1996 Elections in the United States

The Event American politicians run for office

Date November 5, 1996

Bill Clinton was reelected to a second term as president in part because voters thought he was more in touch with 1990’s America than the Republican candidate, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. Republicans retained control of Congress. The ideological differences between the Republican-controlled Congress and the Democratic president led to stalemate and scandal among the leaders of both parties.

During his campaign, Democratic incumbent Bill Clinton walked across a catwalk at Arizona State University declaring that his administration’s policies would lead across “a bridge to the twenty-first century.” His successful 1996 reelection bid allowed him to fulfill that role. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt and the fourth Democratic president to ever win reelection. Clinton’s opponents, Republican Bob Dole of Kansas and Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot of the Reform Party, appeared out of touch or paranoid to many Americans. While voters reelected Clinton, they also elected a conservative Republican Congress. The differing personalities and governmental styles of the two parties slowed political and policy responses throughout the remainder of the decade.

The Presidential Election

Politically moderate, Clinton and his vice president, Al Gore, won 379 of the 538 electoral votes. They won twenty-nine of the same states that supported Clinton in his 1992 election bid. Narrowly losing three states he won in 1992—Colorado, Georgia, and Montana—Clinton won two predominantly Republican states, Arizona and Florida. Clinton’s greatest support came from a diverse cross-section of Americans—the poor and working class, persons who held advanced degrees, urban dwellers, African Americans and Hispanics, as well as Catholics and Jews. Many members of these groups had leaned toward Democratic candidates throughout the twentieth century. As their communities prospered and the Democratic Party increasingly focused on racial and gender-specific issues, many Democrats defected and were more likely to support Republican candidates. The Clinton-Gore campaign won their support by claiming responsibility for programs that resonated with disenchanted Democrats while maintaining the traditional Democratic base.

In trying to win these groups, the Clinton-Gore ticket appeared unfocused. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans were more likely to support the Clinton-Gore ticket because of their support for a balanced federal budget while targeting a tax reduction on specific items. Clinton took credit for creating over ten million new jobs and having the lowest unemployment rate in over thirty years. His administration also passed welfare reform. Clinton endorsed school prayer, mandatory school uniforms, the installation of V-chips in televisions, increased federal spending on law enforcement, and the federal death penalty. His administration also claimed victory over the passage of a partial health care reform package and stronger immigration controls.

Meanwhile, Clinton supported active government programs that were supported by traditional Democrats, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, environmental protections, an increased minimum wage, and educational spending. Clinton used his presidential power to bring about a Middle East peace agreement.

In the end, many Americans perceived the Clinton administration as double-talking on the issues. Nevertheless, Clinton supported programs that resonated with a broad Democratic base and liberal Republicans, leading to his reelection. However, support for Clinton-Gore was influenced in large part by the policies proposed by Dole and Perot and their personalities.

Dole and Perot

In 1994, the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress. Dole served as Senate majority leader and could have used this position to help him defeat Clinton. However, congressional Republicans appeared arrogant over budgetary demands, leading to a governmental shutdown in late 1995. Their actions bolstered support for Clinton. He appeared more concerned over the impact this action would have on average Americans than with the Republicans who supported the shutdown. Republicans never politically recovered from the governmental shutdown before election day in 1996.

Prior to Dole’s nomination, Republicans were perceived as better budgetary managers and stronger on foreign policy issues. Dole was a weak supporter of supply-side economics, a program endorsed by many Republicans. He chose a former political and philosophical rival from his party, former congressman and secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp, to run for vice president. Kemp had run unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in early 1996 against Dole. Their campaign focused on their party’s accomplishments over the past forty years. Later focusing on the rumored misconduct within the Clinton White House, the Dole-Kemp campaign portrayed its candidates as protectors of traditional American values like trustworthiness and moral behavior. Neither of these approaches worked effectively among many voters.

Other factors worked against the Dole-Kemp ticket. Dole was the last World War II veteran to seek the presidency, and many Americans thought him too old to serve effectively as president. Many Americans perceived the Dole-Kemp ticket as conducting a negative campaign that preferred attacking Clinton and Perot to explaining Dole’s own policy proposals. To counteract these popular opinions, Dole spent the last ninety hours of the campaign criss-crossing the country in a last effort to display passion, youthfulness, and commitment to the campaign. Even with the weakened presence of Perot on the ballot, Dole was unable to retain the Republican base that existed in the 1992 election.

In 1992, Ross Perot drew disenfranchised Democrats and Republicans to his ticket, earning about 19 percent of the popular vote. Perot and his Reform Party were successful in electing several candidates to state and local offices following the 1992 election. However, the party’s popularity quickly declined because of its founder’s egotistical and near-paranoid behaviors during televised debates. Like Dole, Perot seemed out of touch with the American people. When compared to both of his opponents, Perot did not demonstrate a clear knowledge of the public policy process. He received approximately 8 percent of the vote in the 1996 election cycle.

The Congressional Elections

The Republicans had gained control over Congress with a successful 1994 campaign, when the party swept the Democrats out of their forty-year majority in both houses with the Contract with America campaign. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the movement’s leader, claimed that more Americans agreed with Republicans than with Democrats. Over three hundred congressional candidates signed onto the Contract with America campaign that supported, among other items, congressional term limits, deep tax cuts, individual property rights, and a balanced budget amendment. Many of them won their elections because a number of Democrats retired from districts where the Contract with America Republican candidates sought office.

Once in office, these congressional freshmen divided the Republican Party into two groups: hard-line conservatives and liberal Republicans. Republican senators were less likely to support the tenets of the party’s House members. Many of their objectives failed because of this political infighting. Furthermore, Republicans were hamstrung because they had been out of congressional power for so many years that they did not have a strong legislative talent base to shepherd many of their bills through the legislative process. Many freshmen accepted large campaign contributions from political action committees (PACs), contributions that Republicans accused their Democratic rivals of accepting in the 1994 elections. Yet the Republicans appeared unified, thereby solidifying a strong Democratic base in Congress. In the end, both groups appeared strong as they sought reelection in 1996.

In late 1995, the Republicans, led by Gingrich, threatened to shut down the federal government if President Clinton did not meet their political demands. Clinton countered by stating that they wanted to cut federal funding for education and health care for the elderly. The president portrayed their shutdown as executive blackmail, claiming that government employees would not be able to feed their families and that tourists would not be able to visit national monuments or parks because the Republicans had shut down the government. Gingrich also claimed that he was ignored by President Clinton in November, 1995, on an Air Force One flight to Israel, where they attended Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin’s funeral. The White House countered by releasing photos of Gingrich sitting near President Clinton and other national leaders on the plane. Gingrich’s popularity decreased when Americans learned that he asked his former wife for a divorce as she awoke from cancer surgery. In order to avoid being considered as part of the new conservative wing of the party, several moderate Republicans led a compromise initiative that reduced federal domestic spending by 9 percent. Their overall legislative accomplishments were lackluster, and these freshmen faced a more challenging reelection campaign cycle.

Many Democrats had chosen to retire rather than face conservative Republicans in the 1994 election cycle. The South, once a Democratic stronghold, was largely Republican, and many of its Democratic members were not seeking reelection or represented racial minority districts that voted Democratic. Congressional members on all sides of the political spectrum realized that spending cuts could reduce available funds for government projects and constituent services at home. They needed large amounts of money to maintain their seats and party control. As a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign financing, federal campaigns had increased access to more political party contributions. Labor unions, Christian Right organizations, and corporations donated millions to political parties and campaigns to prevent their opponents from being elected to or back to office.

Two weeks prior to election day in 1996, the Democrats were poised to win back both houses of Congress. The Republican Party released new campaign advertisements encouraging voters not to send President Clinton the “blank check” that a Democratic Congress would give him. The voters agreed and, by and large, sent conservative, more confrontational Republicans to Congress. The Democrats saw a net gain of eight seats in the House and a two-seat net loss in the Senate.

Impact

Bolstered by strong support from the Religious Right, the South was now as loyal to the Republican Party as they were to the Democrats just forty years earlier. More women were elected to Congress than had been previously. Elsewhere, Democrats made moderate gains. Further analysis showed that those who supported Democrats had a more positive outlook on government’s role in American society. The congressional leadership of both parties promised to embrace more moderate proposals and to back away from the ideologies that dominated the previous Congress. Their political differences, however, set up an unrelenting confrontation that would lead to Clinton’s impeachment and the resignation of several key Republican congressional leaders as a result of scandals.

Bibliography

Berke, Richard. “Perot a Far Third.” The New York Times, November 6, 1996, p. A1. Provides insight into the election campaign of 1996 and its outcome.

Clymer, Adam. “In Early Results, Voters Give Meager Hints on the Outcome of the Battle for the House.” The New York Times, November 6, 1996, p. B3. Discusses the impact of the 1994 congressional elections around the country.

McGillivary, Alice V., Richard M. Scammon, and Rhodes Cook. America at the Polls, 1960-1996: Kennedy to Clinton. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1998. This book reports electoral behaviors since 1960.

Pomper, Gerald M., et al. The Election of 1996: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1997. Provides two detailed chapters on the presidential and congressional races.

Purdum, Todd S. “The Second Term: Promise and Peril.” The New York Times, November 6, 1996, p. A1. Focuses upon the opportunities and threats that a second Clinton administration could have.

Rosenbaum, David. “Democrats Fail to Reverse Right’s Capitol Hill Gains.” The New York Times, November 6, 1996, p. A1. Article analyzes the impact of a Republican-controlled Senate.