Claim: Bill Clinton was President of the United States.

The United States presidential election of 1996 was the 53rd quadrennial presidential election . It was held on Tuesday , November 5 , 1996 . The Democratic national ticket was led by incumbent President Bill Clinton , and his running mate , incumbent Vice President Al Gore . The Republican nominee for President was Bob Dole , the former Republican Leader of the United States Senate and long-time Senator from Kansas who was previously the vice-presidential running mate of President Gerald Ford in 1976 , following Vice President Nelson Rockefeller 's retirement from politics that year . Dole 's running mate for Vice President was Jack Kemp , a former NFL football player and the Housing Secretary under George HW Bush . Businessman Ross Perot ran as candidate for the Reform Party with economist Pat Choate as his running mate ; he received less media attention and was excluded from the presidential debates and , while still obtaining substantial results for a third-party candidate , by U.S. standards , did not renew his success of the 1992 election . Turnout was registered at 49.0 % , the lowest for a presidential election since 1924 .   President Clinton 's chances of winning were initially considered slim in the middle of his term as his party had lost both the House and the Senate in 1994 for the first time in decades ; he had reneged on promises to cut taxes and to reduce the deficit , enacted a federal assault weapons ban , and had a failed healthcare reform initiative . He was able to regain ground as the economy began to recover from the early 1990s recession with a relatively stable world stage . He went on to win re-election with a substantial margin in the popular vote and electoral college . Despite Dole 's defeat , the Republican Party was able to maintain a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate . Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt -LRB- in 1936 , 1940 and 1944 -RRB- to win re-election after serving a full term .   As of 2017 , this is the last time Arkansas , Kentucky , Tennessee , Missouri , West Virginia , Louisiana and Arizona voted for the Democratic candidate .