2016President Donald Trump (D-NY) / Vice President Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) ✔
Fmr. Attorney General Hillary Rodham (R-IL) / Governor Brian Sandoval (R-NV)
Jerry Brown barely wins in 1992 thanks to an endorsement from Ross Perot and has a surprisingly transformative presidency, stopping the New Democrats short by winning on populist strength. He's followed in 2000 by five-star General Colin Powell. In 2008, Democrat nominee John Edwards self-immolates just in time to ensure that a McCain/Lieberman ticket barely scrapes by. They lose in 2012 to an outraged Donald Trump, who reminds the Democrats of the halcyon days of the Brown administration. Ambitious backbencher Hillary Rodham is allowed up to bat in 2016, and improves from 2012 by flipping Missouri, Montana, Colorado, and Virginia, but it's still not enough as voters once again reject the neoconservatism of the Powell-McCain years.
2004Governor John Kerry (R-MA) / Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) ✔
Governor George Bush (D-CT) / Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)
George H.W. Bush stays in Connecticut and never becomes vice president, and young George W. breaks into politics in the 1990s as a Democrat against a John Rowland whose corruption scandal breaks earlier. Governor Bush is considered a moderate, populist hero and decides he can rise to the top of the somewhat desperate post-9/11 Democrat field. The Republicans, too, run a moderate in the form of former admiral and recently anointed governor John Kerry, as outgoing President Kemp's vice president decides not to run.