Post Random Maps Here 3.0

[bagelman]

Timeline I found on ah.com where Collin Powell, who loses his wife to a car accident in this timeline, wins the popular vote narrowly with about 36%. Clinton got 35%, Dole just over 27%. Bob Dole is voted in by the house in January despite his poor finish. His Vice President is Collin Powell's running mate, George Voinovich, voted in by the Senate. Dole nominates Powell as Secretary of State, Powell is the only independent or Democrat to even consider the offer serious, and his presidency begins with an approval of 34%.

Democrats gain the house in 1998, with the GOP holding the Senate due to Voinovich. Bob Dole declines to run in 2000 and the Republican Primary becomes a close race between Collin Powell and Jack Kemp, with Kemp winning out in the end. He will face Al Gore and currently trails him 42-33 as of July 14th. Last post is speculation on running mate selections.

[bagelman]

1972



President McKeithen died in a plane crash in July 1976. Birch Bayh became unpopular with southerners and many moderates when he sent more troops overseas. The Republicans split on the issue of neoliberalism vs. social conservatives; when Bush won a contentious nomination by caking his opponent Ronald Reagan in mud, SoCons were ready to rebel. Reagan refused to run, so they found a hero in former VP and conservative talk show host Spiro Agnew under the Moral Majority party, or Moral party for short. George McGovern campaigned for the Peace and Love party, which was popular with hippies and young people opposed to war. It cut into the support of a democratic ticket that largely ignored liberals, even with the addition of Walter Mondale.

George C. Wallace ran a more populist campaign intending on bringing more non-southerns to support him. It worked magic.  Promising to "kick the money-changers out of the people's temple" in Washington DC, few pundits gave him more than a longshot chance of victory as most had originally been surprised he was running at all. He would prove just how foolish they were.

1976



President Wallace was much less of a disaster than many groups, especially minority groups, believed. Academics point to his record as Alabama governor as being pro-civil rights by deep southern standards to explain this. However, he did try to pass a state's rights bill on some issues such as school busing. Congress and the Supreme Court made it clear before he even set foot in the oval office that any attempt to allow segregation would fail.

President Wallace, who had been forced to withdraw for the '72 election as a result of a failed attempt on his life, struggled with health problems throughout his presidency. His presidency was not a failure, as he worked with congress to pass important legislation working to prevent serious inflation.

President Wallace declined to run for reelection, citing poor health and lack of energy late in his presidency. The AIP nominated Vice President Lamm, who's opponents made a huge issue of a major gaffe ("Old people have a duty to die"). Lamm campaigned on the issues of state's rights, the success of the Wallace presidency, and the evils of returning to a two-party duopoly.

The GOP, having been bitterly divided and conquered four years ago, had only one option to heal itself. Ronald Reagan, who had crushed economic elites such as Nelson Rockefeller and Dick Cheney, moderates such as Gerald Ford, and far-right Moral Majoritarians such as Spiro Agnew who was blasted for leaving the party and was ruined by long-suppressed evidence finally coming out from the 60s regarding his corruption while commissioner of Baltimore County, MD.

Ronald Reagan sought to reinvent the GOP in his image. After winning the nomination, Reagan was endorsed by all of his major primary opponents and by the Moral Majority party which was already being re-absorbed by the GOP. Reagan chose former Illinois governor and future president Donald Rumsfeld as his running mate, adding a young face to the ticket.

The Democrats nominated former New York gov. Hugh Carey as their nominee. Carey was endorsed by his primary rival Walter Mondale and selected southerner Jimmy Carter as his running mate. Jimmy Carter was a good choice as it allowed the democrats to campaign better in the south.

Hugh Carey was not the great orator that Reagan was. Because of his demeanor he came across and angry and older than Reagan, even though Reagan was older. Carey later revealed in his memoirs that if his wife was still alive, he would have been more charming and charismatic on the campaign trail.

George McGovern campaigned to be renominated for the Peace and Love party, but lost the nomination to a rising start in Ron Dellums, who chose attorney Ralph Nader to be his running mate. Ron Dellums became the first African-American candidate to receive electoral votes in a presidential election. 

1980

[bagelman]

Messing with the apportionment feature.  This is some weird future where the coasts decline in population as people flee inland to the new capital in Colorado.

I imagine this as a world where drastic sea level rise has devastated the coasts. Hawaii in particular is politically Not The Same.

[bagelman]

1984 election. Vice President Hugh Gordon is running for a term of his own. His project is to unite old school new deal Democrats with the new neoliberal wing of the party. His home state is Missouri. Micheal J. Hoffman, the Republican nominee, is from the more moderate wing of his party and is running on his record of military service and political experience. He is from California.

George Wallace Bush is the scion of the political family that made the Republican party a power in Mississippi. After carpetbagging from Virginia, they would join the lily white faction of the MS GOP that would crush the black and tans after Goldwater was nominated. Bush would become the state governor in the 1970s, having left office a few years ago. He thought about trying to woo a Major League Baseball team to Memphis or New Orleans but after deciding that wasn't going to happen, ran for President in 1984 on a platform of being the conservative southern choice in a race between two liberal Yankees (despite Hoffman being very geographically southern and Gore being from the Upper Southern state of Missouri).

There were many narrowly decided states in this election. West Virginia, which should have been an easy Democratic win, was greatly discouraged by Gordon's support of pro-environmental policies, but held due to divided opposition. New Jersey was an important state in the election and Bush's third place share of the vote was enough to spoil Hoffman. Hoffman won the support of the suburbs of Milwaukee, with overwhelming numbers in places like Waukesha, turning that state into a GOP island. Iowa was won by the farm vote for Gordon, and he was the favorite son in Missouri despite a great deal of dissent. Bush was several counties in southern Missouri.  

Hoffman won California as the favorite son in the south and was liberal enough for the north to digest. Bush won a great deal of support in eastern and northern Texas, enough to put the state out of reach of Hoffman despite the GOP growing their base in that state.

That leaves the second closest state: Ohio, which is simply a story of Bush spoiling Hoffman and Gordon narrowly winning by less than a percentage point due to very strong showings in the northeast. Gordon was on track to win Florida due to similar reasons but instead, by a tiny margin of not even a thousand votes, Bush won the state outright. In doing so he achieved his real goal: deadlock the electoral college.

With Florida recounts having been halted by the Supreme Court, and Republicans still protesting in the streets of Columbus against the Ohio Board of Elections, the nation gets to look forward to an uncertain contingent vote in the House. A Hoffman victory despite losing the popular vote and having fewer EC votes than Gordon is very possible. Heck, a Bush vote isn't impossible either, if he can somehow string together Republicans and Southern Democrats. Bush's 30.7% of the vote is very respectable for third place, so it wouldn't be as insane as, say, Wallace in '68.

[bagelman]

An alternative US that speaks Portuguese instead of English. The candidate in purple is running to become the first female president, but she is defeated by blue. Party names interchangeable/meaningless. 

[bagelman]

Democratic candidate is Jon Ossoff, the first Jewish nominee who will be the first Jewish President. Republicans nominate a populist who is the first nonwhite nominee in that party's history. Democratic "squad" members of congress from places like Detroit and Minneapolis break ranks and endorse the Republican, for his/her attacking of "big business and the banker class". Democratic efforts to win moderates in Michigan and Minnesota fails but has surprising success in the deep south and in the prairies.

Ossoff accused his Republican opponent of antisemitism several times during the campaign (not always without merit, then again not always with merit), and he has promised that ties with Israel will be "closer than ever before" under his administration. The Republican wanted to pull out of the Middle East and focus American efforts elsewhere.

This is a map of whether a state has more "Israeli-Americans" or "Palestinian-Americans" converted into an election map. The least realistic aspect of the map is Democratic wins in OK and ID while the GOP holds KS, TX, and flips IL. Aside from some odd details though it's not terrible.

[bagelman]

All states that trended D in our world vote D in this one. 4 states (NC AL NJ PA from most to least D) that trended R in our world vote D in this one, these are the closest states. All other R trending states vote R.

[bagelman]

Democrats hoping for a big win against the boisterous and anti-intellectual President Dubya were sorely disappointed. Despite leading in the polls and winning the popular vote easily enough (although not a majority thanks to third party votes), Democratic nominee Henry R. Clinton only won thanks to narrow margins in Virginia and New Hampshire. Henry Clinton's old home state of Arkansas was almost R+5, and the crucial swing states of IA/FL/OH all went Dubya especially OH at R+3. That being said Clinton was still elected President. Dubya's closest win was in ME-2, causing that state to split its electoral votes.

[bagelman]

Very narrow election in favor of the socially conservative Republican. Democrats regain a considerable portion of the WWC vote and the GOP regains a considerable share of the upper middle class educated vote.

[bagelman]

My silly and unserious attempt at this

[bagelman]

Plugging actual results into 538's ye olde election calculator it had for 2020

Trump's undeserved wins:



Biden's wins:

[bagelman]

This one is based on a map posted on AAD by Crumpets showing the performance of Biden and Trump 2020 relative to that state's population density. I then turned it into a Democratic victory by flipping SD, NE, KS, IA, RI, and MI which are all the states in this election that voted right of the nation and for the Democrat at the same time. CT is the closest to the NPV, followed closely by WI. GA and TX are the closest R states. The most Democratic states are VT and AK, the most Republican is WV.



R victory version:

[bagelman]

1978 Presidential runoff election. Based on Bush '92 vs Goldwater '64 by percentage, a map from AAD. Goldwater elected to a term lasting from 1979-1983.

[bagelman]

What a nightmare. Hillary Clinton winning the nom once is bad enough, but twice?!

[bagelman]

States voting based on right to carry laws as of this year

[bagelman]

Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972. Here's 1972 senatorial results replacing 2020 presidential results in all states with the former. Biden's popular vote win is cut to D+1.61.

[bagelman]

[snip]

Low effort Texas 1995 Referendum. The more interesting idea in hindsight would have been to imagine Texas with a Spanish speaking majority and go from there, so I might do that at some point.

Seems highly correlated with OTL 2020 election results, minus the RGV drift of course.

[bagelman]

two different scenarios. neither are realistic and both involve Democrats suddenly winning in the Great Plains

[bagelman]

Here's a more coherent scenario, a GOP victory scenario in 2028 after finally going sane but keeping their general "I love the poorly educated" "flyover" coalition.



There is an outlier on this map. It's not NE-2 or ME-1 as those were given to Dems just because. It's not Maryland, although that's easily the least realistic flip on the map. It's actually Oregon. 

[bagelman]

Another imaginary election, a libertarian aligned R-IL / R-NH ticket defeats a "pro-public safety" D-CA / D-VA ticket.

[bagelman]

Stolen from DeviantArt of all places.

2012

President Barack Obama (D-IL), Fmr Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Actor Danny Glover (AP-CA)

This one I modified because come on. The others are true to source.



2016:

Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE), Donald Trump (R-NY), Senator Russ Feingold (AP-WI)



2020:

President Joe Biden (D-DE), Vice President Joe Manchin (R-WV), Senator Bernard Sanders (AP-VT), Senator Rand Paul (L-KY).

Kamala Harris replaced Joe Manchin on the Democratic ticket and she became President in early 2021 after Biden died.



2024

Gary Johnson is nominated and wins for the GOP against President Harris and AOC.



2028

Easily the most conservative election in 20+ years. President Gary Johnson (R-NM) vs conservadem Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) with no progressive candidate for the only time since 2012.

President Johnson, in his mid-70s, is rendered a quadriplegic after a terrorist attack in 2029 and replaced by Vice President Pete Buttigieg (R-IN).



2032

EC abolished. President Pete Buttigieg (R-IN), London Breed (D-CA), John Fetterman (RP-PA).

R+18 PV margin for Buttigieg, a former Democrat who went the way of Joe Manchin and the first gay president. 53-35-12.



Details include Bolivia becoming a horrible dystopia ruled by Elon Musk and his filibusters, supported by the White House.

2036

Tahesha Way (D-NJ), Vice President Cam Henderson (R-TN), Ilhan Omar (RP-MN)

D+7.7 margin for Way (43-35.5-21). Influenced by unpopularity of President Buttigieg for various reasons and the disability rights movement becoming a thing in the 2030s. It is possible the proportion of disabled people has increased in this timeline (damn microplastics), or existing invisible disabilities such as autism are finally being recognized and correctly supported by people.



2040

President Tahesha Way (D-NJ), Sentator Jabari Brisport (RP-NY), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA).

North Korea is finally destroyed, Poly marriage is legalized (with tepid support at best from the White House), and disability rights are expanded particularly for the deaf. Democrats are viewed as the center party in between conservative Republicans and the Radical Progressives. D+11 margin for Way against the second place Progressives, 42-31-27.

Also Mauree Turner, originally from OK, is elected Texas Governor in 2042 as a Radical Progressive.



2044

A giant terrorist attack takes place at the beginning of Way's second term due to chaos in Korea and Japan. Turns out the LDP sucks and younger Japanese blame Americans.

RP+17 margin against the GOP, with unpopular Democrats down to third. 46-29-24.



2048

RP+18 with Democrats back in second place but otherwise a 2044 rerun, with the President gaining 0.1% more then 2044. 46-28-25.



North Korea now worships the UN as divine liberators.

The 2050 midterms are the greatest GOP victory since the Buttigieg era. The GOP are dovish lib-cons, the RP are hawkish leftists, and Democrats are centrist, increasingly hawkish, and the favorites for third place in 2052. Some say the US may be headed back to a two-party system if the Democrats continue to weaken.

2052 early battleground:

[bagelman]

The context for this is difficult to quickly explain, but I'll try if anyone's interested.

2014 gubernatorial:



2016 Presidential:

[bagelman]

Republican govenor who had been reelected in 2014 (someone like Kaisch, Walker, etc) wins in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

[bagelman]

Alternate 2016:



2020 battleground map

[bagelman]

Based on a reddit user's model of social conservatism by US county (averaged by state) available here