1992 United States presidential election in Colorado

The 1992 United States presidential election in Colorado took place on November 3, 1992, as part of the 1992 United States presidential election. Voters chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

1992 United States presidential election in Colorado

November 3, 1992

Nominee Bill Clinton George H. W. Bush Ross Perot Party Democratic Republican Independent Home state Arkansas Texas Texas Running mate Al Gore Dan Quayle James Stockdale Electoral vote 8 0 0 Popular vote 629,681 562,850 366,010 Percentage 40.13% 35.87% 23.32%

County Results Clinton   30-40%   40-50%   50-60%   60-70% Bush   30-40%   40-50%   50-60% Perot   30-40%   40-50%

President before election George H. W. Bush Republican Elected President Bill Clinton Democratic

Colorado was won by the Democratic nominees, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and his running mate Senator Al Gore of Tennessee. Clinton and Gore defeated the Republican nominees, incumbent President George H. W. Bush of Texas and Vice President Dan Quayle of Indiana. Independent businessman Ross Perot of Texas, and his running mate Navy Vice Admiral James Stockdale, finished in a relatively strong third in the state.

Clinton received 40.13% of the vote to Bush's 35.87%, a Democratic victory margin of 4.26 points.[1]

Ross Perot performed exceptionally well for a third party candidate in the state, receiving 23.32% of the vote in Colorado, exceeding his nationwide 18.91% vote share. Perot also won pluralities of the vote in Moffat County and San Juan County, the state providing Perot two county victories out of only fifteen county equivalents which Perot won nationwide.

Clinton ultimately won the national vote, defeating incumbent President Bush.

Clinton's victory marked the first time since the nationwide Democratic landslide of 1964 that Colorado had voted Democratic. Clinton won Clear Creek, Eagle, Gunnison, Routt, and Summit Counties for the Democrats for the first time since 1964; they have all gone on to vote Democratic in every subsequent election as of 2020, save in 2000, when many of them gave plurality wins to George W. Bush (in what was also the last election, as of 2020, that Colorado has voted Republican by more than 5%). Clinton also won the city of Denver by more than 30%, a larger margin than any nominee had won it by since 1964, and won Boulder County, a then-traditionally Republican county that Dukakis had won by 8.5%, by 24.3%.

These improvements lay the groundwork for Colorado's increasingly competitive status from 2004 on, and increasingly established status as a blue state from 2016 on. For the time being, however, Colorado remained a lean-red state,[2] with George H. W. Bush retaining the large Denver suburban counties of Jefferson and Arapahoe, albeit narrowly. In 1996, Dole would improve on George H. W. Bush's margins in these two counties, and would also take back Larimer County, helping him narrowly carry the state despite losing nationally by 8.5%.

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Moffat County did not support the Republican candidate.[3]

Results

1992 United States presidential election in Colorado[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Bill Clinton	629,681	40.13%	8
	Republican	George H. W. Bush (incumbent)	562,850	35.87%	0
	Independent	Ross Perot	366,010	23.32%	0
	Libertarian	Andre Marrou	8,669	0.55%	0
	New Alliance Party	Lenora Fulani	1,608	0.10%	0
	America First	James "Bo" Gritz (write-in)	274	0.02%	0
	Natural Law	Dr. John Hagelin (write-in)	47	>0.01%	0
	Prohibition	Earl Dodge (write-in)	21	>0.01%	0
	Democrats for Economic Recovery	Lyndon LaRouche (write-in)	20	>0.01%	0
Totals			1,569,180	100.0%	8

Results by county

County	William Jefferson Clinton[4] Democratic		George Herbert Walker Bush[4] Republican		Henry Ross Perot[4] Independent		Andre Verne Marrou[4] Libertarian		Various candidates[4] Other parties		Margin
	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#
Costilla	67.31%	1,180	20.88%	366	11.35%	199	0.17%	3	0.29%	5	46.43%	814
Las Animas	58.56%	3,847	26.47%	1,739	14.51%	953	0.38%	25	0.08%	5	32.09%	2,108
Denver	56.13%	121,961	25.50%	55,418	17.17%	37,298	1.06%	2,293	0.15%	319	30.62%	66,543
Pitkin	51.14%	3,820	22.57%	1,686	25.53%	1,907	0.58%	43	0.17%	13	25.61%[lower-alpha 1]	1,913
San Miguel	51.82%	1,380	23.58%	628	23.81%	634	0.56%	15	0.23%	6	28.01%[lower-alpha 1]	746
Lake	48.79%	1,426	20.70%	605	29.52%	863	0.75%	22	0.24%	7	19.26%[lower-alpha 1]	563
Pueblo	53.62%	30,261	28.56%	16,120	17.44%	9,841	0.26%	145	0.13%	71	25.06%	14,141
Boulder	50.93%	64,567	26.47%	33,553	21.90%	27,762	0.58%	735	0.12%	154	24.46%	31,014
Huerfano	52.92%	1,224	29.62%	685	16.65%	385	0.61%	14	0.22%	5	23.30%	539
Conejos	49.21%	1,705	33.48%	1,160	16.68%	578	0.52%	18	0.12%	4	15.73%	545
Saguache	46.50%	1,011	31.05%	675	21.67%	471	0.32%	7	0.46%	10	15.46%	336
Gilpin	41.27%	726	26.26%	462	30.98%	545	1.14%	20	0.34%	6	10.29%[lower-alpha 1]	181
Adams	44.00%	45,357	29.93%	30,856	25.59%	26,379	0.37%	385	0.10%	100	14.07%	14,501
Summit	39.95%	3,344	26.95%	2,256	32.44%	2,715	0.55%	46	0.11%	9	7.51%[lower-alpha 1]	629
Gunnison	41.48%	2,389	28.86%	1,662	29.02%	1,671	0.49%	28	0.16%	9	12.47%[lower-alpha 1]	718
Routt	39.06%	3,188	28.89%	2,358	31.42%	2,564	0.54%	44	0.09%	7	7.65%[lower-alpha 1]	624
Bent	43.64%	985	33.63%	759	22.42%	506	0.18%	4	0.13%	3	10.01%	226
Clear Creek	39.10%	1,744	30.40%	1,356	29.33%	1,308	0.99%	44	0.18%	8	8.70%	388
Alamosa	41.76%	1,928	34.05%	1,572	23.59%	1,089	0.35%	16	0.26%	12	7.71%	356
Eagle	35.57%	3,870	28.49%	3,100	35.12%	3,821	0.56%	61	0.26%	28	0.45%[lower-alpha 1]	49
San Juan	32.45%	147	26.05%	118	40.40%	183	0.66%	3	0.44%	2	-7.95%[lower-alpha 1]	-36
Garfield	36.36%	5,082	31.51%	4,404	31.54%	4,408	0.41%	58	0.17%	24	4.82%[lower-alpha 1]	674
Otero	41.92%	3,485	37.53%	3,120	19.13%	1,590	1.23%	102	0.19%	16	4.39%	365
Mineral	38.08%	171	35.41%	159	26.06%	117	0.22%	1	0.22%	1	2.67%	12
La Plata	37.87%	5,913	35.37%	5,522	26.15%	4,083	0.40%	62	0.21%	33	2.50%	391
Larimer	38.36%	38,232	36.12%	35,995	24.96%	24,879	0.42%	418	0.14%	136	2.24%	2,237
Jefferson	36.22%	80,834	37.05%	82,705	26.17%	58,404	0.44%	979	0.13%	281	-0.84%	-1,871
Grand	34.12%	1,678	35.85%	1,763	29.56%	1,454	0.37%	18	0.10%	5	-1.73%	-85
Chaffee	36.36%	2,284	38.51%	2,419	24.66%	1,549	0.35%	22	0.13%	8	-2.15%	-135
Crowley	39.09%	570	41.29%	602	18.93%	276	0.41%	6	0.27%	4	-2.19%	-32
Arapahoe	36.21%	66,607	39.26%	72,221	24.12%	44,363	0.33%	608	0.07%	136	-3.05%	-5,614
Weld	35.71%	19,295	38.79%	20,958	25.12%	13,571	0.26%	140	0.12%	65	-3.08%	-1,663
Fremont	35.40%	5,356	39.40%	5,961	24.51%	3,709	0.50%	76	0.19%	29	-4.00%	-605
Sedgwick	34.64%	397	39.01%	447	25.74%	295	0.35%	4	0.26%	3	-4.36%	-50
Park	30.57%	1,307	35.78%	1,530	32.65%	1,396	0.98%	42	0.02%	1	3.13%[lower-alpha 2]	134
Mesa	34.41%	15,162	41.23%	18,169	23.77%	10,474	0.41%	181	0.18%	81	-6.82%	-3,007
Hinsdale	31.72%	151	39.50%	188	28.57%	136	0.21%	1	0.00%	0	-7.77%	-37
Morgan	33.43%	2,985	41.70%	3,724	24.36%	2,175	0.44%	39	0.08%	7	-8.28%	-739
Moffat	27.20%	1,386	35.51%	1,809	36.80%	1,875	0.41%	21	0.08%	4	-1.30%[lower-alpha 2]	-66
Logan	32.57%	2,718	40.98%	3,420	26.17%	2,184	0.24%	20	0.04%	3	-8.41%	-702
Rio Grande	34.00%	1,541	42.51%	1,927	23.01%	1,043	0.24%	11	0.24%	11	-8.52%	-386
Dolores	28.61%	242	37.23%	315	33.69%	285	0.35%	3	0.12%	1	3.55%[lower-alpha 2]	30
Delta	32.63%	3,424	41.54%	4,359	25.03%	2,627	0.39%	41	0.41%	43	-8.91%	-935
Montrose	31.67%	3,713	41.35%	4,847	26.38%	3,093	0.35%	41	0.25%	29	-9.67%	-1,134
Prowers	32.92%	1,770	44.10%	2,371	22.02%	1,184	0.91%	49	0.06%	3	-11.18%	-601
Montezuma	29.72%	2,270	40.90%	3,124	28.87%	2,205	0.34%	26	0.17%	13	-11.18%	-854
Ouray	29.12%	461	41.25%	653	29.44%	466	0.19%	3	0.00%	0	11.81%[lower-alpha 2]	187
Archuleta	29.08%	819	44.11%	1,242	26.31%	741	0.39%	11	0.11%	3	-15.02%	-423
Rio Blanco	27.30%	778	43.19%	1,231	27.86%	794	0.28%	8	1.37%	39	15.33%[lower-alpha 2]	437
Phillips	30.05%	692	46.68%	1,075	22.80%	525	0.43%	10	0.04%	1	-16.63%	-383
Yuma	28.17%	1,269	44.82%	2,019	26.57%	1,197	0.33%	15	0.11%	5	-16.65%	-750
Teller	27.09%	1,873	44.11%	3,050	27.87%	1,927	0.82%	57	0.10%	7	16.24%[lower-alpha 2]	1,123
Kiowa	28.16%	290	45.83%	472	25.92%	267	0.10%	1	0.00%	0	-17.67%	-182
Lincoln	27.75%	640	46.79%	1,079	25.20%	581	0.26%	6	0.00%	0	-19.04%	-439
Elbert	24.52%	1,237	43.71%	2,205	31.06%	1,567	0.52%	26	0.20%	10	12.65%[lower-alpha 2]	638
Baca	27.69%	726	47.29%	1,240	24.68%	647	0.19%	5	0.15%	4	-19.60%	-514
Jackson	22.36%	216	43.69%	422	33.75%	326	0.21%	2	0.00%	0	9.94%[lower-alpha 2]	96
Douglas	24.94%	9,991	46.41%	18,592	28.28%	11,329	0.31%	126	0.05%	22	18.13%[lower-alpha 2]	7,263
Custer	24.95%	343	47.35%	651	26.76%	368	0.51%	7	0.44%	6	20.58%[lower-alpha 2]	283
Washington	25.26%	660	48.45%	1,266	25.68%	671	0.54%	14	0.08%	2	22.77%[lower-alpha 2]	595
Kit Carson	25.29%	925	49.23%	1,801	25.12%	919	0.30%	11	0.05%	2	-23.95%	-876
El Paso	27.41%	45,827	51.47%	86,044	20.55%	34,346	0.48%	797	0.09%	155	-24.06%	-40,217
Cheyenne	24.83%	301	50.74%	615	24.09%	292	0.33%	4	0.00%	0	-25.91%	-314

Notes

1. In this county where Bush ran third behind Perot, percentage margin given is Clinton percentage minus Perot percentage and vote margin Clinton vote total minus Perot vote total.
2. In this county where Clinton ran third behind Perot, percentage margin given is Bush percentage minus Perot percentage and vote margin Bush vote total minus Perot vote total.

References

1. "1992 Presidential General Election Results - Colorado". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
2. "CNN Transcript - Sunday Morning News: Which States Will Presidential Candidates Gore and Bush Really Go After? - April 23, 2000". transcripts.cnn.com. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
3. Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
4. Our Campaigns; CO US President Race, November 03, 1992