2000 United States presidential election in California

Main article: 2000 United States presidential election

The 2000 United States presidential election in California took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the wider 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 54 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

2000 United States presidential election in California

November 7, 2000
Turnout	70.94% (of registered voters) 5.41 pp 51.92% (of eligible voters) 0.64 pp
Nominee Al Gore George W. Bush Party Democratic Republican Home state Tennessee Texas Running mate Joe Lieberman Dick Cheney Electoral vote 54 0 Popular vote 5,861,203 4,567,429 Percentage 53.45% 41.65%
County Results Gore   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% Bush   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%
President before election Bill Clinton Democratic Elected President George W. Bush Republican

California was won by the Democratic ticket of Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut by 11.8% points over the Republican ticket of Texas Governor George W. Bush and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney of Wyoming.

The state hosted the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and was slightly contested by both candidates due to a large Hispanic population and a large independent and moderate base surrounding San Diego and Sacramento's suburbs. This was the first time since 1880 in which a winning Republican presidential candidate lost California, and the first time ever that a losing Democrat won a majority of the vote in the state. As of the 2020 presidential election, Bush is the last Republican candidate to carry Alpine and Mono counties in a presidential election. This was also the first time since 1976 that California did not back the candidate who won the overall presidential election as well.

Bush became the first ever Republican to win the White House without carrying Imperial County, as well as the first to do so without carrying Santa Barbara County since Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the first to do so without carrying Monterey County since William McKinley in 1896, the first to do so without carrying San Benito County since William McKinley in 1900, and the first to do so without carrying Napa or Sacramento Counties since Richard Nixon in 1968. He also became the first nominee of either party to win the White House without receiving at least a million votes from Los Angeles County since this county first gave any nominee a million votes, in 1952. This feat would be reprised by Donald Trump in 2016.

California was one of ten states that backed George H. W. Bush for president in 1988 that didn't back George W. Bush in either 2000 or 2004.

Primaries

• 2000 California Democratic presidential primary
• 2000 California Republican presidential primary

Results

2000 United States presidential election in California
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Albert A. Gore Jr. and Joseph Lieberman	5,861,203	53.45%	54
	Republican	George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney	4,567,429	41.65%	0
	Green	Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke	418,707	3.82%	0
	Libertarian	Harry Browne	45,520	0.42%	0
	Reform	Pat Buchanan	44,987	0.41%	0
	American Independent	Howard Phillips	17,042	0.16%	0
	Natural Law	John Hagelin	10,934	0.10%	0
	write-in	David McReynolds	28	0.00%	0
		Other write-in	6	0.00%	0
Invalid or blank votes			177,010	1.59%	—
Totals			10,965,856	100.00%	54
Voter turnout			70.94%		—

By county

County	Al Gore Democratic		George W. Bush Republican		Ralph Nader Green		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Alameda	342,889	69.36%	119,279	24.13%	27,499	5.56%	4,669	0.95%	223,610	45.23%	494,336
Alpine	265	45.22%	281	47.95%	25	4.27%	15	2.56%	-16	-2.73%	586
Amador	5,906	38.19%	8,766	56.69%	584	3.78%	208	1.34%	-2,860	-18.50%	15,464
Butte	31,338	37.43%	45,584	54.45%	5,727	6.84%	1,072	1.28%	-14,246	-17.02%	83,721
Calaveras	7,093	37.58%	10,599	56.15%	863	4.57%	321	1.69%	-3,506	-18.57%	18,876
Colusa	1,745	31.22%	3,629	64.92%	151	2.70%	65	1.16%	-1,884	-33.70%	5,590
Contra Costa	224,338	58.81%	141,373	37.06%	13,067	3.43%	2,700	0.71%	82,965	21.75%	381,478
Del Norte	3,117	37.58%	4,526	54.57%	485	5.85%	166	2.00%	-1,409	-16.99%	8,294
El Dorado	26,220	36.35%	42,045	58.29%	3,013	4.18%	858	1.19%	-15,825	-21.94%	72,136
Fresno	95,059	43.05%	117,342	53.14%	6,541	2.96%	1,893	0.86%	-22,283	-10.09%	220,835
Glenn	2,498	28.68%	5,795	66.53%	268	3.08%	150	1.72%	-3,297	-37.85%	8,711
Humboldt	24,851	44.40%	23,219	41.48%	7,100	12.68%	802	1.44%	1,632	2.92%	55,972
Imperial	15,489	53.53%	12,524	43.28%	608	2.10%	316	1.09%	2,965	10.25%	28,937
Inyo	2,652	33.93%	4,713	60.31%	344	4.40%	106	1.35%	-2,061	-26.38%	7,815
Kern	66,003	36.20%	110,663	60.70%	3,474	1.91%	2,168	1.18%	-44,660	-24.50%	182,308
Kings	11,041	38.97%	16,377	57.80%	567	2.00%	350	1.24%	-5,336	-18.83%	28,335
Lake	10,717	51.23%	8,699	41.58%	1,265	6.05%	238	1.14%	2,018	9.65%	20,919
Lassen	2,982	28.17%	7,080	66.88%	339	3.20%	185	1.75%	-4,098	-38.71%	10,586
Los Angeles	1,710,505	63.47%	871,930	32.35%	83,731	3.11%	28,988	1.08%	838,575	31.12%	2,695,154
Madera	11,650	34.89%	20,283	60.74%	1,080	3.23%	382	1.14%	-8,633	-25.85%	33,395
Marin	79,135	64.26%	34,872	28.32%	8,289	6.73%	859	0.70%	44,263	35.94%	123,155
Mariposa	2,816	34.88%	4,727	58.55%	379	4.69%	152	1.88%	-1,911	-23.67%	8,074
Mendocino	16,634	48.34%	12,272	35.66%	5,051	14.68%	453	1.32%	4,362	12.68%	34,410
Merced	22,726	45.08%	26,102	51.77%	1,166	2.31%	424	0.84%	-3,376	-6.69%	50,418
Modoc	945	23.07%	2,969	72.47%	122	2.98%	61	1.49%	-2,024	-49.28%	4,107
Mono	1,788	40.91%	2,296	52.53%	230	5.26%	57	1.30%	-508	-11.62%	4,371
Monterey	67,618	57.53%	43,761	37.23%	5,059	4.30%	1,096	0.93%	23,857	20.30%	117,534
Napa	28,097	54.32%	20,633	39.89%	2,471	4.78%	523	1.01%	7,464	14.43%	51,724
Nevada	17,670	37.22%	25,998	54.76%	3,287	6.92%	524	1.10%	-8,328	-17.54%	47,479
Orange	391,819	40.36%	541,299	55.75%	26,833	2.76%	10,954	1.13%	-149,480	-15.39%	970,905
Placer	42,449	36.04%	69,835	59.28%	4,449	3.78%	1,061	0.90%	-27,386	-23.24%	117,799
Plumas	3,458	33.25%	6,343	60.98%	456	4.38%	144	1.38%	-2,885	-27.73%	10,401
Riverside	202,576	44.90%	231,955	51.42%	11,678	2.59%	4,918	1.09%	-29,379	-6.52%	451,127
Sacramento	212,792	49.31%	195,619	45.33%	17,659	4.09%	5,480	1.27%	17,173	3.98%	431,550
San Benito	9,131	54.25%	7,015	41.68%	535	3.18%	150	0.89%	2,116	12.57%	16,831
San Bernardino	214,749	47.21%	221,757	48.75%	11,775	2.59%	6,612	1.45%	-7,008	-1.54%	454,893
San Diego	437,666	45.66%	475,736	49.63%	33,979	3.54%	11,253	1.17%	-38,070	-3.97%	958,634
San Francisco	241,578	75.54%	51,496	16.10%	24,828	7.76%	1,884	0.59%	190,082	59.44%	319,786
San Joaquin	79,776	47.70%	81,773	48.90%	4,195	2.51%	1,485	0.89%	-1,997	-1.20%	167,239
San Luis Obispo	44,526	40.89%	56,859	52.22%	6,523	5.99%	978	0.90%	-12,333	-11.33%	108,886
San Mateo	166,757	64.29%	80,296	30.95%	10,433	4.02%	1,913	0.73%	86,461	33.34%	259,399
Santa Barbara	73,411	47.37%	71,493	46.13%	8,664	5.59%	1,406	0.91%	1,918	1.24%	154,974
Santa Clara	332,490	60.66%	188,750	34.44%	19,072	3.48%	7,817	1.43%	143,740	26.22%	548,129
Santa Cruz	66,618	61.48%	29,627	27.34%	10,844	10.01%	1,261	1.16%	36,991	34.14%	108,350
Shasta	20,127	30.25%	43,278	65.04%	2,131	3.20%	1,008	1.51%	-23,151	-34.79%	66,544
Sierra	540	29.24%	1,172	63.45%	86	4.66%	49	2.65%	-632	-34.21%	1,847
Siskiyou	6,323	31.90%	12,198	61.55%	872	4.40%	426	2.15%	-5,875	-29.65%	19,819
Solano	75,116	57.02%	51,604	39.17%	3,869	2.94%	1,146	0.87%	23,512	17.85%	131,735
Sonoma	117,295	59.54%	63,529	32.25%	14,324	7.27%	1,858	0.94%	53,766	27.29%	197,006
Stanislaus	56,448	44.01%	67,188	52.38%	3,398	2.65%	1,233	0.96%	-10,740	-8.37%	128,267
Sutter	8,416	31.68%	17,350	65.31%	594	2.24%	204	0.77%	-8,934	-33.63%	26,564
Tehama	6,507	31.20%	13,270	63.63%	697	3.34%	380	1.82%	-6,763	-32.43%	20,854
Trinity	1,932	33.33%	3,340	57.62%	396	6.83%	129	2.23%	-1,408	-24.29%	5,797
Tulare	33,006	36.75%	54,070	60.20%	1,834	2.04%	908	1.01%	-21,064	-23.45%	89,818
Tuolumne	9,359	39.44%	13,172	55.51%	949	4.00%	247	1.04%	-3,813	-16.07%	23,727
Ventura	133,258	47.14%	136,173	48.17%	10,235	3.62%	3,026	1.07%	-2,915	-1.03%	282,692
Yolo	33,747	54.93%	23,057	37.53%	4,107	6.69%	525	0.85%	10,690	17.40%	61,436
Yuba	5,546	34.39%	9,838	61.00%	507	3.14%	236	1.46%	-4,292	-26.61%	16,127
Total	5,861,203	53.45%	4,567,429	41.65%	418,707	3.82%	118,517	1.09%	1,293,774	11.80%	10,965,856

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Merced (Largest city: Merced)
• San Bernardino (Largest city: San Bernardino)
• San Joaquin (Largest city: Stockton)
• Stanislaus (Largest city: Modesto)
• Ventura (Largest city: Ventura)

By congressional district

Gore won 33 of 52 congressional districts, including four held by Republicans while Bush won two held by Democrats.

District	Bush	Gore	Representative
1st	41%	50%	Mike Thompson
2nd	59%	34%	Wally Herger
3rd	51%	44%	Doug Ose
4th	58%	37%	John Doolittle
5th	37%	57%	Bob Matsui
6th	30%	62%	Lynn Woolsey
7th	27%	69%	George Miller
8th	15%	77%	Nancy Pelosi
9th	12%	79%	Barbara Lee
10th	45%	51%	Ellen Tauscher
11th	50%	47%	Richard Pombo
12th	27%	67%	Tom Lantos
13th	30%	66%	Pete Stark
14th	32%	62%	Anna Eshoo
15th	38%	57%	Tom Campbell
			Mike Honda
16th	32%	64%	Zoe Lofgren
17th	33%	60%	Sam Farr
18th	53%	44%	Gary Condit
19th	58%	38%	George Radanovich
20th	48%	50%	Cal Dooley
21st	64%	33%	Bill Thomas
22nd	49%	45%	Lois Capps
23rd	47%	48%	Elton Gallegly
24th	38%	58%	Brad Sherman
25th	51%	45%	Buck McKeon
26th	25%	70%	Howard Berman
27th	41%	53%	Jim Rogan
			Adam Schiff
28th	47%	49%	David Dreier
29th	22%	72%	Henry Waxman
30th	19%	75%	Xavier Becerra
31st	27%	69%	Matthew G. Martínez
			Hilda Solis
32nd	13%	83%	Diane Watson
33rd	15%	83%	Lucille Roybal-Allard
34th	30%	67%	Grace Napolitano
35th	12%	86%	Maxine Waters
36th	44%	51%	Steven T. Kuykendall
			Jane Harman
37th	15%	83%	Juanita Millender-McDonald
38th	37%	58%	Steve Horn
39th	53%	43%	Ed Royce
40th	56%	39%	Jerry Lewis
41st	50%	47%	Gary Miller
42nd	39%	57%	Joe Baca
43rd	52%	44%	Ken Calvert
44th	49%	47%	Mary Bono
45th	56%	40%	Dana Rohrabacher
46th	42%	54%	Loretta Sánchez
47th	58%	39%	Christopher Cox
48th	60%	36%	Ron Packard
			Darrell Issa
49th	42%	53%	Brian Bilbray
			Susan Davis
50th	37%	59%	Bob Filner
51st	55%	41%	Duke Cunningham
52nd	54%	41%	Duncan Hunter

Analysis

President Bill Clinton in a rally in Los Angeles on November 2, 2000

Vice President Al Gore easily defeated Texas Governor George W. Bush in California. Bush campaigned several times in California, but it didn't seem to help as Gore defeated Bush by 11.8%. Bush did make substantial headway in the Gold Country, Shasta Cascade, and parts of the Central Valley, flipping San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced Counties (all of which had voted for Bill Clinton twice) and winning the highest vote share of any presidential nominee in decades (exceeding California natives Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan) in Shasta, Madera, Tehama, Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, and Sierra Counties. He also flipped San Bernardino County, his largest county flip in the state (and nationally), as well as Ventura County; but he underperformed in all the large, then-historically Republican counties of Southern California and the Central Coast (San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo) relative to Bob Dole's performance in 1996, losing Santa Barbara outright despite that Dole had lost it by only 4.5%. In the then-Republican bastion of Orange County, Al Gore became the first Democrat to crack 40% since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide.

Furthermore, Gore overwhelmingly won Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the state and the country, and swept the Bay Area (where Bush's father had won Napa County in 1988, the last time a Republican had won the state). In San Francisco, although Bush did improve slightly on Dole's vote share, he posted the second-worst showing of any major-party nominee (after Dole) since John Davis in 1924. Even though Green Party nominee Ralph Nader broke into double digits in the North Coast counties of Mendocino and Humboldt, as well as in Santa Cruz County, these factors helped Gore win statewide by a little over 1.3 million votes, greater than his national popular vote margin over Bush (although less than the raw vote margin whereby he won New York).

Apart from Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, the paleoconservative former adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan and two-time Republican presidential candidate, was on the ballot as the nominee of the Reform Party, which had been founded by Ross Perot in 1994. However, as in most of the rest of the country, Buchanan fell well short of Perot's 1996 performance in California, cracking 1% only in Glenn County (and in tiny Alpine County, where he received eight votes). Buchanan was essentially a non-factor, and California was projected for Gore upon poll-closing, at 11 PM EST.

Electors

Main article: List of 2000 United States presidential electors

Technically the voters of California cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. California is allocated 54 electors because it has 52 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 54 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 54 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman:

1. Sunil Aghi
2. Amy Arambula
3. Rachel Binah
4. R. Stephen Bollinger
5. Roberts Braden
6. Laura Karolina Capps
7. Anni Chung
8. Joseph A. Cislowski
9. Sheldon Cohn
10. Thor Emblem
11. Elsa Favila
12. John Freidenrich
13. Cecelia Fuentes
14. Glen Fuller
15. James Garrison
16. Sally Goehring
17. Florence Gold
18. Jill S. Hardy
19. Therese Horsting
20. Georgie Huff
21. Robert Eugene Hurd
22. Harriet A. Ingram
23. Robert Jordan
24. John Koza
25. John Laird
26. N. Mark Lam
27. Manuel M. Lopez
28. Henry Lozano
29. David Mann
30. Beverly Martin
31. R. Keith McDonald
32. Carol D. Norberg
33. Ron Oberndorfer
34. Gerard Orozco
35. Trudy Owens
36. Gregory S. Pettis
37. Flo Rene Pickett
38. Theodore H. Plant
39. Art Pulaski
40. Eloise Reyes
41. Alex Arthur Reza
42. C. Craig Roberts
43. Jason Rodríguez
44. Luis D. Rojas
45. Howard L. Schock
46. Lane Sherman
47. David A. Torres
48. Larry Trullinger
49. Angelo K. Tsakopoulos
50. Richard Valle
51. Karen Waters
52. Don Wilcox
53. William K. Wong
54. Rosalind Wyman