# "Gore would have beat Bush if the popular vote had been used" - A fallacy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612 "2016-03-01T08:58:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/21 "2016-03-01T16:42:29Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Presumably yes. For example, under a) there’s no advantage to winning a state by more than one vote. You get the same number of EC votes whether you scrape in an inch ahead of your rival or wipe the floor with them(to mix sporting metaphors). In a popular vote contest, each extra vote increases your chances of success equally. > > So whereas now candidates do enough to ensure they win their most favourable states but campaign hardest in the marginal ones that could go either way, under a popular vote system they would have every incentive to pile up the votes in their strongest states because a 65/35 win is worth much more than a 52/48 win. This would tend to lead to a greater focus on more populous states at the expense of smaller ones. > > That’s why it’s wrong to say that the Gore/Bush election - held under a) - shows that Gore would have won under b). If that one thing were different, everything would have been different. Although I think one could certainly argue that the party that does better in large urban areas would be at an advantage with the style of campaign you’d have to run in a “popular vote wins it” election. I suppose it isn’t inevitable Gore would have won in that alternate universe, but I find it very unlikely that having to run a more city-oriented campaign would have helped Bush. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/22 "2016-03-01T17:54:24Z")
I don’t know the formal name for the fallacy in logic terms but it is clearly assuming that the base case doesn’t change when the conditions change. Base case fallacy didn’t seem to exactly match. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/23 "2016-03-01T19:32:20Z")
Another factor would have been changed if it had been a straight popular vote: the 2.7% of Americans who voted for Ralph Nader. Presuming that (a) there were at least some Nader voters in “safe states” who only voted for Nader because their state was almost guaranteed to swing a particular way, and (b) most of these would have been more likely to vote for Gore than Bush if forced to choose between the two, it seems plausible that Gore might have picked up even more votes _ceteris paribus_. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/24 "2016-03-02T00:17:39Z")
To make that argument you’d need to show that campaigning strategies really alter outcomes significantly. Personally I am pretty skeptical. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/25 "2016-03-02T01:55:51Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Sure. > > The populations of smaller or less populous states would be ignored even more than they are now. Candidates would pander to the population centers almost exclusively. And the president would be chosen by Texas, California and New York and the legitimate interests of everyone else would be irrelevant. Well, maybe. What the Electoral College does in actual practice is cause candidates to _not campaign in states where their campaigning is unlikely to alter the result_. It does make the less populous states slightly more valuable, but the effect is not THAT great and most of them are ignored anyway. This is just as true of California, which has by far the most electoral weight, as it is of Wyoming, which has as little as it possibly can. It made no difference to Mitt Romney if he had gained an extra 200,000 votes in California. But it also made no difference to Barack Obama if he’d gained 100,000 more in Utah. So while it’s possible the candidates would just campaign in “population centers,” the problem with that is that the USA has no clear population center. The largest city in America has less than three percent of the population. The most populous state has its two major metropolitan areas six hours’ drive apart; if you’re just going by popular vote the fact that San Francisco is in the same state as LA is irrelevant. You’re just as well off flying from LA to Phoenix. What you MIGHT see is less local pandering at all and more generic, nationwide approaches to campaigning. Under the current system marginal votes in Florida are immensely valuable, and are near worthless in Utah. Furthermore, X votes in a battleground state are valuable, but X spread across the entire country are worthless. If I told a candidate I could get her/him 200,000 votes in Florida they’d pay me a hundred thousand dollars to work on their campaign. That number of votes swings Florida in either 2012 and 2000 and makes 2004 and 2008 pretty interesting. If I told them I could get them 200,000 spread across the country, not so much. Under a popular vote system, though, they’re equally important. The most logical approach might be nationwide ad campaigns on the Presidential level and letting the party’s candidates for Congress tackle the local stuff. Ad time on a major network might yield more popular votes than local stumping. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/26 "2016-03-02T02:01:31Z")
_ **If** _ you accept the premise that the candidate who wins the popular vote should win the election _ **then** _ it’s not fallacious to want the elimination of the electoral college system. And the relevance of Bush -v- Gore 2000 is that it demonstrates that the opposite outcome is not just a theoretical possibility, but is something that occurs in the real world. It is fallacious to argue that, if the electoral college system had not applied in 2000, Gore would have won. The fallacy is the assumption that citizen’s voting decisions are made independently of the electoral system. Other posters have suggested that the candidates would have campaigned differently, but it’s not just that; citizens might have thought differently about how to vote. If there were a straightforward nationwide majority vote, Stanislaus suggests in post #8 that campaigns would focus on “the more populous states” like Texas, California, New York. In fact I think the changes in campaigning would be more radical that that. In such an election states, as such, wouldn’t matter at all. Nobody would be looking to win, e.g. the electoral votes of Texas, because Texas wouldn’t have any electoral votes. He might hope to win the votes of Texans, but that’s not quite the same thing. Instead, candidates would target the largest demographics - urban/suburban residents, say, rather than rural residents; workers rather than working poor/underclass; 50-somethings rather than 30-something; etc. They _might_ target states where there was a strong regional identification and people’s voting decision might be more influenced by their identification with their state than by any other factor, but that would be a high-risk strategy, since the number of votes you can win that way is limited and the number of votes you can alienate is large. So I suspect campaigning would shift from focussing on residence to focussing on socioeconomic classes, age cohorts and other demographic factors. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/27 "2016-03-02T02:07:20Z")
Gore would win in a popular vote format? But isn’t he… a Democrat? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/28 "2016-03-06T19:41:29Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Sure. > > The populations of smaller or less populous states would be ignored even more than they are now. Candidates would pander to the population centers almost exclusively. And the president would be chosen by Texas, California and New York and the legitimate interests of everyone else would be irrelevant. Actually, Florida has sneaked ahead of New York and is now the third most populous state. And if the idea of _Florida_ having an even greater influence on national politics than it currently enjoys doesn’t cause concern, check your pulse - you may be dead. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/29 "2016-03-06T21:20:23Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But the OP does not say, “I prefer the alternate universe of a Gore victory,” nor does he say, “I prefer the alternate universe of direct popular vote for presidential elections.” I certainly agree neither is logically fallacious. > > He says - or more accurately questions - the if-then premise: IF direct popular vote elected Presidents, THEN Gore would have won. But of course if direct popular vote were the method of electing presidents, then presidential election campaigning would change dramatically, and it’s virtually certain that the popular vote totals that happened in 2000 would be different. The unstated assumption in the argument is that even though the alternate universe country used direct popular vote instead of the electoral college, the candidates would have campaigned the same way and gained the same number of popular votes – an untenable assumption and an example of the fallacy of _retrospective determinism_. No, because no one ever said anything like that. I’m not sure if it’s the fallacy of the strawman or the fallacy of the non sequitur. Either way, the claims are simple and not fallacious. It doesn’t mean the argument is sound and valid, but it is not fallacious. Explicit claim: In the 2000 US Presidential election, Gore won the popular vote, but did not become president, due to the electoral college. Implied partial conclusion: It is possible for someone to win the popular vote but not become president. Implied claim: The winner of the popular vote should become president. Conclusion: The electoral college should be eliminated. The fact that, if circumstances were changed, Bush may have won the popular vote is not relevant in this logic. Because the logic isn’t “The wrong person won.” It’s that the electoral college and the popular vote did not line up. Now, of course, you can argue with that implied claim. But that just means that the argument may not be sound, not that it is built on fallacies. Beware the fallacy fallacy, and, more importantly, its converse. An unsound argument is not necessarily fallacious. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/30 "2016-03-06T21:48:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > He says - or more accurately questions - the if-then premise: IF direct popular vote elected Presidents, THEN Gore would have won….The unstated assumption in the argument is that even though the alternate universe country used direct popular vote instead of the electoral college, the candidates would have campaigned the same way and gained the same number of popular votes – an untenable assumption and an example of the fallacy of retrospective determinism. > [@BigT](#): > > No, because no one ever said anything like that. I don’t think we are reading the same thread. Not only did he say something like that, the said almost exactly that. > [@The OP](#): > > “Gore would have beat Bush if the popular vote had been used” While it is undeniably true that Gore won the overall popular vote in 2000, he still lost the election because of the electoral college system. I have seen people use this as justification for the elimination of the system. This seems fallacious to me. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/31 "2016-03-07T01:05:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No, because no one ever said anything like that. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I think your analytical abilities have been amply demonstrated by this post. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/32 "2016-03-07T01:14:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! > > I think your analytical abilities have been amply demonstrated by this post. As have yours by this one. Is anyone arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore? Granted, it’s easy to say “if the rules _had been_ different, Gore would have won”, though that remains somewhat speculative. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/33 "2016-03-07T08:30:16Z")
The OP and title underspecify what changes are made to the status quo, specifically when the change to using the popular vote occurs. If our hypothetical universe is identical to our own until late on election day when suddenly the rules for elections change to popular vote, then the sentence in quotes is entirely correct and not a fallacy. If our hypothetical universe is changed from the beginning of the country the 1824, 1876, and 1888 elections also flip… any of which would probably make history so divergent that if the US were still around and holding elections by 2000 the candidates probably wouldn’t even be Bush and Gore. Fallacy-ish? Heck, you could even have a set of hypotheticals for when the change happens… is the answer the same if everyone gets a week of notice before the election? A month? A year? This question can’t even begin to be addressed unless you specify when the change happens. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/34 "2016-03-07T08:37:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Is anyone arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore? Is anyone arguing that anyone is arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore? If not this seems like massive straw man. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/35 "2016-03-07T13:12:20Z")
Sadly it’s been awhile since the OP has graced us with his presence. ISTM he’s asking about categories of logical fallacies and/or sloppy thinking ref counterfactuals in general. IMO he’s NOT asking a question about US politics. That distinction seems to have been lost as the thread has aged. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/36 "2016-03-07T14:05:54Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > As have yours by this one. Is anyone arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore? > > Granted, it’s easy to say “if the rules _had been_ different, Gore would have won”, though that remains somewhat speculative. No, I have addressed only the question raised by the OP: > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > While it is undeniably true that Gore won the overall popular vote in 2000, he still lost the election because of the electoral college system. I have seen people use this as justification for the elimination of the system. This seems fallacious to me. Both candidates’ strategies would have been different if their goal were to win the popular vote. Particularly, Bush could have campaigned more heavily in Texas, which was considered a safe state for him. Gore would have done the same in California. > > Given that, what fallacy (if any) is the title of the OP? Please remember that this is GQ and not a debate of the 2000 election. Arguing, now, that there is something meaningful in the claim that Smith would have beaten Jones in a past presidential matchup because as we examine the popular vote totals, we see that Smith’s popular vote exceeded Jones’ is a weak argument in that it fails to account for the fact that if the winning method had been popular vote totals, both Smith and Jones would have conducted their campaigns differently. In other words, the OP asks what fallacy is in play when the rhetor argues the existence of a post-hoc single counterfactual _retroactively applied_. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/37 "2016-03-07T14:21:28Z")
Let’s try rewording the sentiment in the OP: If the rules of the election had been changed after the vote was taken so that the winner was determined by popular vote instead of the electoral college Gore would have won. Of course if the rules had been changed after the vote was taken so only the voters in Miami who punched the wrong chad counted then Pat Buchanan would have won. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/38 "2016-03-07T14:46:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Is anyone arguing that anyone is arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore? > > If not this seems like massive straw man. Not as massive as you arguing that I’m arguing that someone is arguing the rules should be (or should have been) retroactively changed so the 2000 election would be determined by popular vote, giving it to Gore! Or whatever. Anyway, if the conditions of 2000 are repeated anytime soon (prior to 2000, the last time a candidate won the EC but lost the popular was 1888), maybe the push to amend the voting rules will pick up steam and Nebraska- or Maine-style District Method apportioning will catch on as a compromise. Beyond that would require some serious constitutional amending and I wouldn’t hold my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/39 "2016-03-07T15:02:23Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Sadly it’s been awhile since the OP has graced us with his presence. > > ISTM he’s asking about categories of logical fallacies and/or sloppy thinking ref counterfactuals in general. IMO he’s NOT asking a question about US politics. > > That distinction seems to have been lost as the thread has aged. This is exactly correct. The 2000 election was just the example that was in my mind since the meme was floating around Facebook. Since golf was mentioned upthread, we could also use that as a analogy. Golfers know that there are at least 2 distinct aspects to playing golf, the short game and the long game. The short game consists of putting, pitching and chipping. The long game is driving and lengthy approach shots to the green. Pretend that my long game is out of this world but my short game is just OK. (Neither statement is true). After a round of golf that I have won, my opponent declares that he had fewer putts. He uses this to determine that under a different set of rules, he would have won. That is true, if we had agreed ahead of time that only putts would count, he would have won. However, my strategy would have changed. I would have read my putts more closely. I might have laid up less often. I believe that my opponent is incorporating a fallacy although I don’t know which one. And I apologize to all for the ambiguity of the OP. It hit me in the middle of the night and all that I had access to was my phone and Tapatalk. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612/40 "2016-03-07T15:25:24Z")
I think the fallacy is the strawman, but it is being made by the person asserting that the claim is a fallacy. So, the claim “He uses this to determine that under a different set of rules, he would have won.” is entirely correct within a hypothetical universe identical to our own except that the rules regarding victory were changed after the fact. I suspect that if you were to ask the speaker that would have been the scenario that he was referring to. The second person is then making a logical fallacy in attacking a strawman of a hypothetical universe where the conditions of victory were edited before the contest and agreed to by both parties, which the quoted speaker never specified as being what he was referring to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-would-have-beat-bush-if-the-popular-vote-had-been-used-a-fallacy/747612.md?page=3)