')
"Democracy Counts, The Florida ballot recount project"
paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, 2002. *Underhill, Wend
"Election 2000: Before and After: September 2012"
State Legislatures Magazine, a 2012 retrospective on improvements started by the 2000 election.


External links



(popular vote by states)
2000 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations
(231 kB PDF).
Supreme Court Decisions of December 9, 2000''Booknotes'' interview with Jeff Greenfield on ''Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow: Inside the Strangest Presidential Election Finish in American History'', July 22, 2001.
from the U.S. Library of Congress
Election of 2000 in Counting the Votes
{{Authority control George W. Bush Al Gore Dick Cheney Joe Lieberman November 2000 events in the United States Presidency of George W. Bush