Era of the New Majority

[Emperor Charles V]

This timeline is awesome! Please keep this up! In my opinion, the GOP deserves to be learn a lesson for nominating Cruz and hopefully this will be their cue to go in a more libertarian direction. 

[Emperor Charles V]

Call me stubborn, but even in a Clinton landslide, I doubt she would be having these coattails like Obama did in 2008. I think instead many votes for Clinton would not be for her but votes against Cruz meaning people would vote straight Republican for other offices but Clinton for president because Cruz is the nominee. But then again, I can be wrong. But otherwise, great timeline!

[Emperor Charles V]

Call me stubborn, but even in a Clinton landslide, I doubt she would be having these coattails like Obama did in 2008. I think instead many votes for Clinton would not be for her but votes against Cruz meaning people would vote straight Republican for other offices but Clinton for president because Cruz is the nominee. But then again, I can be wrong. But otherwise, great timeline!

Its very difficult to win an election because you are not the person you are running against. With straight tickets becoming more and more universal, you could win big in one election, and lose the next.

True. But some states (especially those with a ton of independent voters) have a lot of ticket splitters, such as Minnesota (remember, Klobuchar and Pawlenty both won by wide margins in 2006) and Wisconsin (Walker survived the recall the same year Obama carried the state and Baldwin was elected to the Senate). So I find it doubtful that even in a Clinton landslide, Paulsen would lose (Kline I can see losing though) or MN-07 going for a Democrat that's not named Collin Petersen (it is a R+5 district).

[Emperor Charles V]

This is very well written but also extremely biased and implausible.

[Emperor Charles V]

It is extremely unlikely and practically impossible that Susana Martinez, the Republican governor of New Mexico will appoint Bill Richardson, a Democrat to Heinrich's seat. The only time a Governor appointed a member of the opposing party to the Senate in recent years was in 2007 when Wyoming governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, appointed John Barrasso, a Republican. However, Freudenthal had no choice as per Wyoming state law, he was forced to chose between three people (all Republicans) presented to him by the Republican dominated state legislature and picked Barrasso by default because he was the most moderate of the three.

But this is not just any Democrat, it's Bill Richardson, who us Hispanic Republicans probably despise more than any Democrat for his comments he made about Ted Cruz hinting he is "not Hispanic" by his conservative politics.  I'm not a fan of Mr. Cruz at all but as a Hispanic Republican, it makes me cringe when I hear one of the most prominent Hispanic politicians in the country infer that in order to be "Hispanic," you must be a liberal Democrat as well. Thanks, Bill. So yes, I sure Martinez who made history as the nation's first Latina governor and just so happens to have an R next to her name loves these comments and will appoint Richardson to the Senate.

I feel a little sad reading this, because I know this timeline could be a lot better. This could probably even be the best timeline on the entire website if you just do not let your personal biases cloud the plausibility of this timeline. It's very plausible that 2016 will be a very good year for the Democrats. That being said, your TL takes that and puts it to an extreme. It's impossible the Democrats will take the House due to Republican gerrymandering, unless there's something really stupid the Republican congress does (and I mean not a shutdown like in 2013 but something along the lines of trying to impeach Obama which they repeatedly stated they won't do), or a resurgence of Blue Dogs or a combination of these things. However, to say that Democrats take the House based on Hillary coattails alone (which is based on what I read so far probably your most likely explanation) shows a lacking of American politics beyond belief. As I mentioned before, based on the shape of the American electorate, a lot of the votes that will put Clinton over the edge will come from Republican-leaning independents and moderate Republicans who are disillusioned by Cruz's divisive rhetoric, not voting for Clinton because they love her. As a result, they will vote for Republicans for congress (since their vote for president is not as much for Clinton as it is against Cruz) and a ton of Republicans in marginal districts that went for Clinton will win re-election. And Ed Royce losing re-election, seriously? I have family in that district, and don't be fooled by it's R+5 PVI, there's virtually no Democrats there. Royce is an insanely popular congressman and will have that district as long as he wants, end of story.

And If you really want Richardson to be a senator you know there's a Senate election in 2018...

[Emperor Charles V]

This is the second time you've attacked my TL publicly, and I'd appreciate if you ceased doing so. I meant "elected to Senate", though good catch on Doug Wilder, thank you.

I'm sorry I came off rough. I actually think this is one of the best written TLs I ever seen and I really mean it. I like that you have a lot of sports in here. Politics wise however, I do think it is a Democratic-wank (to use AH.com terminology). Come on, don't you think it's stretching it to have the Democrats win all those seats in 2016? Plus your explanations of why the Democrats won all those seats after 2016 (what offended me the most) made you look like a partisan hack, in my opinion.

I didn't mean to attack this timeline or you. The last thing I wanted was to offend you. It just struck me as implausible to have the Democrats do that well and since your avatar's red,  it struck me that personal bias has a lot to do with that outcome (and let's be honest here, you know it does). Now, I would be doing the same if you were a Republican and had a massive Ted Cruz landslide in 2016 and a Tea Party wave. It has nothing to do with my personal political biases. Personally, I would love to see the GOP take an ass-whipping in 2016, so they are forced to reform and become more libertarian.

Otherwise, stop throwing around words like "masturbation" when you describe my work.

I'm sorry, forgive me. That was pretty low of me.

Go back to writing weird timelines on AH.com.

What specific TLs are you referring to?

Oh f**ck off.

Just exercising my right to free speech buddy.

I've once heard no less than Rush Limbaugh call Helms a racist.

Which is just another reason to believe he wasn't.

This timeline is so implausible it hurts. It almost makes me lose faith in humanity.

I guess it is. Next thing you know, Selena Gomez is going to beat Ted Cruz and win a Senate seat.

We already had a race car driver defeat one of the most popular congressmen in the country so I guess anything is possible here.

Lol who attacks a timeline

I guess I do. But I wasn't attacking the timeline per se, but the author's presumed political bias.

[Emperor Charles V]

The difference between someone writing a TL where Ted Cruz wins in a landslide and one where Ted Cruz is beaten in a landslide isn't Republican v.s. Democratic hackery. One isn't based in reality, and the other is fairly likely.

Not exactly. Judging by your username and avatar I can see that you are a Democratic-leaning independent. I am pretty-much a Republican-leaning independent (I am really only registered GOP to vote in primaries). Now I was a liberal back in 2007/2008 so I had my heart set on Obama winning in a landslide, and I was glad when he did. However, a lot of people more conservative than me (including my parents who are if anything right-leaning moderates) told me to "stop dreaming" and that Obama was too left-wing, polarizing  and inexperienced to win. This is basically the same situation we have today. Many people leaning left think it's impossible for Ted Cruz to get anywhere near winning because well, he's too right-wing, polarizing and inexperienced. Now don't get me wrong, I am by no means a fan of Cruz. I disagree with him on foreign policy, social issues and his overt inserting of Christianity into politics. However, I am not sold on the fact that a Cruz victory in 2016, even a landslide Cruz victory, is impossible; all I have to do is look back on 2008 and Obama.

Also, this might be hard to believe, but Congressional Democrats actually do win elections sometimes.

Not with extreme gerrymandering sabotaging them though.

Let's move on here. Charles was gracious enough to apologize and I accept his apology.

Thank you. I'm all for moving on. I didn't mean for you to take it personally. I think you are a great writer and all, I was just off-put by some of your political projections, that's all.

[Emperor Charles V]

Every time I read this, I feel worse and worse about when I criticized this before.

I really didn't know what I was thinking. This is an amazing, well thought out timeline! WELL DONE!

Yes, we all have our biases, but when I come to think of it, OTL has been a "wank" at times. This can be very realistic for all we know. No one can predict politics, just look at the unprecedented NDP wave in Alberta (Canada's Texas) last month.

It was really wrong of me to call this out as biased when really, no one can predict what our future has in store for us.

Please, forgive me, for everything I said on this thread.

[Emperor Charles V]

Forget my past criticisms!

This is awesome! I love your redistricting!

[Emperor Charles V]

Please forget everything bad I said about this timeline before.

Congressman AJ McCarron, that is just amazing.

Keep up the great work!