Perot "Wins" in 1992.

What follows is borderline ASB, and if the whole idea or elements thereof are utterly absurd I apologize. For a period in the 1992 election, independent candidate Ross Perot lead in the polling. Then of course, he lost considerable support arguably due to bizarre statements and his decision to quit, then reenter the race.

So, in this alternative 1992 Perot somehow manages to keep his poll numbers up albeit with a very slight dip. He wins every state he won at least 20% in IOTL.

The election turns out as follows:

genusmap-7.png


Perot/Stockdale (I):243
Clinton/Gore (D):207
Bush/Quayle (R):88

No candidate has 270 or more electoral votes. The election will be decided in the House. Though Ross Perot has won the majority of electoral votes, since he does not belong to either party, he has little congressional support. Hence the reason ''wins'' is in quotation marks in the title. The Democrats hold a majority of seats. If I understand the level of the Democratic majority and the nature of party politics, the House will in a very party line vote select Governor Clinton as the next President of the United States. If it's more likely that Perot could convince congress to select him of course, we end up with the Perot Presidency.

If Clinton is selected, how does this version of the 1992 election affect Clinton's early Presidency? And the public's perception of him?

What does Perot do between 1993-1996? Does he run again in 1996 as an independent? Does he still form the Reform Party?

What's the impact, if any on the Republican Party here?

Generally speaking what might 1996 look like under such circumstances?
 
I think you're probably right that the election would have been thrown into the House and Clinton would have been elected.

The idea of Perot actually winning pretty much died when he dropped out of the race during the Democratic convention, but it's certainly conceivable to construct a plausible scenario in which he avoids some of the worst gaffes of his campaign and does reasonably well. One problem was the selection of Adm. Stockdale as his running mate; the man was clearly out of his depth.

If Clinton won in this manner, it might have been a huge favor in the long run. I suspect that he would have stuck to his OTL priority of deficit reduction and avoided some of the missteps on social issues that hurt him in 1994. Had Clinton won, and implemented a lot of the Perot agenda as he did, it's conceivable to me that he could have picked up a fair number of Reform Party voters and avoided the 1994 debacle. I think under the circumstances, Clinton would have been forced to govern from the outset as a centrist, perhaps tackling some of the social issues like health care in a second term. The circumstances of his election possibly would have gotten him a lot of breathing room in dealing with the Democratic base, at least in the first term.
 
My impression of Perot is that he would not accept this sort of defeat well. After all, he won the most electoral votes, and yet he isn't sitting in the oval office. That would make anyone angry. I'm imagining Perot spending Clinton's first term in a very disgruntled mood. Meaning he's probably a leading figure in Clinton's opposition, even more so than he was IOTL. If he runs again in 1996, he's probably going to be taken more seriously than he was IOTL. He certainly gets into the 1996 debate, for example. Of course there is the possibility that Clinton/Gore could someone co-opt Perot policies, but I'm not sure that would be enough to placate the man himself.

As for the Admiral Stockdale problem, is there someone who might have been a better choice for Perot who easily comes to mind?
 
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