Ohio was won by GovernorGeorge W. Bush by a 3.51% margin of victory. Prior to the election, most news organizations considered Ohio a swing state. Bush performed strongly in most parts of rural Ohio. Gore kept the race close by running up big margins in Cuyahoga County, home of Cleveland. Gore also won the traditional working-class counties of Mahoning, Portage, and Trumbull counties. Gore only narrowly took Franklin County, home of Columbus, which at the time was a swing county but is now seen as reliably Democratic, having given Democratic nominees a majority of the vote in every election since. As of the 2020 presidential election[update], this was the last presidential election in Ohio where the Democrat won Clark County, home of Springfield.[1] Ohio kept its streak of voting for the winner in every election since 1964, but this was the first election since 1960 that Ohio did not back the winner of the overall popular vote.
Ohio was one of 9 states that voted for Bill Clinton twice that George W. Bush managed to flip. Had Gore won the state's electoral votes instead of Bush, the election would have gone his way.
