The United States presidential election of 2000 was a hard-fought contest between Democratic candidate Al Gore, then Vice President, and Republican candidate George W. Bush, governor of Texas and son of a former president. Bush narrowly won the November 7 election, with 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266. There were many important issues at play in the election, but more attention is usually paid to the election itself, which featured a controversy over who won Florida's 25 electoral votes, the recount process in that state, and the issue of the popular vote.

In the American system of presidential elections, the electoral vote system determines the winner, and Bush won this count, although Gore received more popular votes.

It was the third time in American history that a candidate won the vote in the Electoral College without receiving a plurality of the popular vote; it also happened in the elections of 1876 and 1888. In 1824 John Quincy Adams received a plurality in neither the popular vote nor the electoral college vote and was selected President by the U.S. House of Representatives.