What if George HW Bush won the 1992 election?

What if things go just right for Bush, and he wins 1992 in a landslide? Let’s say Perot waits until 1996, the Dems nominate someone weak (or Clinton is caught with his pants down in late October/early November), and he is able to keep his approval ratings up. Who in 1996? If the economy still improves, can the republicans win in 1996? Or does fatigue give a Democrat the keys to the White House? What about 2000 and 2004? Does the Great Recession still happen in 2008? Does Jeb still loose in 1994? Does Dubuya still win in 1994? Can Bill make a comeback in 1996? If Clinton doesn’t won’t he democratic nomination in 1996 then who? Jerry Brown? Mario Cuomo? Al Gore?
 
What if things go just right for Bush, and he wins 1992 in a landslide? Let’s say Perot waits until 1996, the Dems nominate someone weak (or Clinton is caught with his pants down in late October/early November), and he is able to keep his approval ratings up. Who in 1996? If the economy still improves, can the republicans win in 1996? Or does fatigue give a Democrat the keys to the White House? What about 2000 and 2004? Does the Great Recession still happen in 2008? Does Jeb still loose in 1994? Does Dubuya still win in 1994? Can Bill make a comeback in 1996? If Clinton doesn’t won’t he democratic nomination in 1996 then who? Jerry Brown? Mario Cuomo? Al Gore?

US foreign policy makes more sense, and the transition from alliance structure designed to win the Cold War to an alliance structure intended to deal with post-cold war problems and situations happens. As in it arguably didn't happen at all with a succession of Presidents whose emphasis and experience was domestic, unlike HW.

As to the consequences of a lack of a thought out transition:


OK, it's a little long, but how the lack of someone with George HW Bush's background in the white house has set up a major problem.
 
My immediate thought is that the Democrats keep the House in 1994. No Republican Revolution means George W. Bush loses to Richards in Texas.
 
The Waco Siege (which HW and William Barr were planning before Clinton's inauguration) would be far less controversial as I doubt Wayne LaPierre would criticize someone who's both the sitting President and an NRA executive.

Less intense "culture wars" without a gun-grabbing adulterer and a politically ambitious First Lady in the White House.
 
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My immediate thought is that the Democrats keep the House in 1994. No Republican Revolution means George W. Bush loses to Richards in Texas.
Does he run again in 1998 like Jeb? Who wins 1996? If a dem wins could there be a Republican Revolution in 1998? If so, who? Brown? Gore? Who? And who wins the Republican nomination? Dole? Quayle? Buchanan!?!?
 
Does he run again in 1998 like Jeb? Who wins 1996? If a dem wins could there be a Republican Revolution in 1998? If so, who? Brown? Gore? Who? And who wins the Republican nomination? Dole? Quayle? Buchanan!?!?

Both brothers might actually wait until 1998 if their father is still in the White House in 1994. Dubya had originally wanted to run in 1990, but he was dissuaded by his family. Probably because they wanted to avoid the controversy of a son running for office while dad is still president.

As I've mentioned on this site before, the Gingrich Revolution happened thanks to very specific circumstances that never would've occurred had Bill Clinton not become President in 1993. The economy hadn't improved enough to benefit the Democrats politically, Clinton's administration was widely seen as erratic, unfocused, and unconcerned with what mattered most to voters (the economy), and Clinton's major legislative initiative was a massive failure. In 1998 the economy will be booming, and a President who is competent in his first two years (and does not overreach) almost certainly does not face the same losses that Clinton did in 1994.
 
There are two electoral scenarios to re-elect George HW Bush, and they provide different optics.

The first is the "landslide" the OP formulated. After thinking this over, something like this is achievable with no Perot campaign, and a Clinton campaign that is heavier hit with scandals than IOTL, perhaps even to the point where he loses the Democratic nomination to either Tsongas (and then it comes out how bad Tsongas' health is) or Brown. Or Clinton gets nominated but left for dead. This creates a Nixonv vs McGovern scenario.

The second scenario, which is more plausible, is that Bush grinds out a narrow plurality victory, without nothing much changing during the campaign, just a bigger last minute swing towards Bush. Give Bush an extra 3% to his nationwide popular vote, take 4% off of Clinton, with Perot doing 1% better, and you get a nationwide popular vote win for Bush of about 1%. And yeah, for Electoral College fans I checked he he would get the Electoral College majority with that swing. Bush gets re-elected and sets a record for the lowest nationwide popular vote percentage, just over 40%, to re-elect a President. In fact, he is second to Lincoln (or third to Lincoln and JQ Adams) for the lowest nationwide popular vote of any presidential election winner.

The first scenario probably goes as the earlier commentators say, but the Democrats look alot weaker and less viable as a party. They may do better than they did in the 1994 congressional elections, but do worse in the 1992 elections. But since Bush was not really that popular when he wins his landslide, the bottom falls out of his support more suddenly when it happens. With the second scenario, the second Bush administration is pretty unpopular and contentious from the start, the best OTL parellel would be Trump, and he doesn't get much done. He may not even get NAFTA through in this scenario.

And some results in individual races in 1994 go the other way. Cuomo is probably elected for a fourth term as New York governor, Richards also wins in Texas, there is a good chance neither of the Bush sons are candidates for elected office, Tom Foley also wins re-election. Also there is a good chance the Dinkins beats Giuliani a second time for New York Mayor and Guiliani leaves politics in 1993, that race was really close and would have been affected by higher Democratic turnout.

Dole probably still wins the 1996 Republican nomination in either scenario. But with the Clinton meltdown/ Bush landslide scenario, the 1996 Democratic nomination is wide uopen. With the narrow plurality win scenario, there is a good chance the Democrats will run Clinton again, or nominate Gore. And the Perot campaign would be viewed differently in these timelines, given that in the first scenario he doesn't even get back into the race.
 
In 1998 the economy will be booming, and a President who is competent in his first two years (and does not overreach) almost certainly does not face the same losses that Clinton did in 1994.
Well who wins in ‘96? Is the economy good enough for annother 4 years of a Republican? Do democrats get back the White House and hang onto congress?
Bush landslide scenario, the 1996 Democratic nomination is wide uopen.
Who are some likely contenders? Does Ann Richards run since she would likely have been a 2 term governor? Does Brown give it annother go? How likely is it for Perot to run as a third party in 1996 if he doesn’t in 1992?
 
IIRC Quayle developed some kind of illness which prevented him from running in 1996 in OTL. But as the incumbent two-term VP I guess he could well have run come what may.
 
@TheAllTimeGreatest started a collaborative DBWI where we had Cuomo win in 1996. Given how close he came to running in 1992, he'd probably run in a year the Democrats are expected to at long last win after sixteen years of exile from the White House. Richards might run too, in which case she could become Cuomo's main Southern challenger. I'm not sure how a ticket of an Italian-American and a woman would be received in the heartland, but the combined charisma of both candidates could crush Quayle in the electoral college.
 
how close he came to running in 1992, he'd probably run in a year the Democrats are expected to at long last win after sixteen years of exile from the White House. Richards might run too, in which case she could become Cuomo's main Southern challenger.
If Cuomo decided not to run again (or somehow loses in ‘94), and Richards isn’t interested, then who else?

EDIT: Also, if Cuomo wins, who wins in 2000? If he gets re-elected, who wins in 2004? Does the recession still happen in 2008? Does it get butterflied? Does it happen earlier? Later?
 
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Let’s say Perot waits until 1996
After thinking this over, something like this is achievable with no Perot campaign
To be the obligatory pedant, Perot had no effect had no effect on the results of the 1992 election. One need only to look at Gallup polls after he dropped out of the race to see that Clinton had a 10-point lead in a one-on-one race. The main thing that got him (and which incited Perot's run in the first place) was the early 1990s recession and the jobless recovery.

As for what happens afterwards, there's really not any facts on which to base speculation. I don't really buy the idea of "party fatigue," so if the economy is still good in 1996, it's not impossible that the Republicans will win. 2008 recession is hard to predict since there were so many factors involved, but at least one of them was W. Bush's high-spending-low-taxes policy, which resulted in lower interest rates, which in turn spurred on the subprime mortgage crisis. So if a more fiscally responsible president takes the reigns in the 2000s, it's possible that it won't happen.
 
If Cuomo decided not to run again (or somehow loses in ‘94), and Richards isn’t interested, then who else?

EDIT: Also, if Cuomo wins, who wins in 2000? If he gets re-elected, who wins in 2004? Does the recession still happen in 2008? Does it get butterflied? Does it happen earlier? Later?

Without Cuomo, Richards, Clinton, and Gore, the Democrats wouldn't have any serious candidates except for Bill Bradley and John Kerry - who are both up for re-election in 1996. Bradley ultimately didn't run again in 1996, so maybe he would run for President that year.

Any Democrat would be re-elected in 2000. The economy was great and the President would get a popularily bump from the Kosovo War. 2004 is harder to pinpoint. It would depend on who is chosen as VP in 1996.
 
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