https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/411795I played as Donald Trump with Chris Christie in Normal mode. Initially things were rough and there appeared to be little chance of victory. However, I was able to gain momentum after a good performance in the debates. My main strategy involved balancing between the base and the swing voters by emphasizing my anti TPP position and attacking Clinton for that and emphasizing myself as an outsider against a corrupt opponent but at the same time also emphasizing myself as being a strong conservative, such as by nominating Ted Cruz to the supreme court. On other things like abortion and the Muslim ban, my responses were more moderate. In terms of the electoral college, my path to victory focused on winning all the Romney states, plus Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Wisconsin, which is where I focused campaign visits.
By the time of the election, the polls were extremely close. I had gained sizable leads in Ohio and North Carolina, but I led in Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire by very narrow margins. I was narrowly losing Michigan, Minnesota and Colorado and in Virginia we were tied. Therefore, either side could have theoretically won, by I definitely had an advantage.
However, after the results had come in, I had won by a very good electoral college margin, 322-216. In the popular vote though, things were a lot closer, however I was able to narrowly win the popular vote 49%-48.1%. The closest state was Michigan which I won by 0.25% or 12,171 votes. I did better than 92.7% of the games that have been played with the same candidate and difficulty level.
