2000 United States Senate elections, Michigan
Abraham, who was first elected in the 1994 Republican Revolution despite never running for public office before, was considered vulnerable by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Major issues in the campaign included prescription drugs for the elderly. By September 4, Abraham still had failed to reach 50% in polls despite having spent over $6 million on television ads. In mid-October, he came back and reached 50% and 49% in two polls respectively.


2000 United States Senate elections, Michigan
The election was very close with Stabenow prevailing by just over 67,000 votes. Stabenow was also likely helped by the fact that Al Gore won Michigan on the presidential level. Ultimately, Stabenow pulled out huge numbers out of the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County, which covers the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Stabenow also performed well in other heavily populated areas such as Ingham County home to the state's capital of Lansing, and the college town of Ann Arbor.


2000 United States Senate elections, Michigan
Abraham did not concede right after major news networks declared Stabenow the winner; He held out hope that the few outstanding precincts could push him over the edge. At 4:00AM, Abraham conceded defeat. Senator Abraham called Stabenow and congratulated her on her victory. A historic election, Stabenow became the first woman to represent Michigan in the United States Senate.


2000 United States Senate elections, Minnesota
The race pitted incumbent Republican senator Rod Grams against former Minnesota State Auditor Mark Dayton.


2000 United States Senate elections, Mississippi
Incumbent Republican Trent Lott won re-election to a third term over perennial Democratic candidate Troy Brown.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
Incumbent Republican John Ashcroft lost the election to Governor Mel Carnahan, despite Carnahan's death three weeks before election day.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
In 1998, Ashcroft briefly considered running for president. On January 5, 1999, he announced that he would not seek the presidency and would instead defend his Senate seat in the 2000 election. Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan announced he would contest the Senate election as a Democrat.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
In the general election for the state's seat in the U.S. Senate, Ashcroft was facing then-Governor Mel Carnahan in a "tight" race, despite the senator having a larger budget than Carnahan, a war chest that included significant contributions from corporations such as Monsanto Company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, which gave five times more to Ashcroft's campaign fund than to the fund of any other congressional hopeful at the time.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
Carnahan was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the November election date. Nonetheless, Carnahan's name remained on the ballot due to Missouri's election laws. Lieutenant Governor Roger B. Wilson became Governor upon Carnahan's death, to serve the remaining term of Carnahan's governorship. Ashcroft suspended all campaigning on the day of the plane crash in light of the tragedy and resumed it eight days before the election date.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
The voters of Missouri, by a margin of approximately fifty thousand votes, chose for the U.S. Senate Mel Carnahan, their Governor who had died two weeks before the election. No one had ever posthumously won election to the Senate, though voters on at least three other occasions had until then chosen deceased candidates for the House of Representatives: Clement Woodnutt Miller (D) in California in 1962; Nick Begich (D) in Alaska, 1972; and Hale Boggs (D) in Louisiana, 1972. Hence, John Ashcroft became the first U.S. Senate candidate to be defeated by a dead opponent.


2000 United States Senate elections, Missouri
Governor Roger B. Wilson appointed Carnahan's 66-year-old widow, Jean Carnahan, to fill her husband's vacant seat until the next cycle of Senate elections when a successor could be elected to serve out the remaining four years of the deceased Carnahan's would-be term. Ashcroft stated that he hoped the appointment would be "a matter of comfort for Mrs. Carnahan."


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Incumbent Republican Conrad Burns won re-election to a third term.


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Though Sam Rankin won the Reform Party's nomination for the United States Senate, he dropped out of the race over the summer and was replaced by Gary Lee.


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Conrad, in a poll released September 21, was leading Schweitzer 48% to 39% that went down from 49% in November 1999. Schweitzer had his polls go up by 11 points.


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Burns faced a surprisingly difficult re-election campaign in 2000. In February 1999, he announced that he would break his 1988 promise to only hold office for two terms, claiming "Circumstances have changed, and I have rethought my position." Later that same month, while giving a speech about U.S. dependence on foreign oil to the Montana Equipment Dealers Association, he referred to Arabs as "ragheads". Burns soon apologized, saying he "became too emotionally involved" during the speech.


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Burns faced Brian Schweitzer, a rancher from Whitefish, Montana. While Burns attempted to link Schweitzer with presidential candidate Al Gore, whom Schweitzer never met, Schweitzer "effectively portrayed himself as nonpolitical". Schweitzer primarily challenged Burns on the issue of prescription drugs, organizing busloads of senior citizens to take trips to Canada and Mexico for cheaper medicine. Burns charged that Schweitzer favored "Canadian-style government controls" and claimed that senior citizens went to doctors to have "somebody to visit with. There's nothing wrong with them." Burns also faced trouble regarding deaths from asbestos in Libby, Montana. While he initially supported a bill to limit compensation in such cases, he withdrew his support for the bill, under public criticism, and added $11.5 million for the town to an appropriations bill.


2000 United States Senate elections, Montana
Burns spent twice as much money as Schweitzer on the election and only defeated him by a slim margin, 51-47 percent, while the state voted 58-33 percent for Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush. Schweitzer went on to become governor in 2004.


2000 United States Senate elections, Nebraska
Incumbent Democrat Bob Kerrey decided to retire. Democrat Ben Nelson won the open seat, beating Don Stenberg, the Republican Attorney General of Nebraska.


2000 United States Senate elections, Nevada
Incumbent Democrat Richard Bryan decided to retire, instead of seeking a third term. Republican nominee John Ensign won the open seat over Democratic attorney Ed Bernstein


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg decided to retire, rather than seeking a fourth term. The Democratic nominee, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Jon Corzine, defeated the Republican nominee, U.S. Representative Bob Franks, in a close election.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Senator Lautenberg, first elected to the Senate in 1982 in an upset victory over Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R-Bergen), had always been an underdog in all three bids for Senate. He beat Pete Dawkins in 1988 by a 54%-46% margin and held back a challenge from Chuck Haytaian by a smaller margin of 50%-47%. However, popular Governor Christine Todd Whitman was expected to challenge Lautenberg, and opinion polls showed Lautenberg losing by a large margin. He retired but later regretted his decision because Gov. Whitman and Former Governor Tom Kean both declined to run for the Senate. Lautenberg would be elected to the state's other Senate Seat in 2002.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Corzine spent $35 million of his own money into the Democratic primary election alone when running against Jim Florio, who served as the 49th Governor of New Jersey from 1990 to 1994. Governor Florio was unpopular during his tenure in office. Most notably, he signed a $2.8 Billion tax increase in 1990. It caused his party to lose control of the state government for a decade, and cost the Governor his re-election bid in 1993.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Corzine, running as an outsider, was endorsed by State senator Raymond Zane (D-Gloucester), State senator Wayne Bryant (D-Camden), State senator John Adler (D-Camden), U.S Representative Bob Menendez (D-Hudson) and U.S senator Bob Torricelli (D-NJ). Florio was endorsed by the State Party, Assemblyman Joe Doria (D-Hudson) and senator John Lynch (D-Middlesex).


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Corzine defeated Florio in the primary and then defeated Bob Franks in the general election.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Franks, a moderate Republican, attacked Corzine for "trying to buy the election and of advocating big-government spending programs that the nation can ill afford." Corzine accused Franks of wanting to dismantle the Social Security system because he supported Governor George W. Bush's partial privatization plan.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
During the campaign, Corzine refused to release his income tax return records. He claimed an interest in doing so, but he cited a confidentiality agreement with Goldman Sachs. Skeptics argued that he should have followed the example of his predecessor Robert Rubin, who converted his equity stake into debt upon leaving Goldman.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Corzine campaigned for state government programs including universal health care, universal gun registration, mandatory public preschool, and more taxpayer funding for college education. He pushed affirmative action and same-sex marriage. David Brooks considered Corzine so liberal that although his predecessor was also a Democrat, his election helped shift the Senate to the left.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
During Corzine's campaign for the United States Senate, he made some controversial off-color statements. When introduced to a man with an Italian name who said he was in the construction business, Corzine quipped: "Oh, you make cement shoes!" according to Emanuel Alfano, chairman of the Italian-American One Voice Committee. Alfano also reported that when introduced to a lawyer named David Stein, Corzine said: "He's not Italian, is he? Oh, I guess he's your Jewish lawyer who is here to get the rest of you out of jail." Corzine denied mentioning religion, but did not deny the quip about Italians, claiming that some of his own ancestors were probably Italian, or maybe French.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Also in 2000, Corzine denied having paid off African-American ministers, when in fact the foundation controlled by him and his wife had paid one influential black church $25,000. Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, director of the Black Ministers Council, had campaigned against a form of racial profiling whereby police officers stop minority drivers and had gotten New Jersey state police superintendent, Carl A. Williams, fired. Corzine had donated to Jackson prior to getting what appears to be a reciprocal endorsement.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Jersey
Franks generally trailed Corzine in the polls until the very last week, when he pulled even in a few polls. Corzine spent $63 million, while Franks spent only $6 million. Despite being heavily outspent, Franks lost by only three percentage points, doing better that year than Republican Governor George W. Bush in the presidential election, who obtained just 40% of the vote in the state.


2000 United States Senate elections, New Mexico
Incumbent Democrat Jeff Bingaman won re-election to a fourth term, beating Republican former Congressman Bill Redmond.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Hillary Rodham Clinton, then First Lady of the United States and the first First Lady to run for political office, defeated Congressman Rick Lazio. The general election coincided with the U.S. presidential election.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
The race began in November 1998 when four-term incumbent Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) announced his retirement. Both the Democratic Party and Republican Party sought high-profile candidates to compete for the open seat. By early 1999 Clinton and Mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani were the likely respective nominees. Clinton and her husband, President Bill Clinton, purchased a house in Chappaqua, New York, in September 1999; she thereby became eligible for the election, although she faced characterizations of carpetbagging since she had never resided in the state before.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
The lead in statewide polls swung from Clinton to Giuliani and back to Clinton as the campaigns featured both successful strategies and mistakes as well as dealing with current events. In late April and May 2000, Giuliani's medical, romantic, marital, and political lives all collided in a tumultuous four-week period, culminating in his withdrawing from the race on May 19.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
The Republicans chose lesser-known Congressman Rick Lazio to replace him. The election included a record $90 million in campaign expenditures between Clinton, Lazio, and Giuliani and national visibility. Clinton showed strength in normally Republican upstate areas and a debate blunder by Lazio solidified Clinton's previously shaky support among women.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
The contest drew considerable national attention and both candidates were well-funded. By the end of the race, Democrat Clinton and Republicans Lazio and Giuliani had spent a combined $90 million, the most of any U.S. Senate race in history. Lazio outspent Clinton $40 million to $29 million, with Clinton also getting several million dollars in soft money from Democratic organizations. Among Clinton antagonists circles, direct mail-based fundraising groups such as the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprung up, sending out solicitations regarding the "carpetbagging" issue: just as one Clinton leaves office, another one runs.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Clinton secured a broad base of support, including endorsements from conservation groups and organized labor, but notably not the New York City police union which endorsed Lazio while firefighters supported Hillary. While Clinton had a solid base of support in New York City, candidates and observers expected the race to be decided in upstate New York where 45 percent of the state's voters live. During the campaign, Clinton vowed to improve the economic picture in upstate New York, promising that her plan would deliver 200,000 New York jobs over six years.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Her plan included specific tax credits with the purpose of rewarding job creation and encouraging business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for targeted personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care. Lazio faced a unique tactical problem campaigning upstate. The major issue there was the persistently weak local economy, which Lazio hoped to link to his opponent's husband's tenure in office. Attacks on the state of the upstate economy were frequently interpreted as criticism of incumbent Republican governor George Pataki, however, limiting the effect of this line of attack.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Opponents continued to make the carpetbagging issue a focal point throughout the race and during debates. Talk radio hammered on this, with New York-based Sean Hannity issuing a daily mantra, "Name me three things Hillary Clinton has ever done for the people of New York!" Clinton's supporters pointed out that the state was receptive to national leaders, such as Robert F. Kennedy who was elected to the Senate in 1964 despite similar accusations. In the end, according to exit polls conducted in the race, a majority of the voters dismissed the carpetbagging issue as unimportant.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
During the campaign, Independent Counsel Robert Ray filed his final reports regarding the long-running Whitewater, "Travelgate", and "Filegate" investigations of the White House, each of which included specific investigations of Hillary Clinton actions. The reports exonerated her on the files matter, said there was insufficient evidence regarding her role in Whitewater, and said that she had made factually false statements regarding the Travel Office firings but there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her. Although The New York Times editorialized that the release of the reports seemed possibly timed to coincide with the Senate election, in practice the findings were not seen as likely to sway many voters' opinions.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
A September 13, 2000 debate between Lazio and Clinton proved important. Lazio was on the warpath against soft money and the amounts of it coming from the Democratic National Committee into Clinton's campaign, and challenged Clinton to agree to ban soft money from both campaigns. He left his podium and waved his proposed paper agreement in Clinton's face; many debate viewers thought he had invaded her personal space and as a result Clinton's support among women voters solidified.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Late in the campaign Lazio criticised Clinton for accepting campaign donations from various Arab groups in the wake of the USS Cole attack. This issue caused former New York Mayor Ed Koch to take out ads telling Lazio to "stop with the sleaze already," and did not change the dynamic of the race.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Clinton won the election on November 7 with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent, a difference larger than most observers had expected. Clinton won the traditionally Democratic base of New York City by large margins, and carried suburban Westchester County, but lost heavily populated Long Island, part of which Lazio represented in Congress. She won surprising victories in Upstate counties, such as Cayuga, Rensselaer, and Niagara, to which her win has been attributed.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
In comparison with other results, this 12 percentage point margin was smaller than Gore's 25 point margin over Bush in the state Presidential contest, was slightly larger than the 10 point margin by which fellow New York senator Charles Schumer defeated incumbent Republican Al D'Amato in the hotly contested 1998 race, but was considerably smaller than the 47 point margin by which senator Schumer won re-election in 2004 against little-known Republican challenger Howard Mills. The victory of a Democrat in the Senate election was not assured, because in recent decades the Republicans had won about half the elections for governor and senator.


2000 United States Senate elections, New York
Lazio's bid was handicapped by the weak performance of George W. Bush in New York in the 2000 election, but it was also clear Hillary Clinton had made substantial inroads in upstate New York prior to Lazio's entry into the race. Exit polls also showed a large gender gap with Clinton running stronger than expected among moderate women and unaffiliated women.


2000 United States Senate elections, North Dakota
Incumbent Dem-NPL U.S. senator Kent Conrad won re-election to a third term, over Republican Naval Reserve officer Duane Sand.


2000 United States Senate elections, Ohio
Incumbent Republican Mike DeWine won re-election to a second term, beating Democrat Ted Celeste, real estate developer and brother of former Ohio Governor Dick Celeste.


2000 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Incumbent Republican Rick Santorum won re-election to a second term over Democratic Congressman Ron Klink.


2000 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Santorum had gained a reputation as a polarizing figure during his first term in the Senate, but he entered the race with a large fundraising advantage and high levels of support from the political right. The contest began for Democrats with a brutal primary challenge; U.S. Congressman Klink narrowly bested State senator Allyson Schwartz and former Lieutenant Governor nominee Tom Foley by running on the message that he was the only candidate capable of defeating the Republican.


2000 United States Senate elections, Pennsylvania
Klink was viewed as a viable choice because he was a traditional Democrat on most issues and had strong union ties but also was pro-life, which Democrats hoped would return votes to their party in the heavily Catholic but economically liberal coal regions of the state. However, enthusiasm around Klink's campaign quickly waned. Liberal Democrats, particularly in the Philadelphia area, balked at donating to a socially conservative candidate who was almost unknown in their area. He was also badly outspent, leaving him unable to expand his presence in the state; he didn't run a single ad on Philadelphia television. Santorum, in contrast, successfully balanced his national recognition on social issues with local concerns en route to a surprisingly large victory.


2000 United States Senate elections, Rhode Island
Incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee was elected his first full term after being appointed in 1999 to fill the seat of his father John Chafee who died on October 24, 1999. As of 2020, this is the last Senate election in Rhode Island won by a Republican.


2000 United States Senate elections, Tennessee
Incumbent Republican Bill Frist won re-election to a second term.


2000 United States Senate elections, Tennessee
The Democratic primary was held August 3, 2000. In a field of five candidates, Jeff Clark, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, edged out John Jay Hooker to win the nomination.


2000 United States Senate elections, Texas
Incumbent Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison won re-election to a second term, beating Democrat Gene Kelly, a retired attorney.


2000 United States Senate elections, Utah
Incumbent Republican Orrin Hatch won re-election to a fifth term, beating Democratic State senator Scott N. Howell.


2000 United States Senate elections, Vermont
Incumbent Republican Jim Jeffords won re-election to a third term in office, over Ed Flanagan, Vermont Auditor of Accounts. Jeffords switched from being a Republican to an independent, who would caucus with the Democratic Party, thus breaking the 50-50 lock. As of 2021, this is the last Senate election in Vermont won by a Republican.


2000 United States Senate elections, Virginia
Incumbent Democrat Chuck Robb ran for a third term, but lost to Republican George Allen.


2000 United States Senate elections, Washington
Incumbent Republican Slade Gorton ran for a third consecutive term (fourth overall), but was unseated for a second time (the first being 1986) by Democratic candidate, former Congresswoman Maria Cantwell.


2000 United States Senate elections, Washington
Since Maria Cantwell had only won by 2,229 votes, an automatic recount was triggered. Cantwell won the recount, but it was still one of the closest elections in Washington state history. On November 17, 2000, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed declared Cantwell the senator-elect.


2000 United States Senate elections, West Virginia
Incumbent Democrat Robert Byrd won re-election to an eighth term. He won every county and congressional district in the state.


2000 United States Senate elections, Wisconsin
Incumbent Democrat Herb Kohl won re-election to a third term.


2000 United States Senate elections, Wyoming
Incumbent Republican Craig Thomas won re-election to a second term over Democratic mine worker Mel Logan.


2000 United States Senate special election in Georgia
The 2000 Georgia United States Senate special election was held on November 7, 2000. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Zell Miller, who was appointed by Governor Roy Barnes to replace the deceased Paul Coverdell, overwhelmingly won re-election to serve the remainder of the term. Miller defeated Republican Mack Mattingly, a former U.S. Senator, by over 20 percentage points, carrying 110 of the state's 120 counties.


2000 United States Senate special election in Georgia
This was the last time a Georgia Democrat was elected to the U.S. Senate by double-digits. It was also the last time a Georgia Democrat was elected to the U.S. Senate until 2021, when Raphael Warnock won a special election to fill the same seat and Jon Ossoff won the regular election for the Class 2 Senate seat.


2000 United States Senate special election in Georgia, Candidates
Note: This election was a non-partisan election due to it being a special election. Each candidate ran without a party. The parties below reflect which party label each candidate would have run under if given the option.


2000 United States Senate special election in Georgia, Campaign
One of the biggest campaign issues was Social Security. Miller attacked Mattingly for supporting a raise in the retirement age. The Republican fought back by connecting him to liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and on his vote to block legislation aimed at protecting Social Security. Mattingly said he would vote for Texas Governor George W. Bush for president, who was very popular in the state and led Vice President Al Gore in many Georgia polls. Mattingly then asked Miller who he was supporting in the presidential election.


2000 United States Senate special election in Georgia, Campaign
Miller conceded he would vote for Gore because he helped him when he was governor including drought relief, welfare reform, and the Atlanta Olympics. "That does not mean I agree with all of his policies," he concluded. In early October, a poll showed Miller leading with 59% of the vote, despite the fact that Bush was leading Gore by a double-digit margin.


2000 United States Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia
The 2000 Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia took place on November 7, 2000, to elect a shadow member to the United States House of Representatives to represent the District of Columbia. Unlike non-voting delegates, the Shadow Representative is only recognized by the District of Columbia and is not officially sworn or seated. One-term incumbent Tom Bryant declined to run for reelection and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Ray Browne.


2000 United States Shadow Representative election in the District of Columbia, Primary elections
Primary elections were held on September 12. Browne, Thomas, and Olusegun faced no opposition while Shumake did not appear on the primary ballot.


2000 United States Shadow Senator election in the District of Columbia
The 2000 United States Senate election in the District of Columbia took place on November 7, 2000, to elect a shadow member to the United States Senate to represent the District of Columbia. The member is only recognized by the District of Columbia and is not officially sworn or seated by the United States Senate.


2000 United States Shadow Senator election in the District of Columbia
Incumbent Shadow Senator Florence Pendleton won reelection to a third term.


2000 United States Shadow Senator election in the District of Columbia, General election
Janet Helms, the Republican nominee, withdrew prior to the election. Pendleton won with nearly 90% of the vote.


2000 United States Virgin Islands Senate referendum
A referendum on the reduction of the Senate was held in the United States Virgin Islands on 7 November 2000. Voters were first asked if they wanted to reduce the size of the Senate from its current membership of 15. They were then asked the reduced size of Senate that they preferred – either nine or eleven seats. While a reduction was overwhelmingly approved and voters chose a reduction to nine seats, the referendum was non-binding and was not implemented.


2000 United States census
The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 census. This was the twenty-second federal census and was at the time the largest civilly administered peacetime effort in the United States.


2000 United States census
Approximately 16 percent of households received a "long form" of the 2000 census, which contained over 100 questions. Full documentation on the 2000 census, including census forms and a procedural history, is available from  the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.


2000 United States census
This was the first census in which a state—California—recorded a population of over 30 million, as well as the first in which two states—California and Texas—recorded populations greater than 20 million.


2000 United States census, Data availability
Microdata from the 2000 census is freely available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Aggregate data for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. Personally identifiable information will be available in 2072.


2000 United States census, Population profile
The U.S. resident population includes the total number of people in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Bureau also enumerated the residents of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico; its population was 3,808,610, an 8.1% increase over the number from a decade earlier.


2000 United States census, Population profile
In an introduction to a more detailed population profile (see references below), the Census Bureau highlighted the following facts about U.S. population dynamics:


2000 United States census, Changes in population
Regionally, the South and West experienced the bulk of the nation's population increase: 14,790,890 and 10,411,850, respectively. This meant that the mean center of U.S. population moved to Phelps County, Missouri. The Northeast grew by 2,785,149; the Midwest by 4,724,144.


2000 United States census, Reapportionment
The results of the census are used to determine how many congressional districts each state is apportioned. Congress defines the formula, in accordance with Title 2 of the U.S. Code, to reapportion among the states the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives. The apportionment population consists of the resident population of the fifty states, plus the overseas military and federal civilian employees and their dependents living with them who could be allocated to a state. Each member of the House represents a population of about 647,000. The populations of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are excluded from the apportionment population because they do not have voting seats in the U. S. House of Representatives.


2000 United States census, Reapportionment
Since the first census in 1790, the decennial count has been the basis for the United States representative form of government. Article I, Section II specifies that "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative." In 1790, each member of the House represented about 34,000 residents. Since then, the House more than quadrupled in size, and in 1911 the number of representatives was fixed at 435. Today, each member represents about 20 times as many constituents.


2000 United States census, Adjustment controversy
In the years leading up to the 2000 census, there was substantial controversy over whether the Bureau should adjust census figures based on a follow-up survey, called the post-enumeration survey, of a sample of blocks. (In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the Constitution prohibits the use of such figures for apportionment purposes, but it may be permissible for other purposes where feasible.) The controversy was partly technical, but also partly political, since based on data from the 1990 census both parties believed that adjustment would likely have the effect, after redistricting, of slightly increasing Democratic representation in legislative bodies, but would also give Utah an additional, probably Republican, representative to Congress.


2000 United States census, Adjustment controversy
Following the census, discrepancies between the adjusted census figures and demographic estimates of population change could not be resolved in time to meet legal deadlines for the provision of redistricting data, and the Census Bureau therefore recommended that the unadjusted results be used for this purpose. This recommendation was followed by the Secretary of Commerce (the official in charge of making the determination).


2000 United States census, Utah controversy
After the census was tabulated, Utah challenged the results in two different ways. Utah was extremely close to gaining a fourth congressional seat, falling 857 people short, which in turn was allocated to North Carolina. The margin was later shortened to 80 people, after the federal government discovered that it overcounted the population of North Carolina by 2,673 residents. The Census Bureau counted members of the military and other federal civilian employees serving abroad as residents of their home state but did not count other people living outside the United States.


2000 United States census, Utah controversy
Utah claimed that people traveling abroad as religious missionaries should be counted as residents and that the failure to do so imposed a burden on Mormon religious practice. Almost half of all Mormon missionaries, more than 11,000 people, were from Utah; only 102 came from North Carolina. If this policy were changed, then Utah would have received an additional seat instead of North Carolina. On November 26, 2002, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling that rejected Utah's efforts to have Mormon missionaries counted.


2000 United States census, Utah controversy
The state of Utah then filed another lawsuit alleging that the statistical methods used in computing the state populations were improper and cost Utah the seat. The Bureau uses a method called imputation to assign a number of residents to addresses where residents cannot be reached after multiple efforts. While nationwide the imputation method added 0.4% to the population, the rate in Utah was 0.2%. The state challenged that the use of imputation violates the Census Act of 1957 and that it also fails the Constitution's requirement in Article I, Section 2 that an "actual enumeration" be used for apportionment. This case, Utah v. Evans, made it to the Supreme Court, but Utah was again defeated.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
The census forms did not include any questions regarding sexual orientation, making it impossible to compile data comparing heterosexual and homosexual populations. However, two questions were asked that allowed same-sex partnerships to be counted. The questionnaires asked the sex of each person in a household and they asked what the relationship was between each of the members of the household. Respondents could check "Husband/wife" or "unmarried partner" or a number of other relationships. Responses were tabulated and the Census Bureau reported that there were more than 658,000 same-sex couples heading households in the United States.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
However, only about 25% of gay men and 40% of lesbians are in shared-household partnerships at any one time, according to non-census surveys. For every same-sex couple tallied in the census, there could be three to six more homosexual un-partnered individuals who would not be counted as gay. The census reported that same-sex male couples numbered 336,001 and female same-sex couples numbered 329,522. Extrapolating from those figures and the surveyed partnering habits of homosexuals, as many as 4.3 million homosexual adults could have been living in the U.S. in 2000.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
The exact number cannot be known because the census did not count them specifically. Bisexual and transgender populations were not counted, either, because there were no questions regarding this information. Also unavailable is the number of additional same-sex couples living under the same roof as the first, though this applies to additional heterosexual couples as well. The lack of accurate numbers makes it difficult for lawmakers who are considering legislation on hate crimes or social services for gay families with children. It also makes for less accuracy when predicting the fertility of a population.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
Another issue that concerned gay rights advocates involved the automatic changing of data during the tabulation process. This automatic software data compiling method, called allocation, was designed to counteract mistakes and discrepancies in returned questionnaires. Forms that were filled out by two same-sex persons who checked the "Husband/wife" relationship box were treated as a discrepancy. The Census Bureau explained that same-sex "Husband/wife" data samples were changed to "unmarried partner" by computer processing methods in 99% of the cases.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
In the remaining 1%, computer systems used one of two possibilities: a) one of the two listed sexes was changed, making the partnership appear heterosexual, or b) if the two partners were more than 15 years apart in age, they might have been reassigned into a familial parent/child relationship. The process of automatic reassignment of same-sex marriage data was initiated so that the Census Bureau would not contravene the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996. The Act states:


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.


2000 United States census, Gay and lesbian controversy
With allocation moving married same-sex couples to the unmarried partner category, social scientists lost information that could have been extracted relating to the social stability of a same-gender couple who identify themselves as married.


2000 United States elections
The 2000 United States elections were held on November 7, 2000. Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee in the presidential election. Republicans retained control of both houses of Congress, giving the party unified control of Congress and the presidency for the first time since the 1954 elections.


2000 United States elections
With Democratic President Bill Clinton term-limited, Gore won his party's nomination by defeating Senator Bill Bradley in the Democratic primaries. Bush defeated Senator John McCain in the Republican primaries to win his party's presidential nomination. Bush took 271 of the 538 electoral votes, winning the decisive state of Florida by a margin of 537 votes after a recount was halted by the Supreme Court in the case of Bush v. Gore. Bush was the first winning presidential candidate to lose the popular vote since the 1888 presidential election.


2000 United States elections
Democrats picked up a net of four seats in the Senate, tying Republicans, however Dick Cheney provided the tie-breaking vote as Vice President of the United States. Democrats also picked up a net of one seat in the House, but Republicans retained a overall narrow majority. In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats won a net gain of one seat.


2000 United States elections, Federal elections, President
In the 2000 presidential election, Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore. The election was eye-catchingly close, but was the third straight election where neither party won a majority of the popular vote.


2000 United States elections, Federal elections, United States Senate
The 33 seats in the United States Senate Class 1 were up for election plus one special election. Democrats picked up net of four seats. Six senators were defeated in the November 2000 election. The five defeated Republicans included Spencer Abraham of Michigan, John Ashcroft of Missouri, Slade Gorton of Washington, Rod Grams of Minnesota, and William V. Roth of Delaware. The single defeated Democrat was Charles S. Robb of Virginia.


2000 United States elections, Federal elections, United States Senate
The Senate elections left both parties with control of fifty Senate seats. In the subsequent 107th United States Congress, Democrats controlled the Senate from January 3, 2001 to January 20, 2001, when Dick Cheney was sworn in as vice president. Republicans maintained control of the chamber until June 6, 2001, when Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party and began caucusing with the Democrats.


2000 United States elections, Federal elections, United States House of Representatives
Republicans won the national popular vote for the House of Representatives by a margin of 0.5 points. Republicans lost two seats in the House, while Democrats gained 1 seat and 1 independent, Virgil Goode, was elected. Following the 2000 election, the majority of the House seaters in the South and Midwest were held by the Republican party, while the larger number of seats in the Northeast and West were held by the Democratic party.


2000 United States elections, State elections
One sitting governor was defeated in the November 2000 general election. Cecil H. Underwood, Republican of West Virginia, concluded the 2000 election with a 47.2 election percentage. Bob Wise, Democrat, was elected to a four-year term.


2000 United States elections, Local elections, Mayoral elections
Some of the major American cities that held their mayoral elections in 2000 included:


2000 United States federal budget
The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2000, was a spending request by President Bill Clinton to fund government operations for October 1999-September 2000. Figures shown in the spending request do not reflect the actual appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000, which must be authorized by Congress.


2000 United States gubernatorial elections
The 2000 United States gubernatorial elections were held on November 7, 2000, in 11 states and two territories. The elections coincided with the presidential election.


2000 United States men's Olympic basketball team
The men's national basketball team of the United States won the gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. They defeated France by a score of 85–75 in the gold medal game. Team USA won gold for the twelfth time in fourteen Olympic basketball tournaments.


2000 United States men's Olympic basketball team, Results
In the Preliminary Round, Team USA was undefeated (5-0), and qualified for the quarterfinals. In the knockout rounds, Team USA faced Russia (Quarterfinals), Lithuania (Semifinals), and France (Gold Medal Game).


2000 United States presidential debates
The United States presidential election debates were held during the 2000 presidential election. Three debates were held between Republican candidate, Texas Governor George W. Bush and Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore, the major candidates. One debate was held with their vice presidential running mates, Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman. All four debates were sponsored by the non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which has organized presidential debates since its establishment in 1987.


2000 United States presidential debates
The vice presidential debate was held on October 5 at Centre College. The presidential debates were held on October 3 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, October 11 at Wake Forest University, and October 17 at Washington University in St. Louis, ahead of the November 7 Election Day. Jim Lehrer moderated each of the presidential debates. In each of the first two debates, the candidates received questions in turn with two minutes to answer and a 60-second rebuttal. The third and final debate featured a town hall meeting format.


2000 United States presidential debates, Participant selection
In 2000, the following eight candidates achieved ballot access in enough states to mathematically win the election via the Electoral College:


2000 United States presidential debates, Participant selection
Responding to criticism received from the exclusion of Ross Perot in the 1996 campaign, the Commission on Presidential Debates adjusted the criteria used to invite candidates, announcing on January 6, 2000 that third-party candidates would have to reach 15 percent in pre-debate polls to receive an invitation.


2000 United States presidential debates, Participant selection
Only Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore met the CPD selection criteria for any of the presidential debates. As a result, only Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman met the criteria for the vice presidential debate.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 3: First presidential debate (University of Massachusetts Boston)
The debate was held in the Clark Athletic Center on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Jim Lehrer of PBS' The NewsHour posed the questions for each candidate. An estimated 46.6 million viewers tuned into the debate.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 5: Vice presidential debate (Centre College)
Dick Cheney, Republican candidate for vice president debated Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic candidate for vice president. The debate was held at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. The candidates discussed issues such as Medicare, Social Security, economic issues, the surplus, the future of the U.S. military and its decline of morale, and drugs in school and education reform.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 5: Vice presidential debate (Centre College)
Reflecting on the debate in 2016, Lieberman called it one of his proudest moments of the campaign, citing the debate's civil tone.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 5: Vice presidential debate (Centre College)
The debate was held in the Norton Center for the Arts on the campus of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Bernard Shaw of CNN posed the questions for each candidate. An estimated 28.5 million viewers tuned into the debate.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 11: Second presidential debate (Wake Forest University)
The debate was held in the Wait Chapel on the campus of the Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Jim Lehrer of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program The NewsHour posed the questions for each candidate. An estimated 37.5 million viewers tuned into the debate.


2000 United States presidential debates, October 17: Third presidential debate (Washington University in St. Louis)
The debate was held at the Field House on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Jim Lehrer moderated the town hall-style debate, featuring questions asked by members of the audience. An estimated 37.7 million viewers tuned into the debate.


2000 United States presidential election
The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, won the election, defeating incumbent Vice President Al Gore. It was the fourth of five American presidential elections, and the first  since 1888, in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote, and is considered one of the closest elections in US history, with longstanding controversy surrounding the ultimate results.


2000 United States presidential election
Incumbent Bill Clinton was ineligible for a third term, and Gore secured the Democratic nomination with relative ease, defeating a challenge by former Senator Bill Bradley. Bush was seen as the early favorite for the Republican nomination and despite a contentious primary battle with Senator John McCain and others, secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. Bush chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate, while Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman.


2000 United States presidential election
Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Due to President Bill Clinton's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton. Republicans denounced Clinton's indiscretions, while Gore criticized Bush's lack of experience. On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the electoral votes of the state of Florida still undecided. The returns showed that Bush had won Florida by such a close margin that state law required a recount. A month-long series of legal battles led to the highly controversial 5–4 Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, which ended the recount.


2000 United States presidential election
The recount having been ended, Bush won Florida by 537 votes, a margin of 0.009%. The Florida recount and subsequent litigation resulted in major post-election controversy, and with speculative analysis suggesting that limited county-based recounts would likely have confirmed a Bush victory, whereas a statewide recount would likely have given the state to Gore. Ultimately, Bush won 271 electoral votes, one vote more than the 270-to-win majority, despite Gore receiving 543,895 more votes (a margin of 0.52% of all votes cast). Bush won 11 states that had voted Democratic in the 1996 election: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.


2000 United States presidential election, Background
Article Two of the United States Constitution dictates that the President and Vice President of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for a period of at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the political parties, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position.


2000 United States presidential election, Background
Traditionally, the primary elections are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the president and vice president.


2000 United States presidential election, Background
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and former Governor of Arkansas, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to the Twenty-second Amendment, and in accordance with Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at noon Eastern Time on January 20, 2001.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
Bush became the early front-runner, acquiring unprecedented funding and a broad base of leadership support based on his governorship of Texas and the Bush family's name recognition and connections in American politics. Former cabinet member George Shultz played an important early role in securing establishment Republican support for Bush. In April 1998, he invited Bush to discuss policy issues with experts including Michael Boskin, John Taylor, and Condoleezza Rice, who later became his Secretary of State. The group, which was "looking for a candidate for 2000 with good political instincts, someone they could work with", was impressed, and Shultz encouraged him to enter the race.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
Several aspirants withdrew before the Iowa Caucus because they did not secure funding and endorsements sufficient to remain competitive with Bush. These included Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Smith. Pat Buchanan dropped out to run for the Reform Party nomination. That left Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch as the only candidates still in the race.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
On January 24, Bush won the Iowa caucus with 41% of the vote. Forbes came in second with 30% of the vote. Keyes received 14%, Bauer 9%, McCain 5%, and Hatch 1%. Two days later, Hatch dropped out and endorsed Bush. The national media portrayed Bush as the establishment candidate. McCain, with the support of many moderate Republicans and Independents, portrayed himself as a crusading insurgent who focused on campaign reform.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
On February 1, McCain won a 49–30% victory over Bush in the New Hampshire primary. Bauer subsequently dropped out, followed by Forbes, who came in third in the Delaware primary. This left three candidates. In the South Carolina primary, Bush soundly defeated McCain. Some McCain supporters accused the Bush campaign of mudslinging and dirty tricks, such as push polling that implied that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was an African-American child he fathered out of wedlock. McCain's loss in South Carolina damaged his campaign, but he won both Michigan and his home state of Arizona on February 22.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
(The primary election that year also affected the South Carolina State House, when a controversy about the Confederate flag flying over the capitol dome prompted the state legislature to move the flag to a less prominent position at a Civil War memorial on the capitol grounds. Most GOP candidates said the issue should be left to South Carolina voters, but McCain later recanted and said the flag should be removed.)


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
On February 24, McCain criticized Bush for accepting the endorsement of Bob Jones University despite its policy banning interracial dating. On February 28, McCain also referred to Jerry Falwell and televangelist Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance", a term he distanced himself from during his 2008 bid. He lost Virginia to Bush on February 29. On Super Tuesday, March 7, Bush won New York, Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, California, Maryland, and Maine. McCain won Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, but dropped out of the race.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
McCain became the Republican presidential nominee 8 years later, but lost the general election to Barack Obama. On March 10, Keyes got 21% of the vote in Utah. Bush took the majority of the remaining contests and won the Republican nomination on March 14, winning his home state of Texas and his brother Jeb's home state of Florida, among others. At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush accepted the nomination.


2000 United States presidential election, Republican Party nomination, Primaries
Bush asked former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to head up a team to help select a running mate for him, but ultimately chose Cheney himself as the vice presidential nominee. While the U.S. Constitution does not specifically disallow a president and a vice president from the same state, it does prohibit electors from casting both of his or her votes for persons from his or her own state. Accordingly, Cheney—who had been a resident of Texas for nearly 10 years—changed his voting registration back to Wyoming. Had Cheney not done this, either he or Bush would have forfeited his electoral votes from Texas.


2000 United States presidential election, Democratic Party nomination, Primary
Al Gore from Tennessee was a consistent front-runner for the nomination. Other prominent Democrats mentioned as possible contenders included Bob Kerrey, Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, and actor and director Warren Beatty. Of these, only Wellstone formed an exploratory committee.


2000 United States presidential election, Democratic Party nomination, Primary
Running an insurgency campaign, Bradley positioned himself as the alternative to Gore, who was a founding member of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. While former basketball star Michael Jordan campaigned for him in the early primary states, Bradley announced his intention to campaign "in a different way" by conducting a positive campaign of "big ideas". His campaign's focus was a plan to spend the record-breaking budget surplus on a variety of social welfare programs to help the poor and the middle class, along with campaign finance reform and gun control.


2000 United States presidential election, Democratic Party nomination, Primary
Gore easily defeated Bradley in the primaries, largely because of support from the Democratic Party establishment and Bradley's poor showing in the Iowa caucus, where Gore successfully painted Bradley as aloof and indifferent to the plight of farmers. The closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary. On March 14, Gore clinched the Democratic nomination.


2000 United States presidential election, Democratic Party nomination, Primary
None of Bradley's delegates were allowed to vote for him, so Gore won the nomination unanimously at the Democratic National Convention. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was nominated for vice president by voice vote. Lieberman became the first Jewish American ever to be chosen for this position by a major party. Gore chose Lieberman over five other finalists: Senators Evan Bayh, John Edwards, and John Kerry, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, and New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen.


2000 United States presidential election, Other nominations, Reform Party nomination
The nomination went to Pat Buchanan and running mate Ezola Foster from California over the objections of party founder Ross Perot and despite a rump convention nomination of John Hagelin by the Perot faction. In the end, the Federal Election Commission sided with Buchanan, and that ticket appeared on 49 of 51 possible ballots.


2000 United States presidential election, Other nominations, Association of State Green Parties nomination
The Greens/Green Party USA, the then-recognized national party organization, later endorsed Nader for president and he appeared on the ballots of 43 states and DC.


2000 United States presidential election, Other nominations, Libertarian Party nomination
The Libertarian Party's National Nominating Convention nominated Harry Browne from Tennessee and Art Olivier from California for president and vice president. Browne was nominated on the first ballot and Olivier received the vice presidential nomination on the second ballot. Browne appeared on every state ballot except Arizona's, due to a dispute between the Libertarian Party of Arizona (which instead nominated L. Neil Smith) and the national Libertarian Party.


2000 United States presidential election, Other nominations, Constitution Party nomination
The Constitution Party nominated Howard Phillips from Virginia for a third time and Curtis Frazier from Missouri. It was on the ballot in 41 states.


2000 United States presidential election, Other nominations, Natural Law Party nomination
The Natural Law Party held its national convention in Arlington, Virginia, on August 31–September 2, unanimously nominating a ticket of Hagelin/Goldhaber without a roll-call vote. The party was on 38 of the 51 ballots nationally.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Although the campaign focused mainly on domestic issues, such as the projected budget surplus, proposed reforms of Social Security and Medicare, health care, and competing plans for tax relief, foreign policy was often an issue.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Bush criticized Clinton administration policies in Somalia, where 18 Americans died in 1993 trying to sort out warring factions, and in the Balkans, where United States peacekeeping troops perform a variety of functions. "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building", Bush said in the second presidential debate. Bush also pledged to bridge partisan gaps, claiming the atmosphere in Washington stood in the way of progress on necessary reforms. Gore, meanwhile, questioned Bush's fitness for the job, pointing to gaffes Bush made in interviews and speeches and suggesting he lacked the necessary experience to be president.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Bill Clinton's impeachment and the sex scandal that led up to it cast a shadow on the campaign. Republicans strongly denounced the Clinton scandals, and Bush made a promise to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House a centerpiece of his campaign. Gore studiously avoided the Clinton scandals, as did Lieberman, even though Lieberman had been the first Democratic senator to denounce Clinton's misbehavior. Some observers theorized that Gore chose Lieberman in an attempt to separate himself from Clinton's past misdeeds and help blunt the GOP's attempts to link him to his boss.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Others pointed to the passionate kiss Gore gave his wife during the Democratic Convention as a signal that despite the allegations against Clinton, Gore himself was a faithful husband. Gore avoided appearing with Clinton, who was shunted to low-visibility appearances in areas where he was popular. Experts have argued that this could have cost Gore votes from some of Clinton's core supporters.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Ralph Nader was the most successful of the third-party candidates. His campaign was marked by a traveling tour of large "super-rallies" held in sports arenas like Madison Square Garden, with retired talk show host Phil Donahue as master of ceremonies. After initially ignoring Nader, the Gore campaign made a pitch to potential Nader supporters in the campaign's final weeks, downplaying his differences with Nader on the issues and arguing that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were and that Gore had a better chance of winning than Nader. On the other side, the Republican Leadership Council ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in an effort to split the liberal vote. Nader said his campaign's objective was to pass the 5-percent threshold so his Green Party would be eligible for matching funds in future races.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign
Vice-presidential candidates Cheney and Lieberman campaigned aggressively. Both camps made numerous campaign stops nationwide, often just missing each other, such as when Cheney, Hadassah Lieberman, and Tipper Gore attended Chicago's Taste of Polonia over Labor Day Weekend.


2000 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Presidential debates
After the 1996 presidential election, the Commission on Presidential Debates set new candidate selection criteria. The new criteria required third-party candidates to poll at least 15% of the vote in national polls in order to take part in the CPD-sponsored presidential debates. Nader was blocked from attending a closed-circuit screening of the first debate despite having a ticket, and barred from attending an interview near the site of the third debate (Washington University in St. Louis) despite having a "perimeter pass". Nader later sued the CPD for its role in the former incident. A settlement was reached that included an apology to him.


2000 United States presidential election, Results
With the exceptions of Florida and Gore's home state of Tennessee, Bush carried the Southern states by comfortable margins (including Clinton's home state of Arkansas) and also won Ohio, Indiana, most of the rural Midwestern farming states, most of the Rocky Mountain states, and Alaska. Gore balanced Bush by sweeping the Northeastern United States (with the exception of New Hampshire, which Bush won narrowly), the Pacific Coast states, Hawaii, New Mexico, and most of the Upper Midwest.


2000 United States presidential election, Results
As the night wore on, the returns in a handful of small-to-medium-sized states, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon and New Mexico (Gore by 355 votes) were extremely close, but the election came down to Florida. As the final national results were tallied the following morning, Bush had clearly won 246 electoral votes and Gore 250, with 270 needed to win. Two smaller states—Wisconsin (11 electoral votes) and Oregon (7)—were still too close to call, but Florida's 25 electoral votes would be decisive regardless of their results. The election's outcome was not known for more than a month after voting ended because of the time required to count and recount Florida's ballots.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
Between 7:50 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST on November 7, just before the polls closed in the largely Republican Florida panhandle, which is in the Central time zone, all major television news networks (CNN, NBC, FOX, CBS, and ABC) declared that Gore had won Florida. They based this prediction substantially on exit polls. But in the vote tally Bush began to take a wide lead early in Florida, and by 10 p.m. EST the networks had retracted their predictions and placed Florida back in the "undecided" column.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
At approximately 2:30 a.m. on November 8, with 85% of the vote counted in Florida and Bush leading Gore by more than 100,000 votes, the networks declared that Bush had carried Florida and therefore been elected president. But most of the remaining votes to be counted in Florida were in three heavily Democratic counties—Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach—and as their votes were reported Gore began to gain on Bush. By 4:30 a.m., after all votes were counted, Gore had narrowed Bush's margin to under 2,000 votes, and the networks retracted their declarations that Bush had won Florida and the presidency.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
Gore, who had privately conceded the election to Bush, withdrew his concession. The final result in Florida was slim enough to require a mandatory recount (by machine) under state law; Bush's lead dwindled to just over 300 votes when it was completed the day after the election. On November 8, Florida Division of Elections staff prepared a press release for Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris that said overseas ballots must be "postmarked or signed and dated" by Election Day. It was never released. A count of the overseas ballots later boosted Bush's margin to 930 votes. (According to a report by The New York Times, 680 of the accepted overseas ballots were received after the legal deadline, lacked required postmarks or a witness signature or address, or were unsigned or undated, cast after election day, from unregistered voters or voters not requesting ballots, or double-counted.)


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
Most of the post-electoral controversy revolved around Gore's request for hand recounts in four counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia), as provided under Florida state law. Harris, who also co-chaired Bush's Florida campaign, announced she would reject any revised totals from those counties if they were not turned in by 5 p.m. on November 14, the statutory deadline for amended returns. The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 26, a decision later vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
Miami-Dade eventually halted its recount and resubmitted its original total to the state canvassing board, while Palm Beach County failed to meet the extended deadline, turning in its completed recount results at 7 p.m., which Harris rejected. On November 26, the state canvassing board certified Bush as the winner of Florida's electors by 537 votes. Gore formally contested the certified results. A state court decision overruling Gore was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered a recount of over 70,000 ballots previously rejected as undervotes by machine counters. The U.S. Supreme Court halted that order the next day, with Justice Scalia issuing a concurring opinion that "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner" (Bush).


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
On December 12, the Supreme Court ruled in a per curiam decision (asserted as a 7–2 vote) that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling requiring a statewide recount of ballots was unconstitutional on equal protection grounds, and in a 5–4 vote reversed and remanded the case to the Florida Supreme Court for modification before the optional "safe harbor" deadline, which the Supreme Court argued that Florida court had said the state intended to meet. With only two hours remaining until the December 12 deadline, the Supreme Court's order effectively ended the recount, and the previously certified total held.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Florida recount
Even if the Supreme Court had decided differently in Bush v. Gore, the Florida Legislature had been meeting in Special Session since December 8 with the purpose of selecting of a slate of electors on December 12 should the dispute still be ongoing. Had the recount gone forward, it would have awarded those electors to Bush, based on the state-certified vote, and Gore's likely last recourse would have been to contest the electors in the United States Congress. The electors would then have been rejected only if both houses agreed to do so.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Though Gore came in second in the electoral vote, he received 547,398 more popular votes than Bush, making him the first person since Grover Cleveland in 1888 to win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College. Gore failed to win the popular vote in his home state, Tennessee, which both he and his father had represented in the Senate, making him the first major-party presidential candidate to have lost his home state since George McGovern lost South Dakota in 1972.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Furthermore, Gore lost West Virginia, a state that had voted Republican only once in the previous six presidential elections, and Arkansas, which had voted twice before to elect Gore vice president. A victory in any of these three states (or any state that Bush won) would have given Gore enough electoral votes to win the presidency.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Before the election, the possibility that different candidates would win the popular vote and the Electoral College had been noted, but usually with the expectation of Gore winning the Electoral College and Bush the popular vote. The idea that Bush could win the Electoral College and Gore the popular vote was not considered likely.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
This was the first time since 1928 in which a non-incumbent Republican candidate won West Virginia.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
The Electoral College results were the closest since 1876. Gore's 266 electoral votes is the highest for a losing nominee.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Bush was the first Republican in American history to win the presidency without winning Vermont or Illinois, the second Republican to win the presidency without winning California (James A. Garfield in 1880 was the first) or Pennsylvania (Richard Nixon in 1968 was the first), and the first winning Republican not to receive any electoral votes from California (Garfield received one vote in 1880). Bush also lost in Connecticut, the state of his birth. As of 2021, Bush is the last Republican nominee to win New Hampshire.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
This marked the first time since Iowa entered the union in 1846 in which the state voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in four elections in a row (1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000), and the last time until 2020 that Iowa did not vote for the overall winner. There were two counties in the nation that had voted Republican in 1996 and voted Democratic in 2000: Charles County, Maryland, and Orange County, Florida, both rapidly diversifying counties.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
The 2000 election was also the last time a Republican won a number of populous urban counties that have since turned into Democratic strongholds. These include Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (Charlotte); Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis), Fairfax County, Virginia (DC suburbs), and Travis County, Texas (Austin). In 2016, Republican Donald Trump lost Mecklenburg by 30%, Marion by 23%, Fairfax by 36%, and Travis by 38%. Conversely, as of 2021 Gore is the last Democrat to have won any counties at all in Oklahoma.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, National results
Vote share by county for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. Darker shades indicate a stronger Green performance.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state, Arizona results
*The Libertarian Party of Arizona had ballot access, but opted to supplant Browne with L. Neil Smith. Thus, in Arizona, Smith received 5,775 votes, constituting 0.38% of the Arizona vote. When adding Smith's 5,775 votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, that brings the total votes cast for president for the Libertarian Party in 2000 to 390,206, or 0.37% of the vote.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state, Maine and Nebraska district results
†Maine and Nebraska each allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In both states, two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district.


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States where the margin of victory was less than 1% (55 electoral votes):


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States where the margin of victory was more than 1% but less than 5% (84 electoral votes):


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States where the margin of victory was more than 5% but less than 10% (84 electoral votes):


2000 United States presidential election, Results, Ballot access
★Although the Libertarian Party had ballot access in all fifty United States plus D.C., Browne's name only appeared on the ballot in forty-nine United States plus D.C. The Libertarian Party of Arizona opted to place L. Neil Smith on the ballot in Browne's place. When adding Smith's 5,775 Arizona votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, that brings the total presidential votes cast for the Libertarian Party in 2000 to 390,206.


2000 United States presidential election, Voter demographics
Source: Voter News Service exit poll from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (13,225 surveyed)


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath
After Florida was decided and Gore conceded, Texas Governor George W. Bush became the president-elect and began forming his transition committee. In a speech on December 13, in the Texas House of Representatives chamber, Bush stated he was reaching across party lines to bridge a divided America, saying, "the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background."


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
On January 6, 2001, a joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, rose one by one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. But pursuant to the Electoral Count Act, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator. No senator co-sponsored these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Therefore, Gore, who presided in his capacity as President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order. Subsequently, the joint session of Congress on January 7, 2001, certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. He served for the next eight years. Gore has not, as of 2021, considered another presidential run, endorsing Howard Dean's candidacy during the 2004 Democratic primary and remaining neutral in the Democratic primaries of 2008, 2016 and 2020.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
The first independent recount of undervotes was conducted by the Miami Herald and USA Today. The commission found that under most scenarios for completion of the initiated recounts, Bush would have won the election, but Gore would have won using the most generous standards for undervotes.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Ultimately, a media consortium—comprising The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Tribune Co. (parent of the Los Angeles Times), Associated Press, CNN, The Palm Beach Post and the St. Petersburg Times—hired NORC at the University of Chicago to examine 175,010 ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted; these ballots contained undervotes (ballots with no machine-detected choice made for president) and overvotes (ballots with more than one choice marked). Their goal was to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over all the ballots in question had been resolved by applying statewide any of five standards that would have met Florida's legal standard for recounts, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes. (Any analysis of NORC data requires, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes to agree or instead, for all three to agree.) For all undervotes and overvotes statewide, these five standards are:


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on the 12th) to consider the question of including overvotes as well as undervotes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood of including overvotes in the recount.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court ruling, Gore does, in fact, more than make up the deficit". Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's analysis of the NORC study and media coverage of it supports these interpretations and criticizes the coverage of the study by media outlets such as The New York Times and the other media consortium members.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Further, according to sociologists Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza, the 2000 election might have gone to Gore if the disenfranchised population of Florida had voted. Florida law disenfranchises convicted felons, requiring individual applications to regain suffrage. In a 2002 American Sociological Review article, Uggen and Manza found that the released felon vote could have altered the outcome of seven senatorial races between 1978 and 2000, and the 2000 presidential election.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Post-recount
Matt Ford noted their study concluded, "if the state's 827,000 disenfranchised felons had voted at the same rate as other Floridians, Democratic candidate Al Gore would have won Florida—and the presidency—by more than 80,000 votes." The effect of Florida's law is such that in 2014, purportedly "[m]ore than one in ten Floridians—and nearly one in four African-American Floridians—are shut out of the polls because of felony convictions."


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Voting machines
Because the 2000 presidential election was so close in Florida, the federal government and state governments pushed for election reform to be prepared by the 2004 presidential election. Many of Florida's 2000 election night problems stemmed from usability and ballot design factors with voting systems, including the potentially confusing "butterfly ballot". Many voters had difficulties with the paper-based punch card voting machines and were either unable to understand the voting process or unable to perform it.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Voting machines
This resulted in an unusual number of overvotes (voting for more candidates than is allowed) and undervotes (voting for fewer than the minimum candidates, including none at all). Many undervotes were caused by voter error, unmaintained punch card voting booths, or errors having to do merely with the characteristics of punch card ballots (resulting in hanging, dimpled, or pregnant chads).


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Voting machines
A proposed solution to these problems was the installation of modern electronic voting machines. The 2000 presidential election spurred the debate about election and voting reform, but did not end it.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Voting machines
In the aftermath of the election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed to help states upgrade their election technology in the hopes of preventing similar problems in future elections. But the electronic voting systems that many states purchased to comply with HAVA actually caused problems in the 2004 presidential election.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Exit polling and declaration of vote winners
The Voter News Service's reputation was damaged by its treatment of Florida's presidential vote in 2000. Breaking its own guidelines, VNS called the state as a win for Gore 12 minutes before polls closed in the Florida Panhandle. Although most of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone, counties in the Panhandle, in the Central Time Zone, had not yet closed their polls. Discrepancies between the results of exit polls and the actual vote count caused the VNS to change its call twice, first from Gore to Bush and then to "too close to call". Due in part to this (and other polling inaccuracies) the VNS was disbanded in 2003.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Exit polling and declaration of vote winners
According to Bush adviser Karl Rove, exit polls early in the afternoon on election day showed Gore winning by three percentage points, but when the networks called the state for Gore, Bush led by about 75,000 votes in raw tallies from the Florida Secretary of State.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Exit polling and declaration of vote winners
Charges of media bias were leveled against the networks by Republicans, who claimed that the networks called states more quickly for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. Congress held hearings on this matter, at which the networks claimed to have no intentional bias in their election night reporting.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Exit polling and declaration of vote winners
A study of the calls made on election night 2000 indicated that states carried by Gore were called more quickly than states won by Bush; however, notable states carried by Bush, such as New Hampshire and Florida, were very close, and close states won by Gore, such as Iowa, Oregon, New Mexico and Wisconsin, were called late as well.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Exit polling and declaration of vote winners
The early call of Florida for Gore has been alleged to have cost Bush several close states, including Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin. In each of these states, Gore won by less than 10,000 votes, and the polls closed after the networks called Florida for Gore. Because the Florida call was widely seen as an indicator that Gore had won the election, it is possible that it depressed Republican turnout in these states during the final hours of voting, giving Gore the slim margin by which he carried each of them. The call may have also affected the outcome of the Senate election in Washington state, where incumbent Republican Slade Gorton was defeated by approximately 2,000 votes.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Ralph Nader spoiler controversy
Many Gore supporters claimed that third-party candidate Nader acted as a spoiler in the election, under the presumption that Nader voters would have voted for Gore had Nader not been in the race. Nader received 2.74 percent of the popular vote nationwide, getting 97,000 votes in Florida (by comparison, there were 111,251 overvotes) and 22,000 votes in New Hampshire, where Bush beat Gore by 7,000 votes. Winning either state would have won the general election for Gore.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Ralph Nader spoiler controversy
Defenders of Nader, including Dan Perkins, argued that the margin in Florida was small enough that Democrats could blame any number of third-party candidates for the defeat, including Workers World Party candidate Monica Moorehead, who received 1,500 votes. But the controversy with Nader also drained energy from the Democratic Party as divisive debate went on in the months leading up to the election.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Ralph Nader spoiler controversy
Nader's reputation was hurt by this perception, which may have hindered his goals as an activist. For example, Mother Jones wrote about the so-called "rank-and-file liberals" who saw Nader negatively after the election and pointed out that Public Citizen, the organization Nader founded in 1971, suffered a drop in contributions. Mother Jones also cited a Public Citizen letter sent out to people interested in Nader's relation with the organization at that time, with the disclaimer: "Although Ralph Nader was our founder, he has not held an official position in the organization since 1980 and does not serve on the board. Public Citizen—and the other groups that Mr. Nader founded—act independently."


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Ralph Nader spoiler controversy
Democratic party strategist and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) chair Al From expressed a different view. In the January 24, 2001, issue of the DLC's Blueprint magazine, he wrote, "I think they're wrong on all counts. The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race."


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Ralph Nader spoiler controversy
In an online article published by Salon.com on Tuesday, November 28, 2000, Texan progressive activist Jim Hightower claimed that in Florida, a state Gore lost by only 537 votes, 24,000 Democrats voted for Nader, while another 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush. According to Hightower, 191,000 self-described liberals in Florida voted for Bush, while fewer than 34,000 voted for Nader.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Press influence on race
In their 2007 book The Nightly News Nightmare: Network Television's Coverage of US Presidential Elections, 1988–2004, professors Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter alleged most media outlets influenced the outcome of the election through the use of horse race journalism. Some liberal supporters of Al Gore argued that the media had a bias against Gore and in favor of Bush.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Press influence on race
Peter Hart and Jim Naureckas, two commentators for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), called the media "serial exaggerators" and alleged that several media outlets were constantly exaggerating criticism of Gore: they alleged that the media falsely claimed Gore lied when he claimed he spoke in an overcrowded science class in Sarasota, Florida, and also alleged the media gave Bush a pass on certain issues, such as Bush allegedly exaggerating how much money he signed into the annual Texas state budget to help the uninsured during his second debate with Gore in October 2000.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Press influence on race
In the April 2000 issue of Washington Monthly, columnist Robert Parry also alleged that media outlets exaggerated Gore's supposed claim that he "discovered" the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York during a campaign speech in Concord, New Hampshire on November 30, 1999, when he had only claimed he "found" it after it was already evacuated in 1978 because of chemical contamination.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Press influence on race
Rolling Stone columnist Eric Boehlert also alleged media outlets exaggerated criticism of Gore as early as July 22, 1999, when Gore, known for being an environmentalist, had a friend release 500 million gallons of water into a drought stricken river to help keep his boat afloat for a photo shoot; Boehlert claimed that media outlets exaggerated the actual number of gallons that were released, as they claimed it was 4 billion.


2000 United States presidential election, Aftermath, Effects on future elections and Supreme Court
A number of subsequent articles have characterized the election in 2000, and the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, as damaging the reputation of the Supreme Court, increasing the view of judges as partisan, and decreasing Americans' trust in the integrity of elections. The number of lawsuits brought over election issues more than doubled following the 2000 election cycle, an increase Richard L. Hasen of UC Irvine School of Law attributes to the "Florida fiasco".


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama
The 2000 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 7, 2000, and was part of the 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 9 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama
Alabama was won by Republican Governor George W. Bush with a 14.88% margin of victory. He won the majority of counties and congressional districts in the state. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic Party candidate, remains the last candidate of his party to win Choctaw, Colbert, Lawrence, and Jackson counties in a presidential election.


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama
As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last time a Democrat won over 40 percent of the vote as a presidential candidate, as well as the last time the Republican nominee won less than 60 percent of the vote. It is also the last time that Alabama voted to the left of neighboring Mississippi.


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama, Electors
Technically the voters of Alabama cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Alabama is allocated 9 electors because it has 7 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 9 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 9 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.


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama, Electors
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.


2000 United States presidential election in Alabama, Electors
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska
The 2000 United States presidential election in Alaska took place on November 7, 2000, and was part of the 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 3 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska
Alaska was won by Governor George W. Bush by a 31.0% margin of victory. Green Party nominee Ralph Nader had his best performance here in 2000, obtaining over 10% of the vote. Al Gore received 28% of the vote.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska, Results breakdown, By congressional district
Due to the state's low population, only one congressional district is allocated. This district, called the at-large district, because it covers the entire state, and thus is equivalent to the statewide election results.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska, Results breakdown, By congressional district
Results by county-equivalent can be viewed on the map to the right.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska, Electors
Technically the voters of Alaska cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Alaska is allocated 3 electors because it has 1 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 3 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 3 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.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska, Electors
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.


2000 United States presidential election in Alaska, Electors
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:


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


2000 United States presidential election in Arizona
Arizona was won by Governor George W. Bush by a 6.3 point margin of victory. Ralph Nader received 3%, whilst all of the other candidates received a combined 1%. Pre -election polling showed that Bush had a solid lead of Gore. Bush won all the congressional districts, except Arizona's 2nd congressional district. The key for Bush's victory was Maricopa County, which has by far the highest population in the state. After breaking the longest Republican streak in the last election, last voting Democratic in 1948 prior to 1996, Arizona made a return to the Republican column in 2000. Bush made history by winning Greenlee County. This thinly populated working class county, which has been dependent on copper mining as the basis for its economy, had previously voted Democratic in every election since Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, but now is Republican leaning in the 21st century.


2000 United States presidential election in Arizona
Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Pima County since Arizona statehood. As of 2020, this is the last time Arizona has voted to the left of Colorado or Virginia, and the last time it voted to the right of Tennessee. It also voted just under 0.1% to the left of West Virginia this election.


2000 United States presidential election in Arizona, Electors
Technically the voters of Arizona cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Arizona is allocated eight electors because it has 6 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 8 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 8 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.