1992 U.S. presidential election

United States presidential election, 1992

← 1988 November 3, 1992 1996 →
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	55.2% 5.0 pp
Nominee Bill Clinton George H. W. Bush Ross Perot Party Democratic Republican Independent Home state Arkansas Texas Texas Running mate Al Gore Dan Quayle Electoral vote 370 168 0 States carried 32 + D.C. 18 0 Popular vote 44,909,806 39,104,550 19,743,821 Percentage 43.01% 37.45% 18.91%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes those won by Clinton/Gore, red denotes states won by Bush/Quayle. Numbers indicate electoral votes allotted to the winner of each state.
President before election George H. W. Bush Republican Elected President Bill Clinton Democratic

George H. W. Bush
Republican

Bill Clinton
Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1992 was the 52nd quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1992. There were three major candidates: Incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush, Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot.

Bush had alienated much of his conservative base by breaking his 1988 campaign pledge against raising taxes. The economy was in recession and Bush's perceived greatest strength, foreign policy, was regarded as much less important following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the relatively peaceful climate in the Middle East after the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War.

Clinton won a plurality in the popular vote, and a wide Electoral College margin. The election was a significant realigning election after three consecutive Republican landslides.Northeastern, Upper Midwest, and West Coast states which had previously been competitive began voting reliably Democratic. As of 2017, this is the most recent election in which an incumbent president served one term and lost re-election, the previous one having been the 1980 election in which Ronald Reagan unseated then-incumbent Jimmy Carter. Bush won 18 states with a plurality, but did not win a majority in any state. This is a sharp change from the 1988 presidential election in which Bush won a majority in 40 states. The only state to give a majority vote for a candidate was Clinton's home state of Arkansas, giving him 53 percent of the vote.