The Democratic Party struggled to return to its majority status in Congress in the second Clinton administration. In the election of 1996, the party lost two Senate seats but gained eight House seats. The prospect of the mid-term election of 1998 appeared grim.

Meanwhile, Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr pressed forward with his investigation of Clinton. Starr had been appointed special prosecutor in mid-1994 and played a seminal role in the prosecution of Gov. Jim Guy Tucker in Arkansas. In early 1998, the investigation took an entirely new turn with the revelations of Linda Tripp that the President had had a relationship with an intern. Starr, whose performance had been considered non-partisan for three years, was criticized for expanding the inquiry. After weeks of media coverage and then the President's testimony, the Starr Report was issued on 9/9/1998. It stated that "President Clinton committed acts that may constitute grounds for an impeachment" but gave no recommendations for future action.

Republican Party leaders called for the President's impeachment, though they were aware they did not have the votes for removal. The mid-term election of 1998 thus provided the public an opportunity to give its opinion on whether to remove the President. The result was dramatic. Instead of losing additional seats in Congress, the Democrats gained five seats in the House and battled to a draw in the Senate. Though the lame duck House voted to impeach Clinton, the Senate voted 55-45 against removal.

Early Presidential Maneuvering

Vice President Al Gore had been the heir apparent since Clinton won the 1996 election. He worked to collect endorsements from party officeholders and thereby cut out any other significant primary opposition. Sen. Paul Wellstone dropped out in early 1999.

Gore's major opponent in the race was former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. Bradley, a former New York Knicks basketball player, stated that the Washington political system was "broken" when he retired from the Senate in 1997. Gore and Bradley had served together for eight years in the Senate, and they had voted alike on 80% of all roll call votes. Bradley became the chief Democratic proponent of campaign finance reform.

Iowa and New Hampshire

The first real test of Democratic voters came in the Iowa caucus on 1/24/2000. Reports of Bradley's heart problems set the stage for an unexpectedly wide Gore win of 63-35%. The two candidates turned their attention to New Hampshire, where the year's first presidential primary was held on 2/1/2000. Gore won again by a 50-45% margin. Four days after the NH primary, Gore won a narrow victory in the Delaware primary. Bradley's campaign continued because of the narrow margin and the fact that the media was obsessed with the results of the Republican primary.

Super Tuesday

In the month following the New Hampshire primary, the Gore-Bradley struggle continued. During these four weeks, the Republicans held several primaries but the Democrats held one. The strength of McCain, a Republican who also favored campaign finance reform, gave hope to the Bradley campaign. However, the media coverage mostly focused on McCain's proposals (not Bradley's), so the link was weaker than thought. The single state holding a primary during the four weeks after NH/DE was Michigan, where Gore and Bradley bypassed the "beauty pageant"; "Unpledged" easily defeated Lyndon LaRouche there. A sign of the future came in the Washington State primary, one week before Super Tuesday, in which Gore won by a 68-31% margin.

The Super Tuesday primaries on 3/7/2000 resolved the contest. Eleven states with 1,183 delegates, or about one quarter of all national convention delegates, voted. Gore again crushed Bradley, winning a 64-23% victory out of 7.5 million votes cast. He won California by a 4:1 margin and New York by a 2:1 margin. Bradley performed best in four New England states but did not win any of them. Gore stood on the threshold of a majority of national convention delegates. Bradley withdrew from the race on 3/9/2000.

Gore became the presumptive nominee after winning the "Stupid Tuesday" primaries in the following week. Six of these nine primaries were located in the South and were intended to be a regional primary. Gore won 80% of the 2.1 million votes cast in these states and moved into a majority of the national convention delegate votes. He had carried every state in the primaries and caucuses.

Democratic Primaries of 1996

Democratic Primaries of 2004

Democratic National Convention of 2000

Popular vote of 2000

Electoral Vote of 2000