| PDF said: Research? From what I know the split between who people would have voted for Bush or Clinton if Perot was not running is acutally pretty even based on exit polling. Where Perot screwed Bush Sr. was in states that we now call "red states" These were must states for Bush to win and these are states that Perot hurt Bush. Perot hur Clinton in other states but Clinton was able to still carry them. Could Clinton have won without Perot? sure but it would have been a lot closer than the 370 to 168. In general there are more dems than republicans across this nation, so stating more dems switch doesnt mean too much. Republicans still win elections because of independants but also because democrats are generally more likely to cross party lines when voting. |
http://www.leinsdorf.com/perot.htm
Its an old HTML-based page. The author does a good job of breaking down the data for Perot. At maximum, Perot cost Bush 500,000 votes which was not enough to swing the election. Alternatively, if Perot had not dropped out of the race, he would have either won or Bush would have won (in June of the election year, Perot was polling at 40%, Bush at 30% and Clinton at 20% - if that doesn't tell you Perot was stealing Dem votes, then I don't know what would).
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
