" but so was Al Gore at this stage 20 years ago."
This is simply false.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/14/uselections2000.usaShort story: on November 8, the news networks originally called Florida for Gore based on exit polls, then withdrew that and called it for Bush, then withdrew
that when it became too close to call, before finally calling it for Bush (by a tiny margin) once all the votes were tallied (all in the same day). From that point on, all the court battles were between Gore trying to uphold the recount and the Republicans trying (eventually successfully) to squash it.
