Blogs > Cliopatria > Ralph Nader Misconstrues His Effect on the 2000 Election

Feb 25, 2004

Ralph Nader Misconstrues His Effect on the 2000 Election


by Cliopatria


David E. Rosenbaum, in the NYT (Feb. 24, 2004):

In answer to a question on Monday morning after a speech at the National Press Club about his decision to run for president, Ralph Nader said,"This candidacy is not going to get many Democratic Party votes."

His support will come largely from" conservatives and independents who are very upset with Bush administration policies," Mr. Nader said, and he urged"the liberal establishment to relax and rejoice."

But based on who voted for him four years ago, his analysis looks shaky. Voters leaving polling places in 2000 were asked by Voter News Service, a consortium of television networks and The Associated Press, how they would have voted if George W. Bush and Al Gore had been the only candidates on the ballot.

Among Nader voters, 45 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore, 27 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Bush, and the rest said they would not have voted.

In California, where Mr. Nader received 4 percent of the vote, 46 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore and only 14 percent said they would have gone for Mr. Bush.

Because there is no reason to believe the breakdown was not similarly lopsided in other states, it is safe to assume that Mr. Nader cost Mr. Gore states that Mr. Bush narrowly won.

In Florida, Mr. Nader received 97,488 votes, 1.6 percent of the total, and Mr. Bush carried the state by 537 votes. In New Hampshire, Mr. Nader won 22,198 votes, 3.9 percent of the total, and Mr. Bush carried the state by 7,211 votes. Had Mr. Gore won in either state, he would have become president.

Mr. Nader said at the Press Club that surveys of voters leaving the polls showed he had received more Republican votes than Democratic votes in New Hampshire in 2000.

That is true. New Hampshire has 30 percent more registered Republicans than registered Democrats.

But people there did not vote a straight party line for president in 2000. On the question of whom they would have voted for with only two candidates on the ballot, 3 percent of those who said they would have voted for Mr. Gore voted for Mr. Nader, and only 2 percent of voters who said they would have voted for Mr. Bush voted for Mr. Nader.

Of the 2.9 million voters who supported Mr. Nader in 2000, 58 percent voted for a Democrat for the House of Representatives, and only 27 percent voted for a Republican.


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Matt Osborn - 2/28/2004

The numbers from Nader's 2000 presidential bid in California are misleading in that it was well known before and during the election that Gore would carry the state handily (which he did). Democratic voters were savvy enough to know that the electoral votes were going to Gore and they chose to vote Green to make a statement about the direction of the nation, the democratic party, and corruption in politics (the evil of two lessers). The breakdown of who voted for Nader in that state is not representative of the breakdown in battleground states. Thus the following statement, which followed the CA numbers, "Because there is no reason to believe the breakdown was not similarly lopsided in other states, it is safe to assume that Mr. Nader cost Mr. Gore states that Mr. Bush narrowly won." is very misleading. There is a very good reason to believe that the breakdown in other states was not so lopsided. The numbers that preceded the CA numbers are probably a more accurate indication of where Nader's support came from: 27% would've voted for Bush, 28% wouldn't have voted. Those two combined outnumber Nader's avowed Democratic supporters, and if these percentages (rather than the distorted CA ones) are applied to the states that Bush narrowly won we will get a much more accurate picture of Nader's impact on the election.