Reply #53: Check out this link, Padraig. Excerpt below. Info comes from exit polling

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.mikehersh.com/printer_Did_Nader_Help_or_Hurt_Al_Gore.shtml

Gore won Florida by all fair, full vote counts. However, Nader's "spoiler" efforts there - culminating in his last-ditch, last minute campaign swings - handed Bush the White House by drawing enough votes to cost Gore a clear victory.

Nader pulled a net estimated 22,422 votes from Gore. That turned a Gore 21,885 vote win into the "official" 537 vote "loss." Gore lost New Hampshire (by 7,211 votes, 1.3%). Nader took triple that margin.

Gore would have won Florida's 25 electoral votes - and probably New Hampshire's 4 - if Nader hadn't run, or if he hadn't run intentionally helping Bush. Either state's electoral votes added to Gore's 266 "official" total would have given Gore enough to win the White House - 270 (with New Hampshire's) 291 (with Florida's) or 295 with both.

Nader intentionally helped Bush by forcing Gore's campaign to expend scarce resources defending several states carried by Dukakis / Benson and Clinton / Gore from 1988-1996 - including New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maine, Michigan, and Washington. Nader's campaign turned these solid Gore states into swing states. Gore won hard-fought races in all of them - and in Florida - but defending them cost Gore decisively elsewhere.