President Trump Erroneously Says Ross Perot Caused President George H. W. Bush to Lose in 1992

Posted on by May 9, 2025

On May 9, President Donald Trump said that “Ross Perot cost (President Bush) the 1992 election.” See here.

Nothing is more certain than the fact that Perot did not cause President Bush to lose the election. Perot dropped out of the 1992 race on July 17 and didn’t re-enter until October 1, 1992. During that time opinion polls showed Bill Clinton leading Bush. Furthermore, the exit polls asked Perot voters who they would have voted for if Perot had not been running, and the results were a tie between Perot voters who said “Bush” and Perot voters who said “Clinton.”

Comments

President Trump Erroneously Says Ross Perot Caused President George H. W. Bush to Lose in 1992 — 96 Comments

  2. What pct of voters L-I-E to pollsters — for their own safety ???

    Any instant lie detector tests by pollsters ???

  4. In this case, Donald Trump is wrong and Richard Winger is right. That happens rarely, but it happens.

  5. George Bush lost in 1992 because people did not want to vote for him. In his home state of Maine, Bush came in third,
    Perot beating him for second place. People in Maine knew about Bush, but apparently they did not know about Perot.

  7. Bush’s home state was Texas. They supported him in both 1988 and 1992. Maine, where Bush owned a vacation home, also voted for him in 1988.

  8. It’s kind of weird to say folks in Maine didn’t know about Perot. It was actually one of his best states in 1992 (I didn’t look at 1996 yet), his best east of the Mississippi, and one of the few where he won counties.

  9. Perot came in slightly ahead of Bush in Maine in 1992, 30.44% vs 30.39%, and won outright in Piscataquis, Somerset, and Waldo counties, beating both Clinton and Bush.

  11. Maine was actually Perot’s best state in the country in 1992, not just in the East. It was the only state where he got over 30%, and he didn’t even own a vacation home their (at least as far as I know) unlike his fellow Texan Bush.

  12. I voted for Perot, but neither Bush nor Clinton was my second choice. That was Howard Phillips.

  13. Clinton in 1992 due to PR reforms in Donkey natl conventions in 1968-1988 — later same Obama in 2008

  17. Because Phillips was by far the best on the issues, but Perot had the financial resources, media reach, charisma, and personal background to really shake up the system.

    I thought Pat Buchanan would be the best of both worlds until he actually ran as a minor party candidate. I still voted for him – in fact, I even wrote him in in 2004 when he was not running again – but that campaign and its results were very underwhelming, to say the least.

    Buchanan was ill for much of the general election, the Reform Party blew up at the nominating convention, many people who would normally have been among his most enthusiastic supporters were unhappy that he had a negress as a running mate, and so on.

    Nader ended up as the main challenger to the establishment that year, but he’s way too socialist for me to have ever seriously considered voting for.

    In 2000 I was one of the Florida voters who wasn’t confused by ballot layout when voting for Buchanan. I had also voted for him in the 1992 and 1996 primaries.

  18. Phillips started the US Taxpayers, now constitution, party as a vehicle for Buchanan in case he’d buck the duopoly, then ended up running himself when he couldn’t find anyone better – three presidential cycles in a row, including 2000, when Buchanan did finally buck the duopoly.

    Unfortunately, Buchanan then chose the Reform Party instead, because it looked like the stronger vehicle, and was until the nomination fight essentially blew its engine. The whole thing was a tragicomedy of errors.

  19. In 1992 I was pleased to vote for Libertarian Party candidates Andre Marrou and Jo Jorgenson for President and Vice President.

  20. I was reasonably happy enough to vote for Perot, but wished Buchanan had been the US Taxpayers Party nominee rather than Phillips, or the Republican Party nominee rather than Bush. Phillips was a good man with righteous views, but better suited to an advisory and management role than to be a candidate himself, as he readily admitted. Bush was of course an establishment rhino of the highest degree.

    Much the same calculation in 1996, both in the primary and general, but the establishment rhino that time was a Dole pineapple, not a Bush hog, much as the one in 1976 was a Ford, not a Lincoln (my choices that year: Reagan in the primary, Maddox in the general).

    In 2000, it was Gary Bauer in the Republican primary, Pat Buchanan in the Reform Party party conducted mail primary and at the convention, and Pat Buchanan in the general.

    In 2004, it was the only year I had no decent option in either, and wrote in Patrick Buchanan for both.

  21. As for Libertarians, I voted for their presidential nominees twice – 1988 and 2008. Both were men I’ve long supported before and after their time in that party, Ron Paul and Bob Barr. The candidates earned my support and vote, not that party.

  22. Of course, I voted for Reagan in the primary and general in 1980 and 1984. In 1988, it was Pat Robertson in the primary, Ron Paul in the general. I voted for Ron Paul again in the 2008 and 2012 primaries, Virgil Goode in the 2012 general, and Trump in both each time since 2016.

    You didn’t ask for my entire presidential voting history for the last half century, but there it is anyway.

    Reagan/Maddox
    Reagan/Reagan
    Reagan/Reagan
    Robertson/Paul
    Buchanan/Perot
    Buchanan/Perot
    Bauer/Buchanan
    Buchanan/Buchanan (both writein; he unfortunately supported Shrub)
    Paul/Barr
    Paul/Goode
    TRUMP/TRUMP
    TRUMP/TRUMP
    TRUMP/TRUMP

  23. Thank you Pig Farmer for voting for Ron Paul and Bob Barr as the Libertarian Party candidates. I also voted for them. I met Bob Barr when he briefly met with members of the Florida delegation at the Libertarian Party convention. I also happened to be visiting the Libertarian Party headquarters in Washington, DC when he arrived to meet with the LP Executive Director earlier that year. I was surprised to see him come through the door. I was one of Ron Paul’s first donors when he announced his run for the Republican nomination in 2008 and briefly changed my registration in Florida to Republican so I could vote for him in the primary. After the primary I quickly restored my Libertarian Party registration.

  24. It was my pleasure to vote for, and even when I couldn’t (due to district) donate to both gentlemen, both whenever they ran for Congress as Republicans (as far back as 1974 to Ron Paul and as far back as the 1992 US Senate primary and as recently as his unsuccessful 2014 US House primary race to Bob Barr) and when they ran for President, whether as Republicans or as Libertarians.

    Likewise, I never cared whether Wallace and Maddox ran as Democrats or American (Independent), whether Schmitz ran as Republican or American, or whether Pat Buchanan ran as Republican or Reform Party. As Virgil Goode, another gentleman I supported throughout his political career put it, he had been a Democrat, Republican, independent, and Constitution Party candidate, but has always remained steadfastly a true conservative.

  25. Can we please stop the embarrassing public mutual jerking off between Pig Farmer and George Whitfield and get back to what we are all really here for:

    AZ’s brilliant analysis of totally unbiased news articles, fantastic ideas for political reform, incisive questions, awesome variations of the English and Machine Code languages, etc?!

  26. I’m not surprised that George Whitfield has been voting Libertarian reflexively for decades. His political philosophy seems to be the most perfectly seamless combination of libertarianism and Juche I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. High quality performance art!

    What I most want to know is who George Whitfield has supported for the Libertarian POTUS nomination each time, going back as far as possible.

  27. Who had George Whitfield supported for VPOTUS nomination in each election?

  28. Who did George Whitfield support for LNC Chairprimate at each convention?

  31. Well, it is a long story and it is late here so I will just tell a snipett. I first became aware of the Libertarian Party when I was a member of the Republican Party committee in Staunton, Virginia, my hometown, and in 1972 Roger McBride, a Republican Presidential elector across the mountains in Charlottesville,voted for John Hospers in the Electoral College vote for President. That caught my attention. The older members of the committee didn’t want to talk about it. Then in 1976 I saw Roger McBride on TV when he was the LP’s Presidential candidate and it caught my attention some more. But what really got me interested was a a small poster on a bulletin board at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia that proclaimed that I could join a political bandwagon, the Libertarian Party. So I sent for more information and received introductary leaflets which sounded great to me. So I joined the state LP in 1979 and the national LP in 1980 and voted for Ed Clark for President. The LP needed someone from our 4th congressional district to be a Presidential elector and I didn’t think I was an appropriate person so I asked an older and more distinguished friend and he agreed to serve. Thus the LP was on the ballot in Virginia and in all 50 states that year.

  33. How the LP has fallen. It’s now reduced to running commie freaks like Chase Oliver.

  34. George Whitfield, thanks for your conversion testifying , but that wasn’t the precise question anyone asked you.

    “Whitfield is a savant” asked

    What I most want to know is who George Whitfield has supported for the Libertarian POTUS nomination each time, going back as far as possible.

    Riffing off WIAS I asked

    Who had George Whitfield supported for VPOTUS nomination in each election?

    The question is about contested nominations. I take it for granted you supported their nominees in the general election each time since your conversion to the faith .

    My other question was

    Who did George Whitfield support for LNC Chairprimate at each convention?

    Someone else asked why you are gay. Despite being an amateur Whitfieldologist I don’t care whether or not you’re gay, or why, and also don’t care who wants to know, or why.

  35. AW,

    I think George Whitfield was actually answering Simon’s question. He must have taken gay and libertarian to be synonymous. In Juche-libertarianism, gay means happy, and happy means libertarian, therefore libertarian means gay.

  36. Richard Winger is applying a static analysis, and not considering dynamic effects. See this 2019 article by Sean Trende

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/10/we_dont_know_whether_perot_cost_bush_in_1992_140743.html

    Consider this thesis: Abraham Lincoln caused Horatio Seymour to lose in 1868.

    Richard Winger would say that Lincoln had been dead for three years and therefore had no influence on the 1868 election. But that ignores the effect of the Civil War on the elections that followed.

    Had Perot not withdrawn, and then re-entered the 2002 election, would he have received more votes? Unknown, and unknowable.

    Perot was leading in the polls in mid-June, but had begun to fade before Perot’s withdrawal which was coincident with the Democratic convention. Clinton surged. Some of this was convention bounce, but it likely that it was also Perot voters overwhelmingly switching to Clinton. As the summer wore on Bush ate into Clinton’s lead. But Perot’s re-entry ate into Bush’s gains.

    In March, before Perot entered the race polls showed:

    Clinton 43, Bush 52

    The final result was:

    Clinton 43, Bush 37, Perot 19

    If half the Perot voters would have switched to Clinton, it would have been

    Clinton 53, Bush 47

    Richard Winger would look at the November polling and conclude there would have been

    43 Solid C
    37 Solid B
    10 PC (Perot voters who would have switched to Clinton)
    10 PB (Perot voters who would have switched to Bush)

    But we have to go back to before Perot was being polled and considered the possibility of

    BPCPC voters. That is, voters who were originally for Bush, but switched to Clinton after Perot exited the race for the first time, switched back Perot when he re-entered the race, but would have voted for Clinton if Perot was not on the ballot. Perot enabled the switch. Looking at the November time frame, Winger would classify these voters as PC voters. But if we consider the March to November time frame they were BC (Bush to Clinton voters).

    Thus the presence of Perot in the race was a catalyst for Bush to Clinton switches. If Perot had never entered the race would they have eventually switched from Bush to Clinton? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

    Another consideration is voter enthusiasm. The electorate expanded by 14.0% between 1988 and 1992. It declined by 7.8% between 1992 and 1996. So it is possible that there were (b)PCPC voters. People fib when asked whether they intend to vote or follow an election closely. People even fib when they are asked whether they voted a couple of days earlier.

    Some of these person would say they were going to vote for the incumbent president, GHW Bush, because they had heard of him, even though they thought Reagan was still president. They had never heard of Clinton. Persons like this might actually become excited by Perot. If asked 8 months later who they would have voted for if Perot was not on the ballot, they might say Clinton, but they really would not have voted, and believed that Reagan was still president.

  37. Bush lost for two main reasons ,

    1. The economy was not doing well

    2. “Read my lips, no new taxes” was a lie

    To which we can add

    3, Bill Clinton is a gifted politician – slick Willie is an apt nickname. Bush, not so much. Bush was elected because he had been Reagan’s veep, the economy was good in 1988, and as far as charisma goes Dukakis is to Bush as Bush is to Clinton.

    None of these hinge on Perot. Bush’s popularity had already crashed before either Clinton or Perot were running. Bush trailed Clinton in surveys before, during, and after Perot suspended his campaign.

  38. Presidential elections are primarily a referendum on the incumbent or his designated successor and usually hinge primarily on the perceived state of the economy – everything else is noise.

  39. Exit polls are the most accurate polls there are, since they are taken as actual voters – not those who can vote and claim they intend to – are on their way out from voting, with fresh memory of how they voted. 38% of Perot voters in exit polls said their second choice was Clinton, and 38% said Bush.

    We know exit polls are highly accurate because they have been compared many times to actual election results.

    Opinion polls before the election are less accurate, but tend to get more accurate close to the election. The polling companies know how to screen the sample to adjust for various factors including who is likely to actually vote. They have a public margin of error which indicates how far off they might plausibly be.

    There are years when polls just before the election are extremely accurate, like 2022. Other years tend to be less accurate, with 2016 as a prime example.

    2016 was not that far off, either. Clinton national popular aggregate vote was about exactly where an average of national polls predicted. There was late breaking news that was not reflected in state polls in battleground states, which didn’t happen late enough to capture how that late breaking news impacted predictions. It was also slightly more off than usual because Trump turned out (relatively) a lot of people who customarily don’t vote at all and because pollsters were just starting to adjust their models to changes in how people interact with phones.

    2020 was also a bit unpredictable due to temporary changes in voting rules.

    By now, those changes have been processed to adjust the models so they are pretty good again, although not as good as exit polls. In 1992 they were still quite a ways off.

  42. No, Stalker. I am tired of you lying about who I am and stalking me. You never say who you are, so from now on you’re Chris Chan. Stop violating your restraining order, you Chris Chan you.

  43. @VC,

    The exit polls asked the wrong question, if the purpose was to determine what effect Perot’s candidacy had on the election.

    The exit polls were likely accurate as to who a voter had just voted for, subject to sampling errors, and factors such as willingness of voters to respond to an officious pollster with a clipboard asking them to disclose who they had just cast their secret ballot for.

    They became less accurate as the pollsters dives off into hypothetical questions, such as “What if Perot were not on the ballot?” Did that question capture the 14% increase in turnout, on top of the churn in the electorate that happens naturally due to death and illness over four years. Unless they kept asking the same voters as the campaign went on, they could not capture changes that had occurred earlier.

  44. I’m inclined to agree with the two comments just before mine, both as to the 1992 election and as to elections in general. The primary issue was the perceived health of the economy, the secondary issue was the incumbent’s obvious dishonesty on taxes and relative lack of charisma, and I would add that the same party had held the White House for 3 terms in 1992 – to this date, still a post World War 2 record. There was some degree of exhaustion with them.

    I’d add generational change. Clinton, then 46 (without looking it up, I could be off slightly), was the first president born after that war. Every president from Kennedy to GHWB had served as troops in that war, whereas FDR, Truman and Eisenhower had led the war effort. From Clinton on, every president has been born after that war and before the end of the postwar baby boom, except Biden who was born during the war. The postwar “baby boom” generation, famously large and entitled, felt it was their turn.

    The bottom line is that elections are first and foremost a referendum on the incumbent, with the economy usually top of mind, and issues like charisma and generational change secondary.

    Clinton won because of Bush first and foremost, because of himself secondarily, and Perot was a sideshow that made it interesting but ultimately didn’t change
    the outcome. I’d give Perot a lot of credit with briefly injecting some real attention to debt and deficits, though.

    I’ve done exit polls myself. When you’re doing it, it does feel like the people who refuse to participate are giving you a skewed sample. But, when election results come out, they are pretty much always right on the bullseye. The sampling error ends up being tiny.

    As I already mentioned, the polls did in fact capture the turnout increase – only 76% of Perot voters had a second preference. Well, a low single digit percentage had a second preference on the ballot that was not Bush or Clinton (Phillips and Marrou mentioned above and there were a few others) but over 20% of Perot voters didn’t have a second preference and probably wouldn’t have voted at all had he not run.

  45. “Taran” (Robert K Stock) never gives up, even when he is caught trolling.

  46. “Stop trolling” (Chris Chan) never gives up, even when he’s caught violating his restraining order.

  47. I am tired of you lying about who I am and stalking me. You never say who you are, Chris Chan. Stop violating your restraining order, Chris Chan. Just go away!

  48. “I’m inclined to agree with the two comments just before mine, ”

    Before my first comment if that wasn’t clear.

  49. For 32 years from 1929 to 1961 we were led by the leaders who steered us, however imperfectly, through the great depression and the second world war. For 32 years from 1961 to 1993 we were led by those for whom those were formative experiences as kids and young men. For 32 years now we’ve been led by those born during that war and its aftermath. In 2028 it’s time to vote for another generation change.

  50. Either JD Vance will make a great president or Donald Trump Jr. will be a fantastic king!

  52. That’s a lie, but it’s true that “Stop” Trolling never admits who he really is: Chris Chan!

  53. “Taran” (Robert K Stock) is still mad about getting fires from Motel 6. He has to resort to trolling.

  54. Who cares who is Robert Stock and who isn’t. We need more talk praising Trump!

  55. I had to fire “stop” trolling for his job fluffing and cleaning up on porn sets. We tried to hire him to troll but he sucks at that too.

  58. Taran voted for Harris. Even though Taran is not Stock I’ve seen him say he did too.

  59. Didn’t Chris Chan (“Stop” trolling) vote for the Retard party?

  61. “Taran” (Robert K Stock) shows how stupid he is by voting for a brain dead commie drunk.

  62. “Stop” trolling (Chris Chan) shows how retarded he is by voting (R)etard.

  63. I was named Taran by my mother, Tara, in her honor. In honor of mother’s day, Chris Chan (“stop” trolling) should have tried to honor his own mother by using the name she gave him.

  65. How many names is Stock using? The three directly above this comment are him for sure.

  66. Of the top of my head, these are some of Stock’s pseudonyms:

    Taran
    Dylan
    Stop Stalking
    Just Asking
    Stop Trolling’s ex boss
    Joshua H.
    Socratic Gadfly
    Just Me

    I’m sure there are many more.

  67. How many names is Chris Chan using? Too many to count, except the one his mother gave him. Is that because he’s ashamed of her, because she’s ashamed of him, or both?

  68. Taran, who is not Robert Stock despite Chris Chan’s delusional obsession, voted for the lesser evil. Chris Chan retardedly voted for the greater evil – a giant orange bloated rage and poop filled unstable high pressure gasbag that’s about to explode at any moment and hose us all down with many metric craptons of toxic waste and infected diarrhea.

  70. “Stop” Trolling (Chris Chan) is lying again, as all Chris Chans do.

  71. “Stop Stalking” (Robert K Stock) needs a hobby that doesn’t involve trolling on the internet.

  72. “Stop” Trolling (Chris Chan) needs a hobby that doesn’t involve trolling on the internet.

  73. “Stop Stalking” (Robert K Stock) needs to stop copying others and get a job.

  74. “Stop” trolling (Chris Chan) needs to stop projecting and get a life, a job, and some hobbies besides trolling all the time and obsessing delusionally.

  77. Chris Chan needs a man and a plan. S/he should stop guessing and stop obsessing, learn a lesson and stop spazzing.

  80. Chris Chan (“stop” trolling, etc) never gives up. What a loser.

  83. Chris Chan (“stop” trolling), why can’t you stop trolling and stop stalking?

  86. Chris Chan don’t need a plan or a man, he just needs to go away and kick the can!

  88. Even your mom says, you’re dull, you’re boring. You could be asleep except your not snoring.

  90. Stock was never here to begin with, so there’s nothing to comeback. Meanwhile, Chris Chan is basically admitting that he’s ashamed of his mama and the name she gave him, that he’s ashamed of himself (as he should be), and that she’s ashamed of him.

  92. No, Chris Chan, you are – but AGAIN would imply you ever stopped, and you never have. Your obsession with Stock, who is actually not me and someone I never met, is just pathetic, too.

  93. Unlike Chris Chan, I’m proud of my name (Taran), proud of my mom (Tara), proud of her name and the name she gave me, and she was always proud of me.

    I’m at peace with all the spirits of my ancestors, and the spirits of animals, plants, rocks, earth, water, and skies here on my and their native Turtle Island (“America”). I’m at peace with myself.

    Chris Chan, unfortunately on the other hand, is not at peace with himself or anything or anyone. How sad for him.

  94. Who cares who is Robert Stock or Chris Chan and who isn’t. We need more talk about peeing on Trump!

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