Alright it’s time to explain the core mathematics of American politics to you guys. I warn you, if you pay attention and really UNDERSTAND what I’m going to explain to you American politics will become very boring to you.
So basically the American voting public is divided into roughly 3rds. The specific numbers vary from year to year, but they always stay in throwing distance of 33% of each. Roughly 1/3 of the voters align with the Republicans, 1/3 with the Democrats, and the final 3rd (which I first saw labeled the Mushy Middle) are the people that really decide elections, and they cycle like the tides. The Mushy Middle gradually get more and more tired of one side the longer they’re in power, which puts the other side in power, and then they get tired of them. This is why for most of the last 150 years or so we run this lather rinse repeat in our elections. R gets 2 terms, D gets 2 terms, R, D, R, D. Yeah we get the occassional break in pattern, like Bush getting the Rs a 3rd term, or Trump’s 1. But by and large this is the cycle.
So let’s look at the 92 election:
Bush 36%
Clinton 43%
Perot 19%
Now compare those to our standard divide: 33, 33, 33. That 33% is the only vote any D or R candidate can count on. If there’s a pool that is actually THEIR vote, that’s it.
So Bush’s 36% shows that he got a tiny chunk of the Mushy Middle (10% of the 3rd or 3% overall).
While Clinton got about 1/3 of the Mushy Middle, 10% of the overall vote, in addition to “his” 33%.
And the lion’s share of the Mushy Middle went to Perot.
Now sure these are broad generalizations, as always there’s cross over votes, some Rs vote D, some Ds vote R, blah blah. But they’re usually a small number and wash out. The bulk is what matters. And bulk of it is that Bush drew basically nothing from the Mushy Middle who actually decide elections. And thinking that without Perot he would have gotten ALL the Mushy Middle flies in the face of American electoral history. They get tired of the side in charge. Best case scenario for Bush is a 50 50 split of Perot’s 19% if Perot isn’t on the ballot. Actually probably it splits in 3rds, 1 third to each Bush and Clinton and the other 3rd not voting, so it looks like a 50 50 split but the total vote count would drop.
More than like without Perot the Mushy Middle split the way part of them already did. 3 to 1 for Clinton. It was the 3th time around for an R, he wasn’t gonna win. Especially with that pathetic campaign. Bush got all “his” votes. He lost cause he got basically none of the Mushy Middle. And that’s who decided elections.
Your 1/3 1/3 1/3 analysis works in a two way race: the R gets the pro business 1/3, the D gets the affirmative action 1/3, and they fight over the remaining 1/3. The stronger candidate wins.
That’s not what happens in a three way race like 1992, where the 3rd party candidate runs a pro business campaign to the right of the Republican.
What happened in 1992 is that Perot ran a pro business campaign - to the right of Bush - thereby taking half the pro-business Republican votes that Bush got in 1988.
Clinton got the dumb affirmative action 1/3 that always votes Democrat, plus a third of your “mushy middle”.
If I’m wrong about 1992 - let’s do an experiment - let’s have a three way race in 2024 between:
Any random brain-dead Democrat as the Democrat nominee.
President Trump as the MAGA Republican nominee.
Ron deSantis as the ultra MAGA third party nominee.
What do you think will happen? Obviously, the two MAGA candidates will split the pro business vote, and the Democrat will win with a plurality, just like Clinton did in 1992.
I don’t disagree with the general thirds analysis.
It does not explain how a third party candidate suddenly became “available” to vote for.
Where are these perot candidates in every election.
perot was “allowed” in by the CPD to disrupt Republican probability of winning re-election.
Here is another useful educational point: Incumbents usually win.
In fact, that is the dominant fact of politics. You need a disruption of some kind to prevent that reality. That is why senators almost never lose their seats.
Presidential races are absolutely despised by our institutional elite who consistently want Democrats over Republicans. Perot’s main arguments were Republican arguments. You don’t see Bernie Sanders busting up the Democrats even though he probably ran along with other socialist radicals. But the elite do not give a debate stage to people who are going to break the Left voting block.
Clinton won with less than 50%. He won with an unusually low voting percentage. That happened because the elite wanted that.
In 1990, the Fed raised rates to 8.5% helping to damage the economy as the election approached.
Perot voters definitely helped elected Bill Clinton and CPD has never allowed a third party candidate onto the stage in October since then.