Clinton never got 46% of the vote. In 1992, he got 43%, and, in '96, he got 49%.
Sometimes, if a Republican is too liberal for me, I vote for a minor-party candidate. I read the poll results, in Oct. If the result is close, I vote for the Republican, since I don't want to help split the anti-Democrat vote, helping the Democrat win with less than a majority. If I know that the election won't be close, I vote for the candidate with whom I agree the most. In 2002, democrat governors were elected, with less than 50% of the vote in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Oregon, because, in each state, the anti-democrat vote was split between a Republican and a libertarian or conservative independent. No Republican was elected governor, in that year, because the liberals split their votes. The liberals were better at working together. I hope that, from now on, conservatives will work together better, in close elections.
Obviously, that means only small side offices have been ones you could vote other ways on, because when it comes to Gov, President and so on, I don't know in recent years if you have had any one sided votes at all.
I think there has been lots of close votes everywhere the last decade especially.