1992 Republican Party presidential primaries

The 1992 Republican Party presidential primaries were the presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party, which took place in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., between February 18 to June 9, 1992, in which voters selected 2,277 delegates sent to the Republican National Convention, held in Houston, Texas, between August 17 and August 20, 1992. At the convention, Republican delegates nominated George H. W. Bush, the incumbent U.S. president, as the Republican Party's presidential nominee, and Dan Quayle, the incumbent vice president, as his vice presidential running mate.

1992 Republican Party presidential primaries

← 1988 February 18 to June 9, 1992 1996 →
2,209 delegates to the Republican National Convention 1,105 (majority)[1] votes needed to win
Candidate George H. W. Bush Pat Buchanan Home state Texas Virginia Delegate count 1,544 367 Contests won 51 0 Popular vote 9,199,463 2,899,488 Percentage 72.8% 23.0%
Gold denotes a state won by George H. W. Bush. Grey denotes a state or territory that did not hold a primary/caucus.
Previous Republican nominee George H. W. Bush Republican nominee George H. W. Bush

In the presidential election held November 3, 1992, Bush and Quayle were defeated by Democrat presidential nominee Bill Clinton and Al Gore, his vice presidential running mate.

Primary race overview

President George H. W. Bush was challenged for the Republican nomination by Pat Buchanan, a conservative author and commentator. During early counting in the New Hampshire primary, it appeared that the president might actually lose. However, Buchanan faded by the end of the evening, and Bush won the rest of the primaries. Bush's margins in many of the primaries were not as large as expected, and led to the rise of Ross Perot as an independent candidate.

Republican Louisiana State Representative and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke also ran in a number of primaries, but he did not receive any delegates. Former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota also made a quixotic bid for support in the Minnesota primary, winning enough votes to entitle him to one delegate, but was later denied his single vote by machinations at the Minnesota Republican Party's 1992 state convention.

New Hampshire primary

See also: 1992 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary

As Buchanan's candidacy relied heavily on a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, President Bush made New Hampshire a focal point in his reelection bid. However, New Hampshire still remained a pivotal base for Buchanan's primary campaign.

Because Bush was widely perceived to have broken his "read my lips" pledge, Buchanan found support in the economically battered and conservative state of New Hampshire. Making Bush's tax-hikes a central theme of his campaign, Buchanan enjoyed healthy grass-roots support despite lagging behind the president in pre-primary polling.

Bush countered the threat posed by Buchanan by touring New Hampshire himself. He memorably told an audience at an Exeter town hall: "Message: I care".^[2] Some sources claim that this was the result of Bush mistakenly reading a cue card aloud.^[3]

On primary night, President Bush carried New Hampshire with 53% of the vote. Buchanan finished second with 38% of the vote.^[4]

The rest of the race

Despite many in the Bush campaign attempting to push Buchanan out of the race, the strong showing made the Buchanan campaign hope for an outpouring of campaign contributions which galvanized the campaign into making efforts to pull out strong showings such as in the Georgia primary.

Despite an impressive showing, Buchanan's campaign never attracted serious opposition to President Bush in most contests. Most of Buchanan's "victories" were larger-than-expected showings that were still considered landslide Bush wins by most of the media. Still, the fact that Buchanan received more than two million votes nationwide prognosticated trouble for Bush in the general election.

Candidates

Nominee

Candidate			Most recent office	Home State	Campaign Withdrawal date	Popular vote	Contests won	Running mate
George H. W. Bush			President of the United States (1989–1993)	Texas	(Campaign) Secured nomination: May 5, 1992	9,199,463 (72.84%)	51	Dan Quayle

Other candidates

Candidate			Most recent office	Home State	Campaign Withdrawal date	Popular vote	Contests won
Pat Buchanan			White House Communications Director (1985–1987)	Virginia	(Campaign)	2,899,488 (22.96%)	N/A
David Duke			Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives (1989–1992)	Louisiana	(Campaign)	119,115 (0.94%)	N/A
Pat Paulsen			Comedian	California		10,984 (0.09%)	N/A
Harold Stassen			Director of the United States Foreign Operations Administration (1953–1955)	Minnesota		8,099 (0.06%)	N/A
Jack Fellure			Former Engineer and Perennial Candidate	West Virginia		6,296 (0.05%)	N/A

Campaign finance

Candidate	Campaign committee
	Raised	Total contrib.	Ind. contrib.	Pres. pub. funds	Spent
George H. W. Bush[a][5]	$104,974,415.00	$31,802,276.00	$31,711,102.00	$65,898,513.00	$107,637,852.00
Pat Buchanan[6]	$14,933,082.00	$7,232,943.00	$7,206,793.00	$5,351,770.00	$14,591,679.00
David Duke[7]	$372,146.00	$221,854.00	$221,945.00	$0.00	$457,449.00
Jack Fellure[8]	$46,748.00	$1,260.00	$1,425.00	$0.00	$47,559.00

Declined

• Former Governor Pete du Pont of Delaware^[9]

Results

Source^[10]

Date[11][12] (daily totals)	Total pledged delegates[13]	Contest	Delegates won and popular vote			Total
			George H. W. Bush	Pat Buchanan	Others
February 10	0	Iowa caucus[14]	Cancelled.
February 18	23	New Hampshire primary[15]	14 92,271 (53.2%)	9 65,106 (37.5%)	3,779 (2.3%)[b]
February 19	22	South Dakota primary[16][17]	14 30,964 (69.3%)	—	5 13,707 (30.68%)[c]
March 3 (131)	37	Colorado primary[18]	26 132,049 (68.2%)	11 58,730 (30.3%)	2,957 (1.53%)[d]
	42	Maryland primary[18]	42 168,898 (69.9%)	72,701 (30.1%)	—
	52	Georgia primary[18][19]	52 291,905 (64.3%)	162,085 (35.7%)	—
March 7	36	South Carolina primary[20][21]	36 99,558 (66.9%)	38,247 (25.7%)	11,035 (7.41%)[e]
March 10 (Super Tuesday) (441)	99	Florida primary	67 607,522 (68.1%)	32 285,074 (31.9%)	–
	41	Louisiana primary	25 83,747 (62.0%)	11 36,526 (27.0%)	5 14,841[f]
	40	Massachusetts primary	28 176,868 (65.6%)	12 74,797 (27.7%)	24,182[g]
	34	Mississippi primary	25 111,794 (72.3%)	6 25,891 (16.7%)	4 17,023 (10.6%)[h]
	38	Oklahoma primary	27 151,612 (69.6%)	11 57,933 (26.6%)	8,176 (2.6%)[i]
	16	Rhode Island primary	11 9,853 (63.0%)	5 4,967 (31.8%)	816 (4.9%)[j]
	49	Tennessee primary	38 178,216 (72.5%)	11 54,585 (22.2%)	12,849 (5.2%)[k]
	124	Texas primary	92 556,280 (69.8%)	32 190,572 (23.9%)	50,294 (6.0%)[l]
March 17 (162)	88	Illinois primary	68 556,280 (76.4%)	20 186,915 (22.5%)	9,637 (1.2%)[m]
	74	Michigan primary	54 301,948 (67.2%)	20 112,122 (25.0%)	35,063 (7.7%)[n]
March 24	38	Connecticut primary	29 66,356 (66.7%)	9 21,815 (22.0%)	11,475 (11.4%)[o]
April 5	20	Puerto Rico primary	20 260,200	1,031	2,104
April 7 (205)	31	Kansas primary	21 132,131 (62.0%)	5 32,494 (14.8%)	49,571 (20.8%)[p]
	34	Minnesota primary	25 84,841 (63.9%)	9 32,094 (24.2%)	15,821 (8.8%)[q]
	103	New York [?]	103	–	–
	37	Wisconsin primary	30 364,507 (75.6%)	7 78,516 (16.3%)	39,225 (5.3%)[r]
April 28	92	Pennsylvania primary	71 774,865 (76.7%)	21 233,912 (23.2%)	—
May 5 (144)	13	District of Columbia primary	11 4,265 (81.5%)	2 970 (18.5%)	–
	20	Delaware caucus	20	—	—
	52	Indiana primary	42 374,666 (80.1%)	10 92,949 (19.9%)	—
	59	North Carolina primary	46 200,387 (70.7%)	13 55,420 (19.5%)	27,764 (9.8%)[s]
May 10	20	Montana primary	14 65,176 (71.6%)	2 10,701 (11.8%)	3 15,098 (16.6%)[t]
May 12 (46)	27	Nebraska primary	23 156,346 (81.4%)	4 25,847 (13.5%)	9,905 (1.5%)[u]
	19	West Virginia primary	16 99,994 (80.5%)	3 18,067 (14.6%)	6,096 (4.9%)[v]
May 19 (62)	25	Oregon primary	17 203,957	5 57,730	3 42,472[w]
	37	Washington primary	25 86,839 (67.0%)	4 13,273 (10.2%)	8 29,543 (20.8%)[x]
May 26 (92)	31	Arkansas primary	27 45,590 (83.1%)	4 6,551 (11.9%)	2,742 (5.0%)[y]
	23	Idaho primary	15 73,297 (63.5%)	3 15,167 (13.1%)	5 27,038 (23.4%)[c]
	38	Kentucky primary	28 75,371 (74.5%)	—	10 25,748 (25.5%)[c]
June 2 (439)	41	Alabama primary	33 122,703 (74.3%)	12,588 (7.6%)	8 29,830 (18.1%)[c]
	203	California primary	149 1,587,369 (73.6%)	54 568,892 (26.4%)	—
	63	New Jersey primary	53 240,535 (77.5%)	10 46,432 (15.0%)	(7.5%)[z]
	27	New Mexico primary	19 55,522 (63.8%)	7,871 (9.1%)	8 23,574 (27.1%)[c]
	20	North Dakota primary	17 39,863 (83.4%)	—	3 7,945 (16.6%)[aa]
	85	Ohio primary	71 716,766	14 143,687	—
Total[22]	1,973		1,544 9,199,463 (72.8%)	367 2,899,488 (23.0%)	62 497,650 (4.2%)	12,596,601

Nationwide

Popular vote result:^[23]

• George H. W. Bush (inc.) - 9,199,463 (72.84%)
• Pat Buchanan - 2,899,488 (22.96%)
• Unpledged delegates - 287,383 (2.28%)
• David Duke - 119,115 (0.94%)
• Ross Perot - 56,136 (0.44%)
• Pat Paulsen - 10,984 (0.09%)
• Maurice Horton - 9,637 (0.08%)
• Harold Stassen - 8,099 (0.06%)
• Jack Fellure - 6,296 (0.05%)

Endorsements

Pat Buchanan

• Brendan Eich, computer programmer and co-founder/CEO of Mozilla^[24][25]

See also

• 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries
• George H. W. Bush 1992 presidential campaign
• Supermarket scanner moment
• David Duke 1992 presidential campaign

Notes

1. Including general election
2. TBA
3. All votes for uncommitted delegates
4. TBA
5. David Duke got 10,553 (7.09%) votes
6. David Duke got 11,956 (8.85%) votes
7. David Duke got 5,557 (2.01%) votes
8. All votes for David Duke
9. David Duke got 5,672 (2.60%) votes
10. David Duke got 326 (2.08%) votes
11. David Duke got 7,709 (3.14%) votes
12. David Duke got 20,255 (2.54%) votes
13. TBA
14. David Duke got 10,688 (2.38%) votes
15. David Duke got 2,294 (2.30%) votes
16. David Duke got 3,837 (1.80%) votes
17. TBA
18. David Duke got 12,867 (2.67%) votes
19. TBA
20. TBA
21. David Duke got 2,808 (1.46%) votes
22. TBA
23. David Duke got 6,667 (2.19%) votes
24. Nearly all of this vote was for Ross Perot as a write-in candidate. David Duke got 1,501 (1.16%) votes
25. TBA
26. All votes for Ross Perot
27. TBA