“absent Perot, it’s likely Bush gets reelected, although it would have been very close.”
and how close could it be if there weren’t a Perot on the ballot and Clinton gets 43% of the vote? That leaves 57% for someone to garner and I don’t think America’s faithful “Green Party” candidate would have benefited in any material way. How many Perot voters would have chosen Clintoon if Perot had not been on the ballot? Bush would likely have won with 53% of the vote albeit the media did everything they could to paint him in a negative light while touting Clintoon as the southern boy loved by the masses.
It's been so long since I've read those studies, I don't know if I could accurately articulate what the basic arguments were. In a nutshell, however, most of them made an argument that Clinton would have done better than 43% without Perot, but he wouldn't have done enough to win. More simply, not everyone who was a Perot voter, was necessarily a vote against Clinton.