Incumbent Vice President Gore easily secured the Democratic nomination, defeating former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley in the primaries.

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.

A month-long series of legal battles led to the highly controversial 5–4 U.S. Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, which ended the recount.

[7][8] Post-election analysis found that Palm Beach County's butterfly ballot misdirected over 2,000 votes from Gore to third-party candidate Pat Buchanan, tipping Florida—and the election—to Bush.

[10] Bush flipped 11 states that had voted Democratic in 1996: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

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.

That left Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch as the only candidates still in the race.

[21] On February 28, McCain also referred to Jerry Falwell and televangelist Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance,"[22] a term from which he distanced himself during his 2008 bid.

Other prominent Democrats mentioned as possible contenders included Bob Kerrey,[25] Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, and actor and director Warren Beatty.

[34] The Natural Law Party held its national convention in Arlington County, Virginia, on August 31–September 2, unanimously nominating a ticket of Hagelin/Goldhaber without a roll-call vote.

Bush criticized the Clinton administration's policies in Somalia, where 18 Americans died in 1993 intervening among warring factions, and in the Balkans, where United States troops performed a variety of functions.

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.

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.

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.

As the night wore on, the returns in a handful of small-to-medium-sized states, including Hawaii, Iowa, Oregon and New Mexico (Gore by 355 votes) were extremely close, but the election came down to Florida.

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.

[59]) 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 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).

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.

This election was the first time since 1976 that New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Illinois, New Mexico, Michigan, and California voted for the losing candidate, as well as the first since 1980 that Maryland did so, the first since 1948 that Delaware did so, and the first since 1968 that Pennsylvania did so.

[88] Gore was the last incumbent vice president until Kamala Harris to certify his opponent's Electoral College victory in a presidential election.

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.

Breaking its own guidelines,[citation needed] VNS called the state as a win for Gore 12 minutes before polls closed in the Florida Panhandle.

[110] The early call of Florida for Gore has been alleged to have cost Bush several close states, including Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

[112] Lott's survey assumed that the turnout in the Panhandle counties, which was 65%, would have equaled the statewide average of 68% if the state had not been called for Gore while the polls were still open.

[114] Brady and Collier sharply criticized Lott's methodology and claimed that when all relevant factors are accounted for, Bush was likely cost only between 28 and 56 votes.

[122] Rolling Stone columnist Eric Boehlert also alleged media outlets exaggerated criticism of Gore as early as July 22, 1999,[123] 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;[123] Boehlert claimed that media outlets exaggerated the actual number of gallons that were released, as they claimed it was 4 billion.

[130] Gore's performance in the Midwest later inspired the phrase "blue wall", referring to states that voted for Democratic presidential nominees from 1992 to 2012.