Look, I understand. You've heard it repeated so many times, it has seeped into your consciousness as an indisputable fact:
Ross Perot threw at least one election to Bill Clinton, and maybe two elections.
But it is not true. The evidence does not support such a conclusion. It's nothing more than a treasured myth of Republicans who wish to marginalize President Clinton as nothing more than an electoral accident. Sadly, I have recently seen multiple Kossacks repeating such drivel about both elections. Just yesterday, the following statement was made here at dKos:
he [Bill Clinton] won with a plurality thanks to Ross Perot
Another poster added these comments:
Perot took way more out of Dole than clinton
Perot was clearly the reason Clinton won
Did it [Perot's 1996 campaign] significantly help Clinton? yes, without a doubt.
These claims are not supported by the evidence.
UNITED STATES 1992 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Governor Bill Clinton - 44,909,806 votes (43.0%) - 370 electoral votes
President George H.W. Bush - 39,104,550 votes (37.4%) - 168 electoral votes
Ross Perot - 19,743,821 votes (18.9%) - 0 electoral votes
UNITED STATES 1996 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
President Bill Clinton - 47,401,185 (49.2%) - 379 electoral votes
Senator Bob Dole - 39,197,469 (40.7%) - 159 electoral votes
Ross Perot - 8,085,294 votes (8.4%) - 0 electoral votes
The myth arises, clearly, from the simple mathematics of adding the 1992 popular vote totals of President Bush and Ross Perot (a combined 56.3% of the vote) compared to the popular vote total of Governor Clinton (43.0% of the vote). The problem is assuming that all or most of those who voted for Ross Perot would have voted for President Bush had Perot not been in the race. There is no evidence to support such an assertion, and quite a bit of opposing evidence.
The notion gets even more bizarre when applied to the 1996 election. Though President Clinton did not quite breach the 50% mark, he did get more votes than Senator Dole and Ross Perot got combined. Considering the obvious fact that some Perot voters would've otherwise not voted at all, or would've voted for Clinton, the claim that Perot was a deciding factor in the 1996 Presidential election is beyond the pale.
VOTER TURNOUT
Voter turnout in 1992 was the highest of the seven Presidential elections from 1976 through 2000. This is not surprising; strong third-party/independent candidacies boost voter turnout by drawing to the polls those who would not vote in the absence of said strong third-party/independent candidacies. Thus, a portion of those who voted for Ross Perot would not have voted had Perot not run. As a result, in order for Perot to have played the role of spoiler in favor of Clinton the remaining Perot voters would have had to even more overwhelmingly favored Bush over Clinton.
As it was, even assuming that all Perot voters would have voted had not Perot been in the race, 70.6% of them would have had to vote for George H.W. Bush in order to make the race a popular vote draw. I am using the popular vote because it almost always (in 29 of the last 30 Presidential elections, for example) correlates with the Electoral College. In other words, had Perot voters preferred Bush over Clinton by a 2-1 margin, Clinton still would've won the election.
But is there any evidence to suggest that Perot voters overwhelmingly preferred Bush to Clinton? No, there is not.
ROSS PEROT'S STANCE ON ISSUES
The centerpiece of Ross Perot's campaign in 1992 was opposing NAFTA. Recall "the giant sucking sound". This cut directly into the base of Governor Clinton. "Free trade!" is a Republican mantra while the labor base of the Democratic Party opposes free trade. Exacerbating the problem was that candidate Clinton was pro-NAFTA, giving blue collar voters reason to look away from the Democratic Party to Ross Perot. Perot's primary issue appealed more to Democrats than to Republicans, and the Democratic candidate was out of step with his base on the issue.
Recall also that Perot was unabashedly pro-choice, while also opposing prayer in the public schools.
Perot supported gay rights, he supported funding AIDS research, and he expressed support for gun control, saying "I can’t believe the gun lobby wants the crazies to have machine guns".
Did Perot support some issues that appealed more to conservatives than to liberals? Absolutely. That's the point; Perot was a centrist bleeding support off both parties, and not taking significantly more from either.
POLLING
An example of those drawn to Perot is provided by a Gallup poll from June 1992, showing the following:
Ross Perot - 39%
President Bush - 31%
Governor Clinton - 25%
By the time of the election, Perot had dropped 20%. Governor Clinton had gained 18%, while President Bush gained a mere 7%. Most of the support for Perot in June was from voters who ended up casting their votes for Bill Clinton, not for George Bush.
Furthermore, what people also forget (or ignore) is the fact that when Ross Perot re-entered the race in early October (after dropping out in July), Clinton's lead in the polls decreased as Perot's share increased. Had most of Perot's supporters been erstwhile conservatives/Republicans, Perot's re-entry into the race should've been a boost to the Clinton campaign. But it wasn't; in fact, it helped Bush narrow the gap with Clinton.
Now let us consider what exit polling revealed:
If Mr. Perot had not been on the ballot, 38 percent of his voters said, they would have voted for Gov. Bill Clinton, and 38 percent said they would have voted for President Bush. Of the 31 states where Mr. Perot garnered more than 20 percent, 17 were won by Mr. Clinton and 14 by Mr. Bush.
THE WEAK INCUMBENT OF 1992
Just before the 1992 election, President Bush's approval rating stood at 33%. Such an incumbent is all but unelectable. Governor Clinton was a flawed candidate, but he was still a good candidate. The idea that a very unpopular incumbent President would've won re-election but for Ross Perot is simply nonsensical.
THE STRONG INCUMBENT OF 1996
Conversely, in 1996 President Clinton's final pre-election approval rating stood at a healthy 56%. And we're supposed to think that despite the fact that Bob Dole and Ross Perot combined got fewer votes than Bill Clinton, the Texas billionaire played the spoiler?
THE DRIFT OF PEROT VOTERS FROM 1992 TO 1996
In 1992, Ross Perot garnered 18.9% of the electorate; that fell to 8.4% in 1996. Where did that 10.5% of the electorate go? If Perot was disproportionately drawing voters away from the GOP candidate, then more of those voters should have 'gone home' in 1996 to the GOP candidate, Bob Dole. But they didn't. In 1996, President Clinton's share of the electorate was 6.2% greater than in 1992. By comparison, Bob Dole only managed to improve on George Bush's 1992 showing by 3.3%. Other candidates (call them 'fourth-party' candidates) gained 1.0%.
SUMMARY
Look, I'm not an apologist for Bill Clinton. I have mixed feelings about Bill Clinton the President, Bill Clinton the Democrat and Bill Clinton the person. But I have no use whatsoever for rewriting history. Much of the right would have us believe that President Clinton was nothing more than an accident of history. They want to believe that most of America wanted a conservative, not a liberal, President in 1992. They want to to everything they can to diminish the election of a Democratic President.
However, the totality of the evidence fails to suggest in any way, shape or form that Bill Clinton won in either 1992 or 1996 because of the presence of Ross Perot in either race.