2016- How in the hell does this happen?

[Former Senator Haslam2020]

In May, you are placed into a coma and you wake up the day after Election night. The news show this as the map:

Sen. Ted Cruz/Fmr. Gov. Jeb Bush: 437 Electoral Votes 53.6%
Fmr. SoS. Hillary Clinton/VP Joe Biden: 101 Electoral Votes 46.3%


Your challenge is to figure out... what in the f***ing hell happened!?!?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

In May, you are placed into a coma and you wake up the day after Election night. The news show this as the map:

Sen. Ted Cruz/Fmr. Gov. Jeb Bush: 437 Electoral Votes 53.6%
Fmr. SoS. Hillary Clinton/VP Joe Biden: 101 Electoral Votes 46.3%


Your challenge is to figure out... what in the f***ing hell happened!?!?

A week before the convention, Jeb Bush races into a neighbor's house and saves a baby from a fire. At a contested convention, there's an attempt to draft him into the nomination, but he declines, saying he doesn't have the hunger for a general election campaign anymore. Cruz, after winning the nomination on the third ballot, asks him to be his VP and he accepts.

Hillary Clinton continues to be dogged by scandal and Bernie Sanders takes the fight to the convention. She wins on the first ballot, but this causes a walkout at the convention and some limited rioting outside. The optics are terrible. Her initial VP choice, Terry McAuliffe, is indicted mid-campaign and steps down. With very little time to pick a replacement, she turns to Joe Biden and asks him to continue serving. Biden reluctantly agrees.

The last shoe drops in October, when FBI director James Comey recommends an indictment to the Justice Department. Before Justice can make a decision, President Obama issues Hillary a full pardon. The damage is done, and Cruz/Bush is able to portray Hillary as hopelessly corrupt and out of step with the country. A week before the election, Sanders endorses Jill Stein, who tops 5% on election day and over 20% in Vermont, sending Cruz/Bush to a historic win.

(Absurd situation, but that's the series of events this map would take)

[SillyAmerican]

Yeah, what #NeverTrump said.

Or, as an alternative last shoe to drop in early October, ISIS manages to smuggle a dirty bomb across our southern border and set it off in downtown Los Angeles. That might generate the same resulting map.

[PeteB]

1. Clinton is indicted not only for setting up the servers but for secretly passing the information to her lover who has joined ISIS.
2. Biden makes a gaffe calling Californians fools for voting Democrat when they could be so much better under Republican rule.
3. Cruz survives an assassination attempt, goes through an epiphany, and vows to be a better person and a team player.
4. Bush has a DNA transplant from his brother and father and shows renewed determination and charisma.

And then we all wake up!

[ElectionsGuy]

So Ted Cruz wins VERMONT?? Some major voter fraud is going on.

[Ronnie]

Cruz is such an awful fit for VT that I have trouble fathoming him having much more than a 35% ceiling.  I think Bernie would have to endorse him, or something, for him to actually be able to break 50% there.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Sanders third party campaign that manages to surge, overtaking the official democratic ticket in upper New England and the Pacific, but not actually win due to split votes.

[Indy Texas]

Hillary is indicted shortly after the DNC and some other scandal breaks (maybe something like foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation being proved to have influenced her behavior as SoS).

A fissure forms within the Democratic Party between those who want her to drop out of the race and those who do not.

Bernie Sanders takes matters into his own hands and announces he will run as an independent, and appears as an independent on the ballot in some states and as a write-in in others.

[dax00]

Clinton gets indicted for the SoS thing and video is leaked of her shooting a black person whilst calling said person the "n" word.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

it doesn't.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Two scenarios:

Scenario 1.

1. Hillary Gets indicted
2. Bernie Supporters stay home and he made the primary competitive

Scenario 2
1. China economy goes into a major recession causing the US economy to go back into recession
2. Oil collapses to 25 dollars
3. More attacks in Europe
4. Bernie Supports stay home and bernie made the primary competitive


So I say the chances of this is less then 0.1%

[Former Senator Haslam2020]

The results of this are from a game called: "The Political Machine 2016", again, not too realistic, but fun and entertaining none the less!

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So Ted Cruz wins VERMONT?? Some major voter fraud is going on.

Maybe if there was some significant 3rd party, he could win 31-30-30. But the idea of him getting a majority of the vote in Vermont is absurd.

[Orser67]

The results of this are from a game called: "The Political Machine 2016", again, not too realistic, but fun and entertaining none the less!

Well in that case, you (probably) played on easy mode and massively outspent your opponent with tv ads.

[Wisconsin+17]

Sanders ran a third party campaign. Easy.

[libertpaulian]

A combination of ALL of these factors:

1. Clinton indicted;
2. Sanders runs third party;
3. Major terrorist attacks throughout Europe, and possibly one here at home;
4. The US enters a recession; AND
5. There's a major Christian revival that happens on the West Coast and in the North that rivals the Great Awakening.