How did Bush win in 00’s after Clinton left relatively successfully with high approvals

According to Democrats the 2000 election was "Stolen."

Al gore actually won but elderly Jewish voters in Palm Beach County messed up and voted for Pat B which cost him 2,000+ votes

Well Al Gore was no Bill Clinton and Bush did have the last name. If I recall it was still a pretty tight election that wasn’t even decided on Election Day. I think it came down to Florida.

Al Gore came across as a used car salesman and the country was suffering from the Clinton fatigue generated by 8 years of almost non-stop scandal after scandal (Whitewater, Lewinski, Travelgate, etc). Along with this, recession signals had been starting to light up.

All that said, Bush's win was still incredibly tight.

The CIA installed Clinton as well. The media made people feel great about the loser Clinton and his wife, both who held on to the achievements of a Republican House and Senate as their own.

Besides, the MSM called it too early so that GOP voters in the Florida panhandle and the rest of the country westward went home. Next thing you know, hanging chads become the issue.

MSM has their own bag of tricks such as the above.

Clinton's "popularity" was really just bipartisan disapproval of the harebrained impeachment. He was very unpopular before that. Both of his wins were heavily influenced by Perot.

Bush won because Gore failed to win his own home state of TN which has 6 electoral votes. Had he won his own state he would have been president. The final count was 271-266 Bush. Florida with its chads would not have had the drama associated with it otherwise.

Clinton had Perot in the race for both of his elections, so even if that didn’t win him the election, Perot’s absence made the race a lot closer and winnable. Gore ran away from Clinton to seem more moral. Rove realized that there wasn’t a lot of ground between the Republican and Democrat party on economic issues (at the time), and so doubled down on running on social issues, which helped lead to the lines drawn between cities and rural areas in our current national divide. Also Bush ran as a “non-interventionist” who was against “nation building” and maintained that position right up until 9/11. The public liked Clinton enough domestically because the economy was good, but were tired of playing world police and thought Bush would be the end of that. Also, Cubans in Florida being angry about Elian Gonzalez and surprise moving from the Democrat party to the Republican Party.


Plus Clinton had charisma and Hore doesn’t. It would be like if Trump left office after two terms wildly popular and then voters had to choose between Pence and someone else. It’s not entirely clear that Trump support transfers to Pence support or for that matter Vance support. Or for that matter Obama support transfers to Hilary, Biden, or Kamala support. I think we are just in a position where any generic presidential race is going to be extremely close and the edge is to the party with the more charismatic figure head

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Also, Cubans in Florida being angry about Elian Gonzalez and surprise moving from the Democrat party to the Republican Party.

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Cubans in FL have been monolithically Republican since the Bay of Pigs.