Did Nader Help Al Gore in 2000?
By Mike Hersh , Aug 21, 2003
This seems an odd question, but one with increased importance as Nader ponders entering the 2004 Presidential campaign. Everyone involved in the 2000 election - candidates, voters and the media - concluded Nader took most of his support from Al Gore. Are they all mistaken?
Although some Nader supporters minimize this, Nader and his top supporters like Michael Moore brag that Nader's campaign denied Democrats the White House. Still, Al From of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) contends:
"The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race." See: How Democrats Can Learn From The Failed 2000 Campaign, Failed Populism, by Al From.
That makes no sense, but maybe it's true? Even setting aside that his analysis ignores Buchanan voters and others who didn't vote for Gore, Bush or Nader, the exit polling data shows From is 100% wrong to dismiss Nader as a factor in the final outcome. See: http://www.msnbc.com/m/d2k/g/polls.asp?office=P&state=N1
Nader hurt Gore badly in the 2000 race. Why would a Democrat blame Gore's "Failed populism" and absolve Nader? Who knows? We do know he's wrong implying Nader's campaign helped Gore. The obvious opposite is true.
Scroll way down to look at the actual answers to the question: "If these were the only two presidential candidates, who would you vote for?" Al From assumes this data - Gore 48% Bush 49% and 2% not voting at all - means Bush would have done better in a race without Nader.
The actual data defies the DLC's facile and self-serving conclusions. As noted, From ignores other minor party candidates, notably Pat Buchanan who took most of his votes from Bush. Also the total of 101% indicates a typo and/or a rounding error.
A closer look shows if Nader wasn't a choice, the 2.7% who supported Nader would have split so Gore would have picked up about 2% more support and Bush would have picked up an additional 1%. In a non-Nader race, Gore would have prevailed over Bush 50% to 49%.
That result fits the data showing twice as many 2000 Nader voters would have supported Gore rather than Bush. Correcting for rounding errors, exit polls indicate that if only Gore and Bush were running, Nader's votes would have broken down as follows:
1,326,159 (46%) would have picked Gore
893,716 (31%) would have sat out the election.
663,080 (23%) would have favored Bush.
2,882,955 (100%) total
Here are the actual results from the 2000 election:
Gore 50,999,897 48.38%
Bush 50,456,002 47.87%
Nader 2,882,955 2.74%
Total 105,405,100 100.00%*
* Includes all candidates
See: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
Allocating the 2,882,955 Nader votes along established patterns: 46% / 1,326,159 to Gore and 23% / 663,080 to Bush (leaving out the 31% of Nader voters who said they wouldn't have voted at all) shows Gore more than doubling his popular vote margin.
Taking Nader out of the picture would add 663,079 to Gore's actual 543,895 vote margin for a total of 1,206,974. Adding 0.63% to Gore's 0.51% margin increases it to 1.14%. This calculation understates Gore's increased margin by as much as 300,000 if the 893,716 Nader voters who said they wouldn't vote at all changed their minds and followed the pattern.
Estimated Vote Totals in Non-Nader race
Gore 52,326,056 49.64%
Bush 51,122,397 48.50%
Neither 893,716 00.84%+
Total 105,405,100 100.00%*
+ Among Nader Voters
* For all candidates
Nader kept the election close enough to steal
by splitting the anti-Bush vote in key states.
The "Nader Factor" was larger than the margin by which Gore beat Bush nation-wide, even controlling for the Nader voters who say they wouldn't have voted or who would have voted for Bush.
This isn't even considering the disproportionate attention and impact Nader had in the closest states - states Nader swore he would avoid "spoiling" to get onto the ballot. It's not possible Nader was unaware that his focus on these states would help Bush vs. Gore.
Gore won Florida by all fair, full vote counts. However, Nader's "spoiler" efforts there - culminating in his last-ditch, last minute campaign swings - handed Bush the White House by drawing enough votes to cost Gore a clear victory.
Nader pulled a net estimated 22,422 votes from Gore. That turned a Gore 21,885 vote win into the "official" 537 vote "loss." Gore lost New Hampshire (by 7,211 votes, 1.3%). Nader took triple that margin.
Gore would have won Florida's 25 electoral votes - and probably New Hampshire's 4 - if Nader hadn't run, or if he hadn't run intentionally helping Bush. Either state's electoral votes added to Gore's 266 "official" total would have given Gore enough to win the White House - 270 (with New Hampshire's) 291 (with Florida's) or 295 with both.
Nader intentionally helped Bush by forcing Gore's campaign to expend scarce resources defending several states carried by Dukakis / Benson and Clinton / Gore from 1988-1996 - including New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maine, Michigan, and Washington. Nader's campaign turned these solid Gore states into swing states. Gore won hard-fought races in all of them - and in Florida - but defending them cost Gore decisively elsewhere.
Nader's actual vote totals weren't decisive in several other states, but absent Nader's efforts to help Bush, Gore could have fully contested states like West Virginia, Arizona, Arkansas, Tennessee, Nevada, Missouri and Ohio.
Gore had to pull out of some completely, and couldn't afford to shore up support in others as he ran out of time and money. Bush won all of these states in large part because Nader ran a "stalking horse" campaign to maximize damage to Gore.
Nader's total support was small but decisive in such a close race. Nader's efforts cost Gore a clear win in Florida, a likely win in New Hampshire and possibly tipped as many as seven other states to Bush. A Gore victory in any of these states would have prevented the "recount" controversy and denied Bush his 5-4 Supreme Court selection.
At the very least, Nader cost Gore Florida's 25 electoral votes. At worst, he cost Gore the 95 electoral votes of as many as nine states. If not for Nader, Gore might have won a mandate for the center / left - a crushing electoral landslide: Gore 361 vs. Bush 176.
Instead, Bush claimed a stained 271 to 266 "victory" as a mandate for the extreme right wing. By any measure, Bush would not be in the White House today but for Nader's intentional help. Something to consider as Nader gears up for another campaign.
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