How Perot’s Economic Populism Nearly Broke the 2-Party System
Hayden Masters
The 1990s in America were a very impactful time in the country, both through pop culture, we had the World Wide Web coming into play, TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld, and Grunge music was taking off. However, we must not forget that America was impacted politically during the 1990s as well; we had the L.A Riots, the trial of O.J. Simpson, but arguably the most important, Ross Perot and his political antics of the 1990s, and how he almost broke the two-party political system that had been in place for over 130 years at the time.
Ross Perot was a complete outsider politician who was primarily active in the 1990s in the United States as running for president twice in 1992 and 1996 with no prior office experience in running beforehand. “However, the election was to be complicated by a third-party bid from Ross Perot. Despite winning 19 million votes in the 1992 election, the maverick Texan aroused little public enthusiasm this time, but opinion polls nevertheless suggested that he could get more than 10 per cent of the national vote.[1]” Ross Perot ran as a political outsider rather than running as an independent candidate in 1992 and under his newly created political party called the Reform Party in 1996 which he received roughly 19% in 92 and 8.5% in 96. He was the first politician at the time to win such a high percentage of the vote for nearly 80 years as an independent or minor political party candidate. “Against most predictions, 19 percent of the vote went to Ross Perot, the best result for a candidate since Teddy Roosevelt.[2]” The election of 1992 was the highest percentage of a third-party candidate since 1912 to when Theodore Roosevelt received nearly 27% of the popular vote and won 6 states and 88 electoral votes.
What, then, was the exact reason in the first place for Ross Perot? Why did he even run as a candidate in the first place? Ross Perot advocated for a contract with Americans which advocated his main political stances. “The Contract emphasized the Perot balanced issues of a Balanced federal budget, reform, and limiting American commitment to internationalism.[3]” So, with Perot’s basic policies in place and with both of his attempts to run for president in the books as failures in the long run, Perot’s attempts for running for president was a near break of the American two-party system that has only elected either a Democrat or Republican as the president of the United States since the election of President Millard Fillmore as a member of the Whig Party which was seen as a Proto-Republican party which competed with the Democratic party before their disbandment, which had him win the presidential election of 1850. So, how exactly was Ross Perot able to achieve such great attempts to almost break the American political system that has been in place for nearly 150 years? The answer to this question was Perot’s outsider stance of economic populism that nearly broke the system through his staunch opposition to NAFTA, his virtually self-funded political campaign, and his businessman persona.
The reason that these topics affected the United States political system so much was that the United States, which for the most part in the last 130 years at this time period, has nearly made America into a 3-party system or even a multiparty system that would differentiate from how Americans believe that our modern-day two-party system feels flawed and uncompromising. Had this taken place, America would have had a significantly different style of government and economics in American society.
Perot’s Background and Policies
Ross Perot was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of a cotton broker. He attended the US Naval Academy in l953 and was commissioned in 1953. Perot’s military experience undoubtedly helped him relate to ordinary Americans during a time when most males had similar experiences, given the commonality of the draft at this time.
Perot founded his first company, Electronic Data Systems, in 1962. The company primarily focused on Data Processing. However, the company’s stock increased tenfold when the US Government started to invest in the company for medicare analysis purposes. Eventually, in 1984, Perot sold his company for $2.4 billion, which in 2025 terms would be the equivalent of $6.1 billion. Perot eventually took a stance of not endorsing President H. W. Bush in 1992, nor Bill Clinton, due to their similar stances regarding the Gulf War.
Eventually Ross Perot chose to run as President in 1992 due to the significant unpopularity of the nominees of Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Perot ran on a platform of populist platform that was morally focused on the benefits of the people rather than the benefits of the government. Perot prioritized the flaws of both Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. He highlighted allegations of sexual harassment against Bill Clinton during his time as governor of Arkansas. Perot attacked Bush for what he considered reckless spending during the Gulf War, and he used Bush’s quote of “no new taxes” on Americans, to attack him for hypocrisy when he approved tax hikes. Perot primarily used this form of politics from the economic strategy he had gained as he learned how to become a billionaire and to help his companies with NAFTA, government spending, and budgeting, as well as sticking to populist social positions at the time, like allowing gays in the military, supporting the death penalty, and supporting the war on drugs. He prioritized these stances during his campaign to help further increase his voter share.
Historiography
There were a variety of differences between how the public viewed Perot versus established businesses and politicians who primarily endorsed one party already. Both politicians and companies that supported Democrats and Republicans at the time, to a large extent, both thought that Perot would act as a spoiler candidate towards the other party in both presidential elections of 1992 and 1996. However, this was proven as inaccurate, as Perot roughly had an equal amount of supporters that diverted from the Republican and Democratic parties. For the general public, most thought that Perot would go on to win the election in November. In July 1992, ABC News reported a poll that stated that Perot was going to win a plurality vote in the November election of every single state in the US, apart from Washington DC, and Massachusetts, going to Bill Clinton, and Oklahoma going to George H. W. Bush. Most people who threw their support behind Perot voted for him not because they believed he would spoil the election, but rather because they believed that Perot could actually become president and change the country.
Populist Opposition to NAFTA
The first part of Perot’s near success was his unique and somewhat populist position on the idea of NAFTA, or as acronymed the North American Free Trade Agreement. The idea behind NAFTA was originally started with George H. W. Bush, who created the idea of NAFTA in his final year of the White House in 1992, which was seen as beneficial to the American economy by the Republican Party to help increase free trade between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. “Bush left other foreign policies in an incomplete state. In 1992, his administration succeeded in negotiating a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which proposed to eliminate tariffs between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.[4]”
He ended up passing the ratification of NAFTA, which most Democrats, even in his party, were still reluctant to pass. “ Even when the administration focused on economics, it still floundered. House Democrats, in particular, believed Clinton made serious missteps in moving away from the party’s traditions. One of his first major moves was to oversee the ratification of the North American Free Trade Act, the agreement with Mexico and Canada that President Bush signed as a lame duck in December 1992. Many top Democrats, including House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, vehemently opposed the trade agreement as a threat to American workers and the unionized workforce. But Clinton, who embraced many of the tenets of free-market economics, insisted on sticking with the agreement.[5]” The idea behind NAFTA for a majority of politicians who were elected to congress in the early to mid 1990s had support alongside the idea of NAFTA and its increased long-term benefits of free trade, both a majority of Republicans and Democrats supported the act even with the assumption that with the majority of Republicans in the House, that Clinton was giving into the opposing party. “He cobbled together a bipartisan coalition to pass the legislation that would implement the terms of the treaty in August 1993. With his own party’s congressional leaders standing against NAFTA, Clinton had to rely on his erstwhile enemies. Indeed, more Republicans voted to ratify the bill than Democrats: the House passed NAFTA by a vote of 234–200, with 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; the Senate approved it by a vote of 61–38, with 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats in favor. Though NAFTA represented a rare bipartisan victory for the president, it ultimately cost him the support of several important allies in Congress and other constituencies, while it gained him no new ones.[6]”
NAFTA proved to be unpopular with many Americans, which was reflected in the significant decrease of President Clinton’s approval ratings (from 64% to nearly half that, 37%). The general consensus on NAFTA was staunchly in opposition, believing the treaty would only take American jobs and decrease American wages. “Clinton and a great many economists maintained that breaking down trade barriers forced American exporters to become more efficient, thereby advancing their competitiveness and market share. But some corporations did move operations to Mexico, and pollution did plague some areas near the Mexican-American border. Labor leaders, complaining of the persistent stagnation of manufacturing wages in the United States, continued to charge that American corporations were not only outsourcing their jobs to Mexico (and other cheap labor nations) but were also managing to depress payrolls by threatening to move. When the American economy soured in 2001, foes of NAFTA stepped up their opposition to it.[7]”
He was adamantly opposed to unhealthy spending with the government, and preferred to work what was best for the American populace. “In the second half of 1993, President Clinton hoped to restore his image as a moderate by pushing for some economic and political reforms. First, he worked in the summer of 1993 to address the federal debt built up in the Reagan and Bush eras. This had been an issue that third-party candidate Ross Perot made central in the 1992 campaign, and Clinton, burnishing his DLC credentials, wanted to demonstrate that Democrats could be the party of fiscal responsibility.[8]”
Ross Perot, who ran as a minor political candidate capitalized on his proto-populist oppositional stance to NAFTA which as said before was widely viewed as unfavorable to most Americans, so Perot decided to capitalize on his anti-NAFTA stance to seem more favorable to Americans during and after the 1992 election with his quoted answer the NAFTA was cause a ‘giant sucking sound’ to American jobs. “Ross Perot’s campaign against NAFTA criticized the supposed (but in fact nonexistent) ‘giant sucking sound’ that would happen as NAFTA took jobs away from Americans.[9]” To which, as said before, some American companies, in response to the establishment of NAFTA, did choose to move their companies to Mexico.
Unique Campaign Funding
The amount of money just from PACs in 1996 was also extremely high as well, with Republicans doubling their funding and Democrats matching roughly the same amount as seen in the previous presidential cycle. “Democratic candidates raised 98.78 million dollars and Democratic committees raised 14.83 million dollars in the 1996 cycle. Republicans doubled that and raised 118.3 million dollars for Republican candidates and 9.12 million dollars from Republican Party committees.[10]” Perot’s campaign finance strategy differed from how Democrats and Republicans previously campaigned. Perot clearly knew that he would have a funding disadvantage as he proceeded to run for president, knowing both major parties would out-fund Perot by the tens of millions, so Perot needed to take the down-to-earth route in regards to funding.
Perot wanted to be seen as a pragmatic, populist, honest figure for the people. First, he used significant funding from his own billionaire wealth, and even took out loans to help fund his own campaigns for 1992 and 1996 Presidential elections. For his 1992 presidential campaign, Perot first ran as an independent candidate. “Texas billionaire Ross Perot bankrolled the final leg of his presidential campaign in part with loans after spending more than $56 million of his own money with no expectation of being repaid, reports showed Friday. Perot listed more than $4.5 million of the $13.9 million he directed to his campaign between Oct. 15 and Nov. 23 as loans received from or guaranteed by himself, the latest report to the Federal Election Commission showed.[11]” However, Ross Perot’s campaigning strategy did not rely only on his own money; Perot also accepted small donations from supporters that would only be allowed to contribute 5 dollars or less to his campaign to achieve more of a down-to-earth appeal. “After stating several times during the talk show that he was not interested in becoming a politician, Mr. Perot, 61 years old, finally hedged his refusal. “If voters in all 50 states put me on the ballot — not 48 or 49 states, but all 50 — I will agree to run, he said. He also said he would not accept more than $5 from each supporter. A week after appearing on the talk show Mr. Perot’s secretary, Sally Bell, said that she had received calls from people in 46 states promising support, as well as many $5 contributions.[12]” This was to further show how he would only run for president if the American people wanted him to run for president, rather than out of his own political aspirations for the time being.
Businessman Economic Status
Ross Perot tended to rely on his businessman persona to appear as a strong figure in his politics in economic terms. Ross Perot was able to capitalize on this point of view in two different ways. First, Ross Perot was able to break down his use of economic status by founding and originally running his own political party called the Reform party, which he ran under only in 1996 while only running as an independent in 1992, his party advocated for the ideologies of Populism, Centrism, and Economic Conservatism, those politics were majorly supported by Americans for the time. He attempted to use his political party to motivate more people to vote for his campaign, now as he was seen as a broader political organization rather than running as an individual leader, however his attempted success in the 1996 under his newly created reform party didn’t achieve a higher percentage of the vote and rather only achieved around 40% of its previous popular vote result from 1992. “Perot ran again in 1996 as the Reform Party candidate and won 8% of the popular vote. With his challenges to mainstream politics, he emerged as one of the most successful third-party candidates in US history, with the most support from across the political spectrum since Theodore Roosevelt.[13]”
He also endorsed the end of job outsourcing in his basic political views. “Appealing to resentment towards established politicians and advancing himself as a vital third candidate option, Perot campaigned on a platform that included balancing the federal budget, opposition to gun control, the end of job outsourcing, opposition to NAFTA, and popular input on government through electronic direct democracy town hall meetings. Perot challenged his supporters to petition for his name to appear on the ballot in all fifty states.14”
Conclusion
With Perot’s strong oppositional stance to NAFTA, he recited that his points for his opposition to NAFTA or the North America Free Trade Agreement were that more American jobs would be considerably put in jeopardy compared to jobs in Canada and Mexico, and as stated more companies chose to move their companies to Mexico as the NAFTA ended up hurting their businesses more that ended up creating more holes for American jobs. It also showed that a significant number of Republican and Democratic politicians agreed with Perot, as almost half of all Congressional Republicans and a minority of Congressional Democrats, both in the Senate and the House, opposed these measures that were planned upon the creation of NAFTA, which ended up being endorsed and put in place by President Bill Clinton and a majority of Congress. This was in place until 2020 when President Donald Trump created the USMCA, or the United States/Mexico/Canada agreement, which continued most of the policies in NAFTA.
Overall, Perot’s presidential campaigns relied on three main points to which his economics nearly broke the 2-party system, his oppositional position on NAFTA and moderate, centrist, fiscally conservative views, his unique form of campaign funding, and utilizing his business man skills and person and creation of his new party to have Americans take Perot’s campaign as a major winnable candidate.
References
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“Britannica Money.” 2024. Www.britannica.com. April 1, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/money/Ross-Perot
Gerstle, Gary. 2022. The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press.
Holmes, Steven A. “THE 1992 ELECTIONS: DISAPPOINTMENT — NEWS ANALYSIS an Eccentric but No Joke; Perot’s Strong Showing Raises Questions on What Might Have Been, and Might Be.” The New York Times, 5 Nov. 1992,
Levin, Doron P. 1992. “THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Another Candidate?; Billionaire in Texas Is Attracting Calls to Run, and $5 Donations.” Archive.org. March 7, 1992.https://web.archive.org/web/20190427005459/https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/07/us/1992-campaign-another-candidate-billionaire-texas-attracting-calls-run-5.html.
Lichtenstein, Nelson, and Judith Stein. 2023. A Fabulous Failure. Princeton University Press
Los Angeles Times. 1992. “Perot Spent $56 Million of Own, $4.5 Million in Loans on Race.” Los Angeles Times. December 5, 1992. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-12-05-mn-1144-story.html.
New York Times. (1992). The. 1992. “THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Media; Perot’s 30-Minute TV Ads Defy the Experts, Again.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times. October 27, 1992. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/27/nyregion/the-1992-campaign-the-media-perot-s-30-minute-tv-ads-defy-the-experts-again.html.
Norris, P. (1993). The 1992 US Elections [Review of The 1992 US Elections ]. Government and Opposition, 28(1), 51–68. “Political Action Committees (PACs).” 2024. OpenSecrets. 2024. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/2024.
Patterson, James T. 2007. Restless Giant : The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1993.14.0.213-228.
Stiglitz, Joseph. 2015. The Roaring Nineties. Penguin UK.
Stone, Walter J., and Ronald B. Rapoport. 2001. “It’s Perot Stupid! The Legacy of the 1992 Perot Movement in the Major-Party System, 1994–2000.” Political Science & Politics 34 (01): 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096501000087.
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[1] Martin, Walker,. 1996. Review of The US Presidential Election, 1996. International Affairs 72 (4): pg. 669
[2] Pippa, Norris. (1993). The 1992 US Elections [Review of The 1992 US Elections]. Government and Opposition, 28(1), 51
[3] Walter J, Stone,., and Ronald B. Rapoport. 2001. “It’s Perot Stupid! The Legacy of the 1992 Perot Movement in the Major-Party System, 1994–2000.” Political Science & Politics 34 (01): pg 52 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096501000087.
[4] James T, Patterson. 2005. Restless Giant : The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. New York: Oxford University Press. pg 201-202
[5] James Patterson 2005 Restless Giant pg 208-209
[6] James Patterson 2005 Restless Giant pg 209
[7] James Patterson 2005 Restless Giant pg 334
[8] Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer 2019 Fault Lines pg 209
[9] Joseph E, Stiglitz. 2004. The Roaring Nineties : Seeds of Destruction. London: Penguin. pg 203
[10] (“Political Action Committees (PACs)” 2024)
[11] Archives, L. A. Times. 1992. “Perot Spent $56 Million of Own, $4.5 Million in Loans on Race.” Los Angeles Times. December 5, 1992. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-12-05-mn-1144-story.html.
[12] (Archives 1992) LA Times. December 5, 1992
[13] “Third-Party Reformers.” n.d. Digital Public Library of America. https://dp.la/exhibitions/outsiders-president-elections/third-party-reform/ross-perot. Pg 1 14 (“Third-Party Reformers,” n.d.) pg 2
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