The 2000 United States presidential election in Connecticut took place on November 7, 2000, and was part of the 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Connecticut was won by Vice President Al Gore by a 17.5% margin of victory. Gore's vice presidential running mate, Joe Lieberman, had been a U.S. Senator from Connecticut since 1989. Connecticut had also been the birth state of Republican nominee George W. Bush, however as a presidential candidate Bush identified his home state as Texas, where he was governor, and he did not attempt to compete in Connecticut. Connecticut is considered a safe Democratic state, having not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since Bush's father George H. W. Bush in 1988. Connecticut is also the birth state of Bush & major Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without Fairfield County since James A. Garfield in 1880. This was also the first election since 1976 when Connecticut failed to support the overall winner of the electoral college, and presidency. Bush became the first Republican to win without Connecticut since 1888. Bush also became the first ever Republican to win without the cities of Norwalk and Stamford and the towns of Canton, Chester, Clinton, Guilford, Lebanon, Pomfret, Stratford, Westbrook, Wethersfield, Willington, and Woodbridge, the first to win without the town of Bethel since it was formed in 1855, the first to win without the town of Old Saybrook since it was formed in 1854, the first to win without the town of Scotland since it was formed in 1861, the first to win without the town of Orange since 1921, the first Republican since Abraham Lincoln in 1864 to win without the town of North Stonington, Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 to win without the town of Seymour, the first Republican since Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 to win without the towns of Andover and Hebron, the first Republican since Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 to win without the towns of Durham and East Lyme, the first Republican since James Garfield in 1880 to win without the towns of Barkhamsted, North Canaan, Sterling, and Weston, the first Republican since Benjamin Harrison in 1888 to win without the city of Milford and the towns of Bethany, Branford, Burlington, Canaan, Canterbury, Cheshire,