The 2000 United States presidential election in California took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the wider 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 54 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
California was won by the Democratic ticket of Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut by 11.8% points over the Republican ticket of Texas Governor George W. Bush and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney of Wyoming.
The state hosted the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and was slightly contested by both candidates due to a large Hispanic population and a large independent and moderate base surrounding San Diego and Sacramento's suburbs. This was the first time since 1880 in which a winning Republican presidential candidate lost California, and the first time ever that a losing Democrat won a majority of the vote in the state. As of the 2020 presidential election, Bush is the last Republican candidate to carry Alpine and Mono counties in a presidential election. This was also the first time since 1976 that California did not back the candidate who won the overall presidential election as well.
Bush became the first ever Republican to win the White House without carrying Imperial County, as well as the first to do so without carrying Santa Barbara County since Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the first to do so without carrying Monterey County since William McKinley in 1896, the first to do so without carrying San Benito County since William McKinley in 1900, and the first to do so without carrying Napa or Sacramento Counties since Richard Nixon in 1968. He also became the first nominee of either party to win the White House without receiving at least a million votes from Los Angeles County since this county first gave any nominee a million votes, in 1952. This feat would be reprised by Donald Trump in 2016.
California was also 1 of 10 states to back George H. W. Bush in his 1988 landslide that never backed George W. Bush in either of his runs for office.
Primaries
2000 California Democratic presidential primary
2000 California Republican presidential primary
Results
By county
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
Merced (Largest city: Merced) San Bernardino (Largest city: San Bernardino) San Joaquin (Largest city: Stockton) Stanislaus (Largest city: Modesto) Ventura (Largest city: Ventura)
By congressional district
Gore won 33 of 52 congressional districts, including four held by Republicans while Bush won two held by Democrats.
Analysis
Vice President Al Gore easily defeated Texas Governor George W. Bush in California. Bush campaigned several times in California, but it didn't seem to help as Gore defeated Bush by 11.8%. Bush did make substantial headway in the Gold Country, Shasta Cascade, and parts of the Central Valley, flipping San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced Counties (all of which had voted for Bill Clinton twice) and winning the highest vote share of any presidential nominee in decades (exceeding California natives Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan) in Shasta, Madera, Tehama, Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, and Sierra Counties. He also flipped San Bernardino County, his largest county flip in the state (and nationally), as well as Ventura County; but he underperformed in all the large, then-historically Republican counties of Southern California and the Central Coast (San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo) relative to Bob Dole's performance in 1996, losing Santa Barbara outright despite that Dole had lost it by only 4.5%. In the then-Republican bastion of Orange County, Al Gore became the first Democrat to crack 40% since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide.
Furthermore, Gore overwhelmingly won Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the state and the country, and swept the Bay Area (where Bush's father had won Napa County in 1988, the last time a Republican had won the state). In San Francisco, although Bush did improve slightly on Dole's vote share, he posted the second-worst showing of any major-party nominee (after Dole) since John Davis in 1924. Even though Green Party nominee Ralph Nader broke into double digits in the North Coast counties of Mendocino and Humboldt, as well as in Santa Cruz County, these factors helped Gore win statewide by a little over 1.3 million votes, greater than his national popular vote margin over Bush (although less than the raw vote margin whereby he won New York).