In OTL, Bush narrowly won the electoral college despite losing the popular vote by ~550,000 votes and a margin of 0.5%
I decided to see just how big of a popular vote loss I could get as Bush despite winning - and got
this
Bush loses the popular vote by a whopping 3.1 million votes, and a margin of 2.8%. In the electoral college however... he
also fails to gain a majority, with the vote being tied 269-269. The election is sent to the House, where Bush is elected President due to the solid Republican majority of state delegations. But only after perhaps a sizable amount of controversy and recounts in Iowa, which Bush won by just 0.01% and a little over a thousand votes, and which would have given Gore the victory had he won it (and there'd likely also be some angst over the fact that the Gore plus Nader votes in that state, combined, were higher than the Bush plus Buchanan votes combined)
Also, considering the way the House elections work when no Presidential candidate gets a majority of electoral votes (state delegations are what matters, so essentially each state has one vote, which is chosen by a majority of their representatives, rather than a simple vote in the House requiring a majority of representatives) and considering that OTL the Dems only needed 5 more seats to get a majority, its possible that the Democrats win a narrow majority in the House, and that Gore gets more representatives to vote for him than Bush. Which, again, wouldn't matter because the GOP had a solid majority of state delegations and that wouldn't change with a handful of additional seats won by the Dems, but it could lead to Bush having the notable quality of failing to win a majority (in a certain sense at least) in the popular vote, electoral vote,
and house of representatives
https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/1224387
Also, it is interesting to note just how unpolarized the race itself was nationally, despite whatever chances of sparking major polarization that the results could have. Only 12 states and DC were won by 10% or more by either party, and a whopping 30 states (with a total of 302 electoral votes) were narrowly won with a margin of 5% or less. Narrowly beating out the 1976 election, another close one, where 17 states, with a total electoral vote of 299, were won by 5% or less. Here's a map showing the margins...