Bush’s popularity after the Gulf War caused the most prominent Democrats to opt out of the presidential race of 1992. But that did not deter William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton, who at age forty-five had served as governor of Arkansas for twelve years. Like Carter in 1976, Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee senator Albert Gore Jr., presented themselves as “New Democrats” and sought to rid the party of its liberal image.

Clinton cultivated the “forgotten middle class,” who “do the work, pay the taxes, raise the kids, and play by the rules.” He promised a tax cut for the middle class, pledged to reinvigorate government and the economy, and vowed “to put an end to welfare as we know it.” Bush was vulnerable to an unemployment rate of 7 percent and to a challenge from self-made Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, whose third-party organization revealed Americans’ frustrations with government and the major parties. Clinton won 43 percent of the popular vote, Bush 38 percent, and Perot 19 percent—the strongest third-party finish in eighty years.