1988 U.S. presidential election

1988

Vice President George H. W. Bush defeated Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, giving Republicans a third straight presidential win.

Longest chain: The Big Bang → First atomic nuclei form → First stars ignite → First galaxies assemble → Milky Way takes shape → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Ediacaran biota → Cloudina, first shells and first predators → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Lobe-finned fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → Synapsids, the mammal line, split from reptiles → Therapsids, ancestors of mammals → Cynodonts, the ancestors of mammals → First mammals → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → First anthropoid primates → Apes split from monkeys → Great apes split from gibbons → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Egyptian hieroglyphs → The alphabet → Phoenician alphabet → Greek alphabet → Solon's reforms → Athenian democracy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Death of Alexander and the Hellenistic kingdoms → Seleucid Empire founded → Parthian Empire founded → Sasanian Empire → Birth of Muhammad → Muhammad's first revelations → The Hijra → Conquest of Mecca → Death of Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphate → Arab conquests → Abbasid Caliphate → Battle of Talas → Paper reaches the Islamic world → House of Wisdom → Al-Khwarizmi and algebra → Fibonacci's Liber Abaci → Bills of exchange → Medici Bank → Double-entry bookkeeping → Muscovy Company → English East India Company → Seven Years' War → Stamp Act → Boston Tea Party → American Revolution → Declaration of Independence → Articles of Confederation ratified → Shays' Rebellion → U.S. Constitution → Louisiana Purchase → Austin's colony in Mexican Texas → Texas Revolution → United States annexes Texas → Mexican-American War → Compromise of 1850 → Kansas-Nebraska Act → Lincoln elected president → Fort Sumter → U.S. Civil War → Emancipation Proclamation → 13th Amendment abolishes slavery → 14th Amendment → 15th Amendment → 1872 U.S. presidential election → 1876 U.S. presidential election → 1880 U.S. presidential election → 1884 U.S. presidential election → 1888 U.S. presidential election → 1892 U.S. presidential election → 1896 U.S. presidential election → 1900 U.S. presidential election → 1904 U.S. presidential election → 1908 U.S. presidential election → 1912 U.S. presidential election → 1916 U.S. presidential election → 1920 U.S. presidential election → 1924 U.S. presidential election → 1928 U.S. presidential election → 1932 U.S. presidential election → 1936 U.S. presidential election → 1940 U.S. presidential election → 1944 U.S. presidential election → 1948 U.S. presidential election → 1952 U.S. presidential election → 1956 U.S. presidential election → 1960 U.S. presidential election → 1964 U.S. presidential election → 1968 U.S. presidential election → 1972 U.S. presidential election → 1976 U.S. presidential election → 1980 U.S. presidential election → 1984 U.S. presidential election → 1988 U.S. presidential election

The story

On November 8, 1988, Republican George H. W. Bush, Reagan's vice president, defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts. Bush won 426 electoral votes and 53.4 percent of the popular vote to Dukakis's 111 and 45.6 percent. He was the first sitting vice president elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836. A West Virginia elector voted for Dukakis's running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, for president.

Dukakis led by double digits in summer polls, running on competence and the 'Massachusetts Miracle' economy. Bush rebuilt his lead with a sharply negative campaign that cast Dukakis as soft on crime and defense, including attack ads about a Massachusetts prison furlough program and footage of Dukakis riding in a tank. At the Republican convention Bush promised, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' Peace, low inflation and Reagan's popularity carried him to victory, though Democrats held both houses of Congress.

Why it mattered

Bush's presidency oversaw the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War.
Breaking his no-new-taxes pledge in a 1990 budget deal badly damaged him with conservatives in 1992.
The campaign's attack ads became a lasting model, and target, for negative political advertising.

Sources

1988 Electoral College Results National Archives
George H. W. Bush: Campaigns and Elections Miller Center

Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made

Community notes

Loading notes…

Learn more ranked by votes

Documentarchives.gov

1988 Electoral College Results

Editor's pick

BookJack W. Germond and Jules Witcover

Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars?

Editor's pick

BookJon Meacham

Destiny and Power

Editor's pick

VideoSearch on YouTube

1988 election Bush Dukakis documentary

Editor's pick

1988 U.S. presidential election

The story

Why it mattered2

Sources

Community notes

Learn more ranked by votes

Why it mattered