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53rd quadrennial U.S. presidential election / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1996 United States presidential election was the 53rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1996.[2] Republican candidate Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes, defeated Senator Bill Bradley, the Democratic nominee, and Ross Perot, the Reform Party nominee and 1992 presidential candidate.
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538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 51.7%[1] 6.4 pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Clinton/Gore and red denotes those won by Dole/Kemp. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Forbes and Ohioan Governor George Voinovich were nominated after defeating challenges by paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Numerous candidates entered the 1996 Republican primaries, with Dole considered the early front-runner. Dole clinched the nomination after defeating challenges by publisher Steve Forbes and paleoconservative leader Pat Buchanan. Dole's running mate was Jack Kemp, a former Congressman and football player who had served as the Housing Secretary under President George H. W. Bush. Ross Perot, who had won 18.9% of the popular vote as an independent candidate in the 1992 election, ran as the candidate of the Reform Party. Perot received less media attention in 1996 and was excluded from the presidential debates.
Clinton's chances of winning were initially considered slim in the middle of his term, as his party had lost both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 1994 for the first time in decades. He was able to regain ground as the economy began to recover from the early 1990s recession with a relatively stable world stage. Clinton tied Dole to Newt Gingrich, the unpopular Republican Speaker of the House, and warned that Republicans would increase the deficit and slash spending on popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. Dole promised an across-the-board 15% reduction in federal income taxes and labeled Clinton as a member of the "spoiled" Baby Boomer generation. Dole's age was a persistent issue in the election, and gaffes by Dole exacerbated the issue for his campaign.
On election day, Clinton defeated Dole by a wide margin, winning 379 electors to Dole's 159 and taking 49.2% of the national popular vote to Dole's 40.7%. As in 1992, Perot's strong candidacy held both major party candidates below 50% nationwide. Notably, Clinton's strength with many southern and rural whites makes him the last Democrat as of 2020 to carry the states of Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee in a presidential election.