The 1996 campaign for president was never close. President Clinton's projected electoral votes never fell below the 271 he needed for re-election and Senator Dole peaked in March at 69 projected electoral votes. This essay uses two underutilized subnational data sets—the Hotline's “Electoral Scoreboards” and the Pew Center for the People and the Press's typology of American voters—to explain the apparent contradiction between Clinton's modest aggregate public approval ratings and his landslide re-election.
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