1988 United States presidential election
51st quadrennial U.S. presidential election / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 1988 United States presidential election was the 51st quadrennial presidential election held on Tuesday, November 8, 1988. The Republican nominee, incumbent Vice President George H. W. Bush, defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts.
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538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 52.8%[1] 2.4 pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Bush/Quayle and blue denotes those won by Dukakis/Bentsen. Light blue is the electoral vote for Bentsen/Dukakis by a West Virginia faithless elector. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It remains the most recent election in which a candidate won over 400 electoral votes, and consequently the last landslide election of a U.S. president.[2] 1988 was the first time since 1940 in which the governing party won three consecutive presidential elections. Additionally, it was the last time that the Republicans won the popular vote three times in a row. Conversely, it began an ongoing streak of presidential elections that were decided by a single-digit popular vote margin.[3] It was also the first, and only election to date, in which one of the two major presidential candidates was not of Northern European ancestry.[4][5]
President Ronald Reagan was ineligible to seek a third term because of the Twenty-second amendment. Instead, Bush entered the Republican primaries as the front-runner, defeating U.S. Senator Bob Dole and televangelist Pat Robertson. He selected U.S. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate. Dukakis won the Democratic primaries after Democratic leaders Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy withdrew or declined to run. He selected U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas as his running mate. It was the first election since 1968 to include no incumbent president on the ballot.
Bush ran an aggressive campaign concentrated mainly on the strong economy, reduction in crime, and continuance with Reagan's policies. He attacked Dukakis as an elitist "Massachusetts liberal", to which Dukakis appeared to fail to respond effectively. Despite Dukakis's initial lead in polls, Bush pulled ahead after the Republican National Convention and extended his lead after strong performances in two debates. Bush won a decisive victory over Dukakis, winning the Electoral College and the popular vote by sizable margins.
As of 2020, no candidate of either party has since equaled or surpassed Bush's share of the electoral or popular vote. Bush became the first sitting vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836, and the first vice president to be elected president since Richard Nixon (as former vice president) in 1968. This remains the last time that a Republican has carried California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont. Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Tennessee would not vote Republican again until 2000, while New Mexico would not vote Republican again until 2004. Pennsylvania and Michigan would also not vote Republican again until 2016. This remains the latest presidential election in which the Democrats did not win at least 200 electoral votes, partly due to their lock on certain states in presidential races from 1988 onward. As of 2020, this is the last presidential election where the Republican nominee won the female vote.
Republican candidates
- George H. W. Bush, Vice President[6]
- Bob Dole, U.S. senator from Kansas[7]
- Pat Robertson, televangelist from Virginia[8]
- Jack Kemp, U.S. representative from New York[9]
- Pete du Pont, former governor of Delaware[10]
- Alexander Haig, former secretary of state, from Pennsylvania[11]
- Ben Fernandez, former Special Ambassador to Paraguay, from California[12]
- Paul Laxalt, former United States Senator from Nevada[13]
- Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense from Illinois[14]
- Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota[15]
1988 Republican Party ticket | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George H. W. Bush | Dan Quayle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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for President | for Vice President | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
43rd Vice President of the United States (1981–1989) |
U.S. Senator from Indiana (1981–1989) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Campaign | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While Bush had long been seen as Reagan's natural successor, there was still a degree of opposition within the party to his candidacy. Historical precedent was not seen to favor Bush's chances, as no incumbent vice president had been elected as president since Martin van Buren some 152 years prior. Dole attracted support among those who were concerned that Bush, whose electoral experience outside of his campaigns with Reagan was limited to running unsuccessfully for the Senate and twice successfully for the House of Representatives in the 1960s, had not done enough to establish himself as a candidate in his own right. Others who wished to further continue the shift towards social conservatism that had begun during Reagan's presidency supported Robertson.[citation needed]
Bush unexpectedly came in third in the Iowa caucus, which he had won in 1980, behind Dole and Robertson. Dole was also leading in the polls of the New Hampshire primary, and the Bush camp responded by running television commercials portraying Dole as a tax raiser, while Governor John H. Sununu campaigned for Bush. Dole did nothing to counter these ads and Bush won, thereby gaining crucial momentum, which he called "Big Mo".[16] Once the multiple-state primaries such as Super Tuesday began, Bush's organizational strength and fundraising lead were impossible for the other candidates to match, and the nomination was his.
The Republican Party convention was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bush was nominated unanimously and selected U.S. Senator Dan Quayle from Indiana as his running mate. In his acceptance speech, Bush made the pledge "Read my lips: No new taxes," which contributed to his loss in the 1992 election.
1988 Democratic Party ticket | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael Dukakis | Lloyd Bentsen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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for President | for Vice President | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts (1975–1979, 1983–1991) |
U.S. Senator from Texas (1971–1993) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Campaign | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Candidates in this section are sorted by date of withdrawal from the primaries | ||||||||
Jesse Jackson | Al Gore | Paul Simon | Dick Gephardt | Gary Hart | ||||
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President of the Rainbow Coalition from South Carolina (1983–present) |
U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1985–1993) |
U.S. Senator from Illinois (1985–1997) |
U.S. Representative from Missouri (1977–2005) |
U.S. Senator from Colorado (1975–1987) | ||||
Campaign | Campaign | Campaign | Campaign | Campaign | ||||
LN: July 20, 1988 E: July 30, 1988 6,788,991 votes 1,023 PD |
S: April 21, 1988 E: June 16, 1988 3,185,806 votes 374 PD |
S: April 7, 1988 E: June 8, 1988 1,082,960 votes 161 PD |
W: March 28, 1988 E: June 8, 1988 1,399,041 votes 137 PD |
W: March 11, 1988 415,716 votes | ||||
[17] | [18] | [19][20] | [19][20] | |||||
Bruce Babbitt | James Traficant | Patricia Schroeder | Joe Biden | |||||
Fmr. Governor of Arizona (1978–1987) |
U.S. Representative from Ohio (1985–2002) |
U.S. Representative from Colorado (1973–1997) |
U.S. Senator from Delaware (1973–2009) | |||||
Campaign | Campaign | Campaign | ||||||
W: February 18, 1988 E: June 8, 1988 77,780 votes |
?: After January 26, 1988 | W: September 28, 1987 | W: September 23, 1987 E: June 22, 1988 | |||||
[19][20] | [21][22][23][24] | [25] |
In the 1984 presidential election the Democrats had nominated Walter Mondale, a traditional New Deal-type liberal, who advocated for those constituencies that Franklin Roosevelt forged into a majority coalition,[26] as their candidate. When Mondale was defeated in a landslide, party leaders became eager to find a new approach to get away from the 1980 and 1984 debacles. After Bush's image was affected by his involvement on the Iran-Contra scandal much more than Reagan's, and after the Democrats won back control of the U.S. Senate in the 1986 congressional elections following an economic downturn, the party's leaders felt optimistic about having a closer race with the GOP in 1988, although probabilities of winning the presidency were still marginal given the climate of prosperity.
One goal of the party was to find a new, fresh candidate who could move beyond the traditional New Deal-Great Society ideas of the past and offer a new image of the Democrats to the public. To this end party leaders tried to recruit New York Governor Mario Cuomo to be a candidate. Cuomo had impressed many Democrats with his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention, and they believed he would be a strong candidate.[27] After Cuomo chose not to run, the Democratic frontrunner for most of 1987 was former Colorado Senator Gary Hart.[28] He had made a strong showing in the 1984 presidential primaries and, after Mondale's defeat, had positioned himself as the moderate centrist many Democrats felt their party would need to win.[29]
But questions and rumors about extramarital affairs and past debts dogged Hart's campaign.[30] Hart had told New York Times reporters who questioned him about these rumors that, if they followed him around, they would "be bored". In a separate investigation, the Miami Herald had received an anonymous tip from a friend of Donna Rice that Rice was involved with Hart. After his affair emerged, the Herald reporters found Hart's quote in a pre-print of The New York Times magazine.[31] After the Herald's findings were publicized, many other media outlets picked up the story and Hart's ratings in the polls plummeted. On May 8, 1987, a week after the Rice story broke, Hart dropped out of the race.[30] His campaign chair, Representative Patricia Schroeder, tested the waters for about four months after Hart's withdrawal, but decided in September 1987 that she would not run.[32] In December 1987, Hart surprised many pundits by resuming his campaign,[33] but the allegations of adultery had delivered a fatal blow to his candidacy, and he did poorly in the primaries before dropping out again.[34]
Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts had been considered a potential candidate, but he ruled himself out of the race in the fall of 1985. Two other politicians mentioned as possible candidates, both from Arkansas, did not join the race: Senator Dale Bumpers and Governor and future President Bill Clinton.
Joe Biden's campaign also ended in controversy after he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, then-leader of the British Labour Party.[35] The Dukakis campaign secretly released a video in which Biden was filmed repeating a Kinnock stump speech with only minor modifications.[36] Biden later called his failure to attribute the quotes an oversight, and in related proceedings the Delaware Supreme Court's Board on Professional Responsibility cleared him of a separate plagiarism charge, leveled for plagiarizing an article during his law school.[37] This ultimately led him to drop out of the race. Dukakis later revealed that his campaign had leaked the tape, and two members of his staff resigned. (Biden later ran twice more for the Democratic nomination, unsuccessfully in 2008 and successfully in 2020. He was elected the 47th vice president in 2008, serving two terms under President Barack Obama. In 2021, he became the 46th president, over 33 years after his first campaign for the office ended.)
Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, also chose to run for the nomination. Turning 40 in 1988, he would have been the youngest man to contest the presidency on a major party ticket since William Jennings Bryan in 1896, and the youngest president ever if elected, younger than John F. Kennedy at election age and Theodore Roosevelt at age of assumption of office. He eventually became the 45th Vice President of the United States under Bill Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, losing to George W. Bush, George H.W.'s son.
Primaries
After Hart withdrew from the race, no clear frontrunner emerged before the primaries and caucuses began. The Iowa caucus was won by Dick Gephardt, who had been sagging heavily in the polls until, three weeks before the vote, he began campaigning as a populist and his numbers surged. Illinois Senator Paul M. Simon finished a surprising second, and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis finished third. In the New Hampshire primary, Dukakis came in first, Gephardt fell to second, and Simon came in third. In an effort to weaken Gephardt's candidacy, both Dukakis and Gore ran negative television ads against Gephardt. The ads convinced the United Auto Workers, which had endorsed Gephardt, to withdraw their endorsement; this crippled Gephardt, as he relied heavily on the support of labor unions.
In the Super Tuesday races, Dukakis won six primaries, to Gore's five, Jesse Jackson five and Gephardt one, with Gore and Jackson splitting the Southern states. The next week, Simon won Illinois with Jackson finishing second. 1988 remains the race with the most candidates winning primaries since the McGovern reforms of 1971.[clarification needed] Jackson captured 6.9 million votes and won 11 contests: seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont). He also scored March victories in Alaska's caucuses and Texas's local conventions, despite losing the Texas primary. Briefly, after he won 55% of the vote in the Michigan Democratic caucus, he had more pledged delegates than all the other candidates.
Jackson's campaign suffered a significant setback less than two weeks later when he was defeated in the Wisconsin primary by Dukakis. Dukakis's win in New York and then in Pennsylvania effectively ended Jackson's hopes for the nomination.
Democratic Convention
The Democratic Party Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia from July 18–21. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton placed Dukakis's name in nomination, and delivered his speech, scheduled to be 15 minutes long, but lasting so long that some delegates began booing to get him to finish; he received great cheering when he said, "In closing...".[38][39]
Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards, who was elected the state governor two years later, gave a speech attacking George Bush, including the line "Poor George, he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
With only Jackson remaining as an active candidate to oppose Dukakis, the tally for president was:
Presidential ballot | Vice Presidential ballot | ||
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Michael S. Dukakis | 2,876.25 | Lloyd M. Bentsen | 4,162 |
Jesse L. Jackson | 1,218.5 | ||
Richard H. Stallings | 3 | ||
Joe Biden | 2 | ||
Richard A. Gephardt | 2 | ||
Gary W. Hart | 1 | ||
Lloyd M. Bentsen | 1 |
Jackson's supporters said that since their candidate had finished in second place, he was entitled to the vice presidential nomination. Dukakis disagreed, and instead selected Senator Lloyd Bentsen from Texas. Bentsen's selection led many in the media to dub the ticket the "Boston-Austin" axis, and to compare it to the pairing of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960 presidential campaign. Like Dukakis and Bentsen, Kennedy and Johnson were from Massachusetts and Texas respectively.
Libertarian Party
Ron Paul and Andre Marrou formed the ticket for the Libertarian Party. Their campaign called for the adoption of a global policy on military nonintervention, advocated an end to the federal government's involvement with education, and criticized Reagan's "bailout" of the Soviet Union. Paul was a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, first elected as a Republican from Texas in an April 1976 special election. He protested the War on Drugs in a letter to Drug Czar William Bennett.[when?]
New Alliance Party
Lenora Fulani ran for the New Alliance Party, and focused on issues concerning unemployment, healthcare, and homelessness. The party had full ballot access, meaning Fulani and her running mate, Joyce Dattner, were the first pair of women to receive ballot access in all 50 states.[40] Fulani was the first African American to do so.
Socialist Party
Willa Kenoyer and Ron Ehrenreich ran for the Socialist Party, advocating a decentralist government approach with policies determined by the needs of the workers.
Populist Party
David E. Duke stood for the Populist Party. A former leader of the Louisiana Ku Klux Klan, he advocated a mixture of White nationalist and separatist policies with more traditionally conservative positions, such as opposition to most immigration from Latin America and to affirmative action.