Bill Clinton 1996 presidential campaign

The 1996 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, announced his candidacy for re-election as president on April 14, 1995.^[1] On August 29, 1996, he again became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 1996 presidential election.^[2] Along with his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, President Bill Clinton was opposed in the general election by former U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, Ross Perot from Texas, and minor candidates from other parties. The election took place on Tuesday, November 5, 1996.

This was the first time since 1944, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election, that a Democratic incumbent president had won two consecutive presidential elections.^[6] Clinton won re-election with 379 electoral votes and 47,402,357 popular votes (49.2%), defeating Dole, who won 159 electoral votes and 39,198,755 popular votes (40.7%); Perot received 8,085,402 votes (8.4%).^[3][7][8]

Clinton entered the reelection cycle in a politically uncertain position. The failure of his administration's health care plan and the Republican landslide in the 1994 midterm elections created widespread discussion of presidential vulnerability, yet the absence of strong Democratic challengers also underscored the weakness of the party's anti-Clinton faction.^[9]

During 1995, Clinton and his advisers worked to rebuild his political standing by appropriating issues that Republicans had expected to use against him and by positioning him against the Republican-controlled Congress. The Washington Post later described the strategy as one in which the White House sought to "steal the most potent issues in the GOP arsenal and go into the 1996 election year with the Republican enemy disarmed".^[10] Political consultant Dick Morris played a central role in that effort; PBS's Frontline later described him as the architect of the "triangulation" strategy that helped Clinton win reelection in 1996.^[11]

Clinton formally set his reelection effort in motion on April 14, 1995, when he filed papers with the Federal Election Commission establishing the Clinton-Gore '96 Primary Committee, Inc.^[1] According to the Los Angeles Times, the committee planned to raise almost $34 million for travel, polling, and advertising over the coming year.^[1]

Although Clinton ultimately faced only token opposition in the primaries, there was real press speculation in early 1995 that he might draw a challenge from within his own party. Former Governor of Pennsylvania Bob Casey Sr.—a prominent anti-abortion Democrat—briefly emerged as the most serious potential challenger. In March 1995, Time reported that Casey had formed an exploratory committee and become the first Democrat to threaten a 1996 challenge to Clinton, criticizing the administration as being dominated by "left-wing ideologues".^[12] Casey ended the effort on April 18, 1995, citing health reasons.^[13]

The press also periodically mentioned the possibility of other internal Democratic challengers. In August 1994, for example, Jesse Jackson publicly said that he was considering a 1996 run either in the Democratic primaries or as an independent, though he never entered the race.^[14]

With the advantage of incumbency, Clinton's path to renomination by the Democratic Party was largely uneventful. In a number of states, the Democratic primary was not held because Clinton was the only candidate who qualified for the ballot.^[15] Clinton won 9,706,802 votes, or 88.94 percent of the total Democratic primary vote reported by the FEC.^[15]

The most visible opponent was perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche, whose candidacy was real enough to merit mention but never serious enough to threaten Clinton's renomination. LaRouche received 596,422 votes nationally, or 5.47 percent of the Democratic primary vote, and polled notably well in some contests, including 8.16 percent in Ohio and 7.15 percent in North Carolina.^[15] Before the primaries, however, Democratic National Committee chairman Donald Fowler ruled that LaRouche was not a "bona fide Democrat" and that delegates pledged to him would not be recognized by the party; litigation over that ruling was later rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.^[16][17]

Other minor opponents included former Buffalo mayor Jimmy Griffin and Chicago candidate Elvena Lloyd-Duffie, but none made a substantial dent in Clinton's renomination.^[15] By late March 1996, Clinton's status as the party's presumptive nominee was no longer in doubt.

The reelection campaign turned Clinton's midterm-era weakness into a general-election strength by presenting him as a centrist alternative to the Republican Congress. The Washington Post wrote in October 1995 that the White House recovery had depended on a revamped, campaign-oriented staff and the increasingly central role of Morris's strategy.^[10] Clinton's public language during the 1996 campaign was notably upbeat and future-oriented. At the convention and afterward he framed his second-term case around the promise of "building a bridge to the twenty-first century".^[2][5]

The campaign also relied heavily on Clinton's ability to define himself against congressional Republicans. He and his advisers repeatedly argued that Republicans, not Democrats, had become the party of ideological rigidity and risky budget cutting.^[10] Throughout 1996, Clinton sought to tie Dole to Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress, especially on Medicare, Social Security, and tax policy.^[18]

Clinton's centrist positioning was reinforced by several policy fights that overlapped with the campaign. In May 1995 he used a weekly radio address to call illegal immigration "a very serious" problem and to advocate stronger enforcement, part of a broader effort to neutralize Republican attacks on the issue.^[19] In August 1996, just days before the Democratic convention, he signed the welfare reform bill, a move that deepened Democratic divisions but also fit the reelection campaign's broader message of reform, personal responsibility, and moderation, and at points, political conservatism.^[20][21]

The Clinton-Gore campaign also maintained one of the earliest presidential campaign websites, later archived by The Living Room Candidate. The site included policy briefings, volunteer information, downloadable materials, audio clips, and a section titled "21st Century Express".^[22] The Bipartisan Policy Center later identified Clinton's and Dole's 1996 campaigns as the first presidential campaigns to make meaningful use of the Internet.^[23]

Morris resigned from the campaign in late August 1996 after tabloid revelations about his personal life.^[24] Even so, his strategic imprint remained visible. The Los Angeles Times reported on September 1, 1996, that the president's family-oriented, forward-looking themes continued to reflect Morris's campaign design even after his departure.^[25]

The 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago unfolded under constant comparison with the city's 1968 Democratic convention. Before the gathering, The Washington Post reported that Chicago police were being trained with the expectation that journalists would be watching closely for any sign of a "1968 replay," and during convention week the paper described the 1996 police response as a deliberately restrained contrast to the violence of 1968.^[26][27] The convention nevertheless sparked protests, including one in which Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn and 10 others were arrested by the Federal Protective Service.^[28] In his acceptance speech on August 29, Clinton explicitly connected the convention's theme of hope to his 1992 acceptance speech, recalling that "four years ago ... I told you that I still believed in a place called Hope" before declaring that "hope is back in America" and pledging to "build a bridge to the 21st century".^[2][29][5]

The election took place on November 5, 1996, and ended with Clinton gaining 379 electoral votes and Dole garnering 159 electoral votes. With 379 electoral votes, President Bill Clinton won the 1996 presidential election. Clinton received over 47 million popular votes, Dole received over 39 million votes, and Perot received over 8 million votes.^[3][7][8] Clinton maintained a consistent polling edge for much of the fall campaign, and his victory was widely understood as the product of economic growth, successful repositioning after the 1994 Republican wave, and the weakness of Dole's candidacy against an incumbent president.^[30]

• 1996 Democratic Party presidential primaries
• 1996 Democratic National Convention
• 1996 United States presidential election
• Bob Dole 1996 presidential campaign
• Ross Perot 1996 presidential campaign
• Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign

• Bill Clinton acceptance speech