Politician Often Credited with Delivering '92 Election to Clinton Dies at Age 89 -- After Cancer Battle, Ross Perot Has Passed
Billionaire philanthropist Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992 as an independent, is dead at the age of 89, The Dallas Morning News reported.
H. Ross Perot, the self-made Texas billionaire who twice ran for president, has died. He was 89.
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) July 9, 2019
Ross Perot dead at 89, per the Dallas Morning News. https://t.co/d5bQaKmi7M
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 9, 2019
The news appeared to be confirmed by Perot’s family.
“Describe my father?” his son Ross Perot Jr., who serves as CEO of the Perot Group, asked The Morning News rhetorically.
“Obviously a great family man, wonderful father. But at the end of the day, he was a wonderful humanitarian.”
“Every day he came to work trying to figure out how he could help somebody,” he added.
Perot’s death came roughly five months after he was diagnosed with leukemia.
Perot was a “pioneer of the computer services industry,” The Morning News reported, “who founded Electronic Data Systems Corp. in 1962 and Perot Systems Corp.”
A self-made billionaire, his net worth was estimated to be about $4 billion in July by Forbes.
He built this fortune after borrowing a mere $1,000 from his wife, Margot, at the age of 32.
After taking EDS public in 1968, he became a multimillionaire, The Morning News said.
Perot is perhaps best known by many Americans for mounting an independent challenge to then-President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Perot focused on fiscal issues like the federal budget deficit and the national debt, and his message resonated with many voters. He won nearly 19 percent of the popular vote, compared to Bush’s 37.5 percent.
Both men ended up being defeated by Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, who took 43 percent of the vote.
While Perot did not win any Electoral College votes, some have credited him with delivering the election to Clinton, reasoning that Perot, who many saw as a fiscal conservative, siphoned votes away from Bush.
Ross Perot was a billionaire businessman who ran for president twice as a third party candidate. He won 19.7 million votes in 1992 but failed to carry a single state. He ran again in 1996 and won 8 million votes, again without carrying a single state. https://t.co/c6n5Ws0ulf
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 9, 2019
Perot also ran for president in 1996 on the Reform Party ticket.
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