The presidential election of 2016 was one of the most exciting and historic in recent memory.
The Republicans nominated for the White House Congressman Oldiesfrieak of Michigan, a congressman representing the suburbs outside Detroit and one of the few black Republicans serving in the House. Having been elected to the House in 2014 (and explicitly made it clear that he was not a 'tea party' candidate), he sought to double down on his image as a youthful, 'New Republican' by choosing Jerry of Arkansas, a recently elected U.S. Senator (having defeated Mark Pryor in 2014) as his running-mate. The two ran on a platform of cutting down on non-essential spending, education reform, and, for the Republicans, a kind of social liberalism not seen since the party's nomination of Dwight Eisenhower.
The Democrats on the other hand nominated Kentucky Senator TNF, another product of the class of 2014, elected after defeating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a close race. TNF, a firebrand populist, contrasted his populism and leftism by selecting as his running mate a retired general who had been deeply involved in the Iraq War, General Mung Beans of California. Mung Beans thus became the first Korean-American selected for Vice President, and the first general on a major party ticket since the 1950s. The TNF-GMB ticket ran on a platform of labor law reform, a national industrial policy, and trade policy reform.
The election, thus, became a fight between an Eisenhower Republican and a Truman Democrat, and the results reflected this monumental shift in the electoral college on Election night.
When the dust settled, it was clear that Congressman Oldiesfreak had won the electoral vote by the barest of margins--271 to Senator TNF's 267. Though a number of states were still close, it was also clear that Senator TNF had won the popular vote, 51-48. In his concession speech, the Senator from Kentucky pledged to work with the incoming administration in 'solving the problems with plague our great nation.'
