George Stephanopolous told ABC that the Gore campaign would get a lot of sympathy for challenging Florida’s results saying,
If they win the popular vote, they believe theyÂ’ll have the public on their side. Most of the public thinks that the winner of the popular vote wins the election. So this possible difference between who wins the popular vote and who wins the electoral college could shake this country up.
The only problem with this, of course, is that in the 48 hours before the election the main scenario was that Gore might lose the popular vote but win the election and the Gore campaign was telling anyone who would listen that it simply didn’t matter — the electoral college is the name of the game. Those claims might come back to haunt them.