Gore "won" the popular vote (which is debablable, since the result was so close that voting irregularities, fraud, states that don't count all absentee votes if they won't made a difference in the final outcome, and simple error probably contributed to Gore's "winning" the popular vote), but he receive only 48.38% of the popular vote, less than Clinton in '96. Bush was about 600,000 votes behind him -- in an election with about a 100 million turn, 600K is within the "margin of error."
I'm not willing to accept that Gore won the popular vote until the whole thing is subjected to a recount.