Did Nader cost Gore the election in 2000?

It might help to include voter turnout %, how many Democrats voted for Bush, etc.

Copy and pasting my answer from the other thread.

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf

“How do our results stack up against conventional wisdom, which holds that Ralph Nader
spoiled the 2000 presidential election for Gore? We find that this common belief is justified, but our results show clearly that Nader spoiled Gore’s presidency only because the 2000 presidential race in Florida was unusually tight. Had Florida had a more typical Bush-Gore margin in 2000, Nader would not have been a spoiler.”

@Rarebear – I wasn’t looking for a link. We’ve already established this. I want you to make the case. This should be easy. It’s common knowledge that Nader cost Gore the election. Should be cake. I’m honestly interested.

Note: I have tried this with friends, and the results were fascinating.

I thought Gore won, but that the Supreme Court stole it for him due to “chads” and Florida not counting the votes of black people with similar names to other black people in jail, etc. No?

@donotknowmuch. I don’t want to. Sorry.

^ OK. When you have the time, I recommend looking into it. You’ll be surprised.

I looked into it. I found that article. I skimmed the article. It convinced me. I am done.

(self edit)

Yes. He split the Democratic vote, plain and simple. Also, the people who voted for him were more concerned about making a political statement than getting the right individual elected.

^ Can you cite some data, including % voter participation, % Democrats who voted for Bush, etc?

It doesn’t matter what Democrats voted for Bush because they were going to vote for him anyway. If Nader had thrown his support to Gore, Florida would have gone to the Democrats, and Gore would have won the election. It was that close.

^ That’s your case for Nader having cost Gore the election?

Buchanan screwed it up. Lol. The stupid Florida ballot was confusing and a whole bunch of older Jews in southeast FL voted for Buchanan by accident. A close friend of mine called me nervous about it on voting day before any of it broke out in the national media.

Even Pat Buchanan has joked that he was very worried he would cost the Republicans the election by being on the ballot, but turned out his being there probably helped them win.

Edit: look at the Ballot on this page. They really believe a lot of people accidentally voted for Buchanan.

@DoNotKnowMuch That’s the way I saw it. And that was enough for me.

Rachel Maddow did a story sometime in the past year (so vague – that’s why I’m not looking it up) about how vote splitting was not a factor in either Bush/Gore/Nader or Clinton/Bush/Perot. I can’t remember where the data came from – maybe exit polls? – but they showed that the people who voted for the independent candidate were split more or less evenly in terms of who they would have voted for if there were no independent.

Wow, I found it: video

I was hoping someone would be willing to explain why they use the “Nader cost Gore the election” statement with such confidence. As I suspected, it’s one of those things that people accept (and perpetuate) without considering what it means.

@DoNotKnowMuch Given that it isn’t true, it would have to be one of those things!

There is a great documentary film on Nader titled “An Unreasonable Man”. The last 15 minutes or so of that film concentrates on this question, and it’s an eye opener. But beyond that, the film is priceles for insights on our political process. I’m pretty sure you can dial it up on Netflix.