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The 1992 US Elections*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Pippa Norris
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The American Elections This Year Overturned conventional expectations. In March 1991 President Bush — leader of the free world during the fall of the Berlin wall and winner of the Gulf war — seemed invincible. With the troops home in victory parades, Bush's approval rating stood at 88 per cent in Gallup polls. Few thought he could lose against Governor Clinton, dogged by questions about the draft and marital fidelity, perceived as a second-rank Democratic contender from a small southern state. Yet President Bush won 37.7 per cent, the lowest share of the popular vote of any incumbent president since William Taft in 1912. Against most predictions, 19 per cent of the vote went to Ross Perot, the best result for a third party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. Governor Clinton enjoyed a comfortable victory, with 43.2 per cent of the popular vote and 370 electoral college votes in 32 states. The result for Clinton was not a landslide, indeed his share of the popular vote was similar to Mondale's in 1984 and Carter's in 1980, and less than Dukakis's in 1988. But questions about a popular mandate are academic: Democrats now control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and almost two-thirds of governorships and state legislative chambers.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1993, pp. 51 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the Joan Shorenstein Barone Centre on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government for academic hospitality during the period of writing this article, and Michael Kagay at the New York Times and Lee C. Shapiro at Voter Research and Surveys for providing exit polls material.

References

1 Indeed only two incumbent presidents running for re‐election have ever before got less than 40 per cent of the vote – William Taft in 1912 and Warren Harding in 1932.

2 Carter, Bill, ‘Perot gave networks a race, at any rate’, New York Times, 3 11 1992, A14.Google Scholar

3 Carmody, John, ‘91 million viewers flock to final debate’, Washington Post, 21 11 1992.Google Scholar

4 In October 1992 54 per cent said they were paying a lot of attention to the race compared with 31 per cent in 1988; 76 per cent said they found the campaign interesting compared with 40 per cent in November 1988, New York Times/CBS National Polls 2–4 October 1992.

5 Joe Klein “The year of the voter”, Newsweek special election issue November/December 1992 pp. 14–15.

6 In the exit poll when asked who had attacked their opponents unfairly, 19 per cent of Bush voters thought Clinton had attacked unfairly, compared with 61 per cent of Clinton voters who thought Bush attacked unfairly.

7 Duncan, Phil, ‘Incumbency at risk’, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 29 02 1992, pp. 5–13.Google Scholar

8 At the time of writing two Senate seats remain undecided: Georgia with a run‐off election and North Dakota with a special election.

9 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 9 July 1992.

10 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 8 August 1992, pp. 63–69.

11 See Rosenstone, Steven, Behr, Roy L. and Lazarus, Edward H., Third Parties in America, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984.Google Scholar

12 It should be noted that the diagram includes all published national polls by different companies during the campaign, with the data smoothed.

13 New York Times/CBS News National Poll, 2–4 October 1992.

14 The Voter Research and Survey Exit Poll included 15,241 respondents in all states as they left the polling station.

15 Evidence from panel surveys from 1988 – 92 would provide the most satisfactory evidence to examine who switched, but this is unavailable at present.

16 Unemployment was 9.8 per cent in August 1992, up 2.2 per cent from the same period in 1991. Employment and Earnings, US Department of Labour Bureau of Labour Statistics, Washington DC, October 1992.

17 There was a weak and insignificant correlation between unemployment (the overall level of state unemployment, or the annual change in the rate), and the electoral outcome (the winner in the electoral college, or the change in the Democratic and Republican share of the vote).

18 Cook, Rhodes, ‘Clinton Picks the GOP Lock on the Electoral College’, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 7 11 1992, pp. 3548–3553.Google Scholar

19 New York Times/CBS National Poll 2–4 October 1992, N. 1,252.