[fieldmarshaldj]

This is not a new conclusion. GHW Bush's approvals were ghastly going into the '92 election. Clinton's weren't as low. I recall seeing data some time ago that showed in a one-on-one race that Clinton would win. Though obviously a number of the Perot voters cast votes for Bush in 1988, many of them were angry and in a one-on-one situation, I believe more than half would've broken for Clinton. In fact, this is what I surmise what it would've looked like (note that blue is GOP & red is Democrat, the right colors)... Absent Perot, Clinton may have scored a landslide in the EC, 387 to 151. Even giving Bush, Sr. FL, AZ & CO, it wouldn't have mattered. Basically, it would've been effectively the states Dole carried in 1996 (except Colorado). Almost any way you slice it, I can't see any scenario given the dynamics of the time that would've had Bush carry 1992 (and add in even that his candidacy was in such disarray -- it was a dreadful mess, and hadn't recovered from the death of Lee Atwater. Total amateur hour stuff). This even makes one wonder if Bush (and not Reagan) had been the nominee in 1980 if he could've even beaten Carter. He might've not been able to.

[Clintonfatigued]

Many of the Perot voters were new to politics and many were’t regular voters before he came on the scene and wouldn’t have voted at all if he hadn’t. They mostly stayed active and helped the 1994 landslide happen when it became clear that Clinton was pushing leftist policies. It’s one of the reasons that Clinton reversed course in 1995 and usually avoided iedological conflict during the rest of his Presidency.

[AuH2ORepublican]

DJ, with all due respect, your hypothetical, Perotless 1992 presidential election map is not based on reality. Exit polls showed that Perot voters preferred Bush over Clinton by about 55%-40%. And many of the Perot voters who preferred Clinton over Bush were kids who probably would have stayed home had Perot not been on the ballot. Had Perot not been on the ballot (e.g., had he not returned after dropping out due to supposed “Republican dirty tricks”), Bush would have seen a net gain versus Clinton in every state. A simplistic way to predict how each state would have voted in a Perotless 1992 election would be to have Bush net 25% of the Perot vote. However, one would expect Bush to net a higher percentage in conservative states and a lower percentage in liberal states, so the analysis needs to be more nuanced than that.

My analysis of the electoral results from 1992 leads me to conclude that, in a race without Perot, turnout (as a percentage of the 18+ population) would have been around the same as in 1988, Clinton would have won the national popular vote by not more than 1%, and that Clinton would have won at least 264 electoral votes, Bush at least 255 (the 18 states Bush won in the three-man race, plus GA, MT, CO, NV, OH, WI, NH, NJ and KY), 19 EVs (CT, ME and IA) would be toss-ups leaning towards Clinton. Thus, Clinton would most likely win by 283-255 in the Electoral College, but had Bush been able to win CT and IA he would have eked out a victory.

BTW, the analysis for 1996 would be far different, with Perot voters being far likelier to vote for Dole than for Clinton (if you didn’t vote for Clinton in 1996, you were unlikely to do so just because Perot wasn’t ilon the ballot). I think that in a Perotless 1996 race Dole would have lost both nationally and in PA by about 1%, but had Dole carried PA he would have gotten exactly 270 EVs.