Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Blackacre]

Imagine Fox News and conservative circles reacting to the MT-Sen win. They would probably think that this is Scott Brown 2.0, a canary in the coalmine that signals a massive GOP victory in the 2026 midterms.

Now imagine their disappointment when the midterms come and that does not happen. That is the moment when they realise that the Reagan coalition isnt coming back.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

It bothered me a little bit to see so many prominent Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul go down, but I guess it makes sense considering the magnitude of the waves that happened in those 3 cycles. After all we did see people like Frank Church, George McGovern and Warren Magnuson go down in 1980. An entire generation of GOP leaders getting wiped out does open up the party for new leaders to arise and reform the party in 2036 and beyond.

I do wonder how the house map shook down. I'd imagine that 2022 saw a bunch of marginal and D-trending seats flip - that would probably be the year that a lot of the ancestrally Republican but anti-Trump seats finally flip, like the remaining Orange County seats, and upscale suburban districts like IL-06, KS-03, NJ-07, NJ-11 and MN-03. Of course if Trump really falls off the wagon soon we may see those seats flip in 2018. To break 300 seats is a very difficult task with current polarization, but working class whites going over in droves for Cordray makes it a lot easier. I think in this scenario we see places that flipped in 2010 like MS-01 and SC-05 going back, as well as upscale districts that weren't quite budged by Trump like the suburban Texas districts (TX-03 for example) going D.

Moving forward I think places like TX-03 are the first ones to flip back in 2030 and on if we really are looking at a more technocratic, upscale GOP while former "Blue Dog" seats stay Democratic. In this scenario we may end up with a lot less polarized House, one looking more like 1996 than 2016.

Also @TD: really appreciated the response regarding the fate of the electoral college. I could see it sticking around because it benefitted the Dems but if the 2020s is anything like the 1960s in terms of amending the constitution it's easy to imagine it going. If Pence were to lose the popular vote in 2020 it'd probably be toast.

[The_Doctor]

Two articles that deal with this timeline's main issues.

[1] Why Republicans Can't Do Healthcare by Ross Douthat. (A center-right commentator).  He goes into some depth about how Trump is possibly a disjunctive President that would pave the way for a realigning President. Which is a component of this timeline. [2] Purple America Has All But Disappeared by David Wasserman at 538. Increasing polarization is unsustainable, as this timeline, again, talks about.

[The_Doctor]

It bothered me a little bit to see so many prominent Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul go down, but I guess it makes sense considering the magnitude of the waves that happened in those 3 cycles. After all we did see people like Frank Church, George McGovern and Warren Magnuson go down in 1980. An entire generation of GOP leaders getting wiped out does open up the party for new leaders to arise and reform the party in 2036 and beyond.

Yup. One reason I didn't do more in this timeline is that the names beyond 2024 on the GOP and Democratic side is an entirely new generation of political leaders that have a very different ideological matrix than what we have seen in the past. On the GOP side, we see the re-emergence of Northern Republican moderate technocrats (Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, etc) begin to dominate the GOP. On the Democratic side, we see liberal populists emerge to dominate the Democrats. Today, you don't see these groups dominating their respective parties (at least, not on the Democratic side as much as they will).

The Northern technocrats will retake their party and that's one reason for New York going Republican in the U.S. Senate election. The GOP will start breaching the Democrats' firewall in the blue states once social issues are off the table and Cordray has initiated the next major economic system in American political history, thus taking off a lot of issues like income inequality, etc off the table (relatively). This allows the Northern GOP to capitalize on issues like effective government, using technology to advance social goods, and so on. In essence, the Republican Party of 2030 looks a lot like the Clinton Democratic Party of the 1990s, if a bit more conservative.

A small aside; Romney and Trump are harbingers of the Northern strategy and the shift towards embracing Northern Republicans. It's just that both are located within the era where the GOP is a dominant Southern - Western - rural/suburban Midwestern party. The GOP becomes basically the Mitt Romney Republican Party but a lot more attuned to populist causes than Mitt was.

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Pretty much. The first seats to fall will be the rich white college educated seats - but they're the GOP's low hanging fruit. They'll stick with Cordray for a while but will form the backbone of the new GOP Northern Strategy by 2030. The working class white and minority districts, however, will be much harder to dislodge. Minorities aren't about to return to the GOP fold after two generations of the Southern Strategy and white working class voters will be burned by the economic crisis and neoliberalism (and fairly relatively happy with the new populist Democratic Party).

The GOP could honestly win the House back in 2030 or 2036 or something, but it would be a very different House majority than in the past. Any Republican majority will be highly pragmatic, aware that part of the GOP majority will hold working class districts that will bolt back to the Democrats if they feel the GOP majority is not in line with the new ideological framework.

This, by the way, is exactly what happened in 1994. The Democratic majority was deemed to be out of line with the Reagan era, and was tossed out, especially in blue collar areas. That allowed the GOP to gain its first Congressional majority in decades.

[Blackacre]

More notes and questions.

One, I find it interesting how Northern Technocrats seem to always become the foundation of the revived minority party. They were arguably the bedrock of the Lincoln majority, but since then they've been Eisenhower Republicans, wine-track Clinton Democrats, and now TBD Republicans. They always manage to be politically successful, but only after forcing their party to adhere to the rulebook of a new majority. Afterward, the ideological wing of their party comes back into full force and kicks them to the curb, first by Goldwater and then by Sanders.

Second, as for Congress, I imagine the GOP would take back the House in 2034, as Castro falters in the same way Truman and Bush Sr did and fails to hold up the Cordray Legacy. The Senate might also fall, but the GOP has a long way to go before that happens. In 2030, after making massive gains, they still only have 42 seats. The Senate may well remain in Democratic hands until 2050, especially because:

Depolarisation will lead to more ticket splitting, and that won't always favour Republicans. Just as Boozman and Kennedy remain populist enough to maintain goodwill with their constituents and survive, there will be northern technocratic Democratic Senators and Congressmen who stay in office despite the GOP's new ground. New Mexico and Oregon had a Republican Senator each until 2008. Rhode Island had one until 2006. Arkansas had two Democratic Senators until 2010. This depolarised Senate is fertile ground for bipartisan legislation, for party mavericks, and for retail politics. Both parties will have technocratic and populist wings (at least in the Senate) until the ideological sorting is complete and polarisation shows its ugly head once more.

But I see an ugly conflict of interest brewing. Democrats have as their coalition members of the working class from all races, and it was whites without college degrees that flipped en mass to them. But their coalition will shrink as college access expands. Cordray wouldn't dream of this, (and it would piss off LBJ) but do Dems respond in the 2040s and 2050s by trying to block new policies that would expand access to college education? If the party sees people higher on the socioeconomic ladder opposing them, do they see social mobility as a threat?

[The_Doctor]

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Kinda interesting you mention it ... but now that's weirdly and eerily accurate. The Lincoln Republican majority was built in the North and the (then) frontier Northwest. Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson came from the Northeast. The Congressional Democrats, though, were largely Southern based.

In the New Deal era, the opposition, though, came from the West and later, in the second half, the South. Right?

But largely, that seems accurate for the minority party to go through. They become politically the establishment (the famous Liberal Eastern Republican establishment is the best example). They take over, act technocratic and try to steer the party away from its more crazy wings. Then as the minority coalition transitions to the majority, they are kicked to the curb. That's really something I only discovered writing this timeline and it's fascinating to watch this political process play out over and over.

I would need to study for example, the minority coalition during the Jefferson-Jackson era and Lincoln-McKinley era to see how the Democrats operated.

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I can't really speak to this because Congressional fluctuations are less predictable.  You may be well right.

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Good question. That's kind of a timeline for the GOP Majority of the 2060s - 2080s. But we don't know what that is going to be even like or how things will shake out.

[GlobeSoc]

Maybe being the minority party leads to pragmatism to preserve as much of their old majority era agenda as possible, and that pragmatism leads to the technocrats getting on board?

[Blackacre]

It depends on the 2036 GOP Coalition. Specifically, how much appeal it has with hispanic voters. If immigration laws remain restrictive, I could see hispanic voters moving away from the Cordray administration and towards a Republican party running as more expansionist on that issue. (considering business leaders love immigration, that wouldn't surprise me) However, I think Cordray or Castro will sign at least the DREAM Act and create some pathway to citizenship for those already here, even while making immigration laws restrictive for new immigrants. That would be enough to keep the sunbelt in D hands.

In New York's case, I expect the GOP victory there to be short-lived. New York City is huge, composing a third of the state's current population. The suburbia is also huge, but it's not what it appears. For one, the suburbia isn't entirely contained within New York State itself. A lot of the NY Metro area is in Connecticut and New Jersey, a pair of states that are much more likely to be solidly Republican than New York itself. There's also the matter of why NY Suburbia votes Democratic. Long Island certainly doesn't. Westchester does, not because of its upscale whites, but because of the heavily nonwhite cities of Yonkers and White Plains. That'll be harder to flip. The upstate is Republican, but its percentage of the state's population is shrinking every year, and it'll be less polarised in the Cordray era.

I imagine Castro losing the state in 2036 will be because of the city's low turnout compared to the rest of the state. Losing the Senate seat in 2030 and the Presidential in the state in 2036 will hammer home for Dems the need to maximise turnout in the city. That'll prevent the state from becoming a GOP stronghold in the future. It'll also probably see a return of party bosses. Though the Senator who wins in 2030 is probably entrenched unless they become the 2036 GOP Presidential winner. In that case, it'll go R for its favourite son but return to a shade of D in 2044, much like Arkansas for Bill Clinton.

TedBessel thinks that Florida will be the most Democratic state in the South in the Cordray era, because of hispanic voters and the movement of whites to Cordray. 2036 will be the first time since 1992 that a Presidential candidate wins without Florida, and the first time a Republican did it since 1924.

Texas is Castro's home state. It'll probably go for him in 2036.

California might be a tipping-point state, though, I don't really know about the state's politics as much as New York's, for obvious reasons, but I imagine the silicon valley types will be receptive to the Cordray-era Republican Party. California very well might go GOP in 2036 and stay in the GOP's path to electoral victory in 2040 and beyond.

[GlobeSoc]

How would New England trend? I would guess that CT would become likely R,NH tilt R, Vermont lean D, Maine likely D, RI safe D. I might be missing something though.

[The_Doctor]

This is a draft guesstimate of the 2036 Presidential election. Critique and suggest changes; I'll make them appropriately. Some of you are better versed in this TL than I am (and that's a good thing!). I'll write up a short explanation.

The election of 2036 featured a technocratic Northern Republican based in Maryland/Virginia/Pennsylvania/New Jersey squaring off against President Castro. After twelve years of Rich Cordray and Julian Castro, the country was ready to embrace a technocratic moderate Republican President. The Republican nominee is either a governor or a Senator well versed in navigating blue state politics. The Southern GOP base has withered away forcing the GOP to moderate to win Northern and Upper Pacific Coastal states.

President Castro falls back on the Hillary Clinton strategy of appealing to minorities and trying to play up the demographic card and trying to paint the GOP as the same old Trumpist type party. Meanwhile, the GOP nominee is socially moderate, even liberal, and is economically technocratic, e.g, a blend of careful populism and traditional neoliberal stands. The GOP nominee is also pro-climate change action, holds a semi-conservative line on immigration, and wants to budget like Ike and Bill Clinton did - funding towards programs that have a big return on their value. This Republican President will be Bill Clinton, basically. By 2036, Bill Clinton looks very much like a conservative for his time, so this President will draw parallels in policy to Bill Clinton.

The election ends with the GOP nominee taking New York with strong margins in the suburbs, Long Island, and Upstatate New York while holding Democratic margins in the city to something like 68-31% Democratic. The GOP won 53% in New Jersey, 56% in Pennsylvania, and did well across the Midwest. They lost Illinois, on account of Chicago being too strongly Democratic but it was a close fight in Illinois (51-48% D). The Sunbelt proved the most Democratic of the country, with its heavily Latino and Asian populations still voting strongly D (but less so). CA is, let us say, 55-43% Democratic, Arizona 52-47% D, etc. The Pacific Northwest goes Republican, since this guy is a moderate, as does most of the MW. The South is the area I'm least sure of but because the region remains fairly conservative relatively to everyone else, I think the South goes Republican.

Economy hits a snag around 2034-2036 which enables the GOP to win. Congress is either (1) Democratic (2) One chamber GOP that goes back to the Democrats in 2038 (2) GOP for 2 years, a la 1952-1954.

[The_Doctor]

The big problem in forecasting beyond Castro is this. We might be entering a new realignment period and I'll elaborate on this just now. Feel free to argue and critique.

The 19th century Jefferson-Lincoln era are bookend realignment eras. Ditto the 20th century FDR-Reagan. Jefferson-Lincoln corresponded directly from the transition from Agrarian era to the Industiral Era; a political epoch that took 132 years to complete. From the FDR to Reagan era, that's another 92 year epoch, marking the transition from the post-Industrial mass market era to the Service Economy. I'd call them super-aligning eras.

You'll notice Jefferson's era saw 40 years of basically Democratic dominance (the Democratic-Republican Party became the Democrats, with Jackson taking Jefferson as his ideological heir, while the JQ Adams faction became the Whigs, and later, the Republicans). The GOP era, conversely, is basically a weaker form but still strong dominance all the way from 1860 to 1912 (with only one Democratic Presidency and mixed congressional control from 1876 to 1896 but strong GOP control after).

Roosevelt and Reagan's era very much mirror each other, except FDR's era was much more strongly Democratic entrenched while Reagan's GOP needed time to gain Congress. (Although, arguably, we've had a conservative coalition ruling this country in Congress, with periodic breaks since 1981).

In a lot of ways, we're still in the 20th century politically, even as our economy and culture has shifted to the 21st century. This is not unusual to me - 19th century politics prevailed all the way into 1932 (with significant interruptions, namely TR and Wilson's Administrations). A lot of our politics right now being as chaotic as they are is probably because there's a disjunctive disconnect between our 20th century politics and 21st century cultural, demographic, and economic realities.

You'll remember most of the current era's political philosophy was formed in the 1950s to the 1970s, and is applicable to the 1980s to the 2000s. It starts to break down now because honestly, the GOP uses this time period as a frame of reference to answer the problems of today. So, I still feel we're in the 20th century politically.

Now, this upcoming 21st era is probably a whole new ballgame in terms of politics, our economy, and international position. The economy and technology are going to probably take a giant leap forward, and we might see the beginnings of a whole new economic reality and as a consequence, alignment, which could take two realignments to complete, ending somewhere in the 22nd century.

One thing I've wondered is if the Republican Party will survive this era or if a brand new pro-business party will replace the GOP.  There will be a need for a pro-business party to balance the Democratic populist party, but I wonder how the GOP's civil war between 2024-2036 (and maybe beyond) will play out.

So this technocratic Republican may not actually happen in 2036 - this is just a guess. I'd assume this era will diverge significantly from the FDR-Reagan model significantly. But we'll go with it for now.

i'm spitballing and this is kind of a very broad discussion of realignments and how they may bookend.

[GlobeSoc]

Would Mark Cuban running as an independent candidate change much?  I'm guessing no, but he could cause the democrats to shift to Sanders-esque populism ahead of schedule

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

This has been stated over and over again, but this TL is so good. The fact that it's so convincingly realistic gives me hope for the next ten years.

[The_Doctor]

Would Mark Cuban running as an independent candidate change much?  I'm guessing no, but he could cause the democrats to shift to Sanders-esque populism ahead of schedule

I doubt he runs at all. He might but I believe that this whole "political outsider" thing is a passing phase that is an overreaction to Ronald Reagan's "outsider" persona and fails to understand the complexity of actually operating a government. On some level, we see how much of a bust Obama's celebrity persona and "outsider" status was - he increasingly relied on his political experience as a Illinois State Senator and (somewhat) a U.S. Senator to guide his presidency. In this timeline, Trump has even less experience and this becomes a major issue that helps doom his presidency outside the scandals. The long and short of it, by 2019-2020, I think we'll be reverting to electing Presidents from inside the political system.

The Democrats, I think, are already becoming a Sandernista Party. Sanders won a lot of the ideological fights back in June 2016. One important divergence from the 1932 - 1980 era is that there was no major blowout against such a candidate that would end up being the basis for the Democratic governing majority. But the Whigs/GOP suffered no such ideological defeat in the Jeffersonian era and in 1908, William Jennings Bryan might have come closest to such an ideological loss in the Lincoln era when he lost by 8 points (presaging Wilson's win 4 years later). One thing that's interesting about the current era is that the Democratic nominee has convincingly won 48% of the two party vote or better since 1992. That may be in part because of how weak the GOP is as a governing coalition in this time. (Sidenote: It could be that the combined elections of 2000 and 2016 represent the "searing" watersheds of the Democratic losses).

To answer your question, if he did run, he would probably run on a "minority coalition" liberal agenda that might split the Democratic vote and yes, put the Bernie Sanders people firmly in charge of the Democratic Party.

[The_Doctor]

One upcoming article coming up and that's going to require some major research: the failing neoliberal capitalistic regime and how that has led to right wing populist movements in the United States and the globe. Tied into that article is how realignments are broadly tied to economic changes and shifts (at least in the United States). Some cliff notes is how working class areas in the United States, England, and elsewhere have been devastated and political leaders fail to address that, leading to them resenting "the others," and then leading to the stated realignment in the US (can't speak for England and elsewhere) as economic conditions deteriorate.

This will go a long way to explaining the election of 2024 and the Cordray White House. But it also hopefully will explain what we're looking at in the next decade. It will also explain the resurgence of the economic left who will take power to supplant the neoliberals (but not entirely discarding their ideology).

[Blackacre]

Here's an alternate picture of what a 2036 Republican victory might be. Or 2040. Or 2044. Or a victory by the New Federalist Party. Basically the first Democratic Loss post-Cordray. I'm going to assume that it's 2036 with the Republicans, but I don't know. That would depend on the GOP adapting and resolving its internal issues within 12 years. However, the 2030 gains probably foreclose its destruction. At the end of the day, fighting the GOP civil war is less difficult than creating new party infrastructure from scratch.

The shifts in Appalacia and the South towards the Democratic Party stick. Even with the economic downturn, the region is economically better off now than it was before, and once-reliable Bush and Pence voters don't trust the Connecticut Governor who absolutely refused to offer them the same socially conservative red-meat that Romney did. With social issues basically off the table, populist Southerners stick with their ancestral home. The Sunbelt also goes Democratic, in part due to Castro himself, both personally and because of his policies that help immigrant communities already living in the US. (while keeping a tight hold on future immigration to placate the Appalachians)

The moderate, technocratic Connecticut Governor, on a ticket with a moderate Kansas Senator, wins the election without the South and Sunbelt, by racking up large margins in northern rural areas and with suburbia. They argue for common sense in Washington, running as centrist technocrats, occupying the same political space as Clinton and Eisenhower. They also improve their vote totals in the big cities, allowing New York and Illinois to come into their column. Illinois is EXTREMELY close, decided by less than a thousand votes overall. It would be a strongly Democratic state, but the recession hit the state hard. Above the Mason-Dixon line, only loyally liberal Vermont and Massachusetts remain in D hands.

California goes Republican by three points. The southern part of the state is strongly D to match AZ and NM, but silicon valley types and northern suburbs go for the technocratic Republican. As a large, diverse state with both Democratic and Republican elements in this party system, California becomes a major tipping-point state in 2040 and beyond. As long as the Republican Party remains the party of that Connecticut Governor, California will be at least somewhat open to it.

Close states include:
California
Illinois
New York
Colorado
Virginia and Maryland. These two states vote together in almost every election for the next several decades. Both states are defined by DC Suburbs, and will vote for the Democrat as long as the Republican goes hard right on either cultural or financial issues. After all, many of these suburban jobs come from the federal government right next door. But a moderate technocrat is exactly the type of Republican that could get their support.
Oklahoma and Alabama. These states are the only ones to vote for Castro but never for Cordray. They are a consequence of the GOP abandoning its cultural conservatism entirely. This is the only time they are close.
Georgia. TBH this state probably should have gone Republican, but by 2036 it's almost majority-black, and black Americans remain strongly D. (if to a lesser extent) They, and working-class whites in the state, deliver it for Castro, returning to its ancestral status as the Most Democratic State in the union.

[Virginiá]

Wow, TD. Glad this TL is still going strong ! You've done a really fantastic job, and quite frankly is probably my dream TL if I ever had one.

I had a couple questions:

1. Do you ever envision Republicans making significant inroads with Hispanics and/or African Americans? As it stands, the GOP has basically tanked with Hispanic voters for as far back as polling goes, and without being able to do this it makes a large part of the country permanently walled (pun intended) off to them in the future.

2. What would be the makeup of the GOP's base in Virginia that makes the state flip in 2036? At current rates, Virginia seems poised to end this decade with approx. ~4% drop in NH whites, to about 60%, and we might assume that between 2020 - 2036, we see a total of at least ~7% more, putting Virginia at just a few points majority non-Hispanic white. I only point this out because it really does look like Virginia is slipping beyond the GOP's grasp in all but large landslide elections.

[The_Doctor]

1. Yes; as the Republicans realign towards their technocratic Northern Strategy, they court upscale minorities and try to stop race baiting. In the current era, their Southern/Midwestern strategy is predicated on winning evangelical and culturally conservative white voters. That's not viable down the road...so the Northern Strategy Republicans will be a lot more careful. I'd be a prime example of the kind of Republican they'd be targeting with the Northern strategy, FWIW.

2. I'll try to do some research ... I assumed Virginia going GOP was because the GOP won the Southwest, the areas surrounding Richmond, and made inroads into the white electorate + some minorities in Northern Virginia, that made it return Republican. It's solidly Democratic, in this timeline, not going Republican once between 2008 and 2036. But I will do some geographic footwork on Virginia to figure out how it goes GOP under this technocratic coalition.

[The_Doctor]

Virginia:

Here's the map of Virginia in 2036 or whenever the GOP nominee wins the Presidency carrying Virginia.

http://i.imgur.com/02dk5Gz.png

North Virginia swings markedly to the GOP nominee, but not so overwhelmingly, like they did in 2000. It's much narrower, a string of 51-47% wins. Meanwhile, in richer counties that Clinton won, the X GOP nominee carries them as they no longer feel threatened by the cultural conservative identity of the GOP nominee. They are voting economics/tired of Cordray-Castro.

Rural areas break sharply Republican, suburban areas break narrowly Republican, the urban areas are down in turnout and Democratic strength. The coalition of educated whites + minorities who are upscale and face the looming scepter of basic income possibly meaning much higher taxes and the threat that their college educations may be devalued, etc turn to the GOP to defend capitalistic ethos.

I threw this together based on the Bush v. Gore 2000 map and modified to add Trump areas + areas I thought the GOP nominee would carry. Hope this helps. It may be wildly off - just food for thought. I looked up some census figures for the counties that I flipped blue, based on median income and # of whites. (If the whites were 45%+ and the income was high, I made it a candidate to vote GOP).

EDIT: More info. I based the data on exit polling, since NH whites tend to outpace their population totals.

Whites: 52% of electorate; 64-35% Republican
African Americans: 22% of electorate; 74-25% Democratic
Latinos: 16% of electorate; 55-44% Democratic
Asians: 5% of electorate; 43-56% Republican
Others: 5% of electorate; 55-44% Democratic.

Totals: 48.18%   Democratic, 50.82% Republican.

You see substantial gains for the GOP among Latinos and African Americans, and the GOP wins back Asians outright. Coupled with a strong performance among upscale whites, the GOP takes Virginia's 13 electoral votes. I suspect, quite honestly, the Republicans will actually do better among minorities, because as you can see, taking 64% of NH whites in this election barely gets them to 51% of the vote. They actively have to make the Latino vote a swing bloc and dent the African American vote and take the Asian vote to just get to 51%.

You see the strength in North Virginia, as they no longer feel mortally threatened by the GOP and that strength helps them enormously. College graduates make up 70% of Virginia's electorate, with the universal college education now part of the national framework. The above $100k brackets go heavily Republican while the $50-100k brackets go GOP 52-47% and the lower go Democratic.

Can you imagine the GOP in 2016 doing this? Not likely. The sea change to flip VA like that means an entirely different Republican Presidential nominee who is far more technocratic, racially and culturally tolerant, and focused on economics. Think a change from Silent Cal Coolidge to Dwight Eisenhower.

EDIT 2: Let me know if the VA map is not viewable on mobile.

[Gass3268]

Map is not viewable, even on a laptop.

[Blackacre]

Here's an alternate picture of what a 2036 Republican victory might be. Or 2040. Or 2044. Or a victory by the New Federalist Party. Basically the first Democratic Loss post-Cordray. I'm going to assume that it's 2036 with the Republicans, but I don't know. That would depend on the GOP adapting and resolving its internal issues within 12 years. However, the 2030 gains probably foreclose its destruction. At the end of the day, fighting the GOP civil war is less difficult than creating new party infrastructure from scratch.

The shifts in Appalacia and the South towards the Democratic Party stick. Even with the economic downturn, the region is economically better off now than it was before, and once-reliable Bush and Pence voters don't trust the Connecticut Governor who absolutely refused to offer them the same socially conservative red-meat that Romney did. With social issues basically off the table, populist Southerners stick with their ancestral home. The Sunbelt also goes Democratic, in part due to Castro himself, both personally and because of his policies that help immigrant communities already living in the US. (while keeping a tight hold on future immigration to placate the Appalachians)

The moderate, technocratic Connecticut Governor, on a ticket with a moderate Kansas Senator, wins the election without the South and Sunbelt, by racking up large margins in northern rural areas and with suburbia. They argue for common sense in Washington, running as centrist technocrats, occupying the same political space as Clinton and Eisenhower. They also improve their vote totals in the big cities, allowing New York and Illinois to come into their column. Illinois is EXTREMELY close, decided by less than a thousand votes overall. It would be a strongly Democratic state, but the recession hit the state hard. Above the Mason-Dixon line, only loyally liberal Vermont and Massachusetts remain in D hands.

California goes Republican by three points. The southern part of the state is strongly D to match AZ and NM, but silicon valley types and northern suburbs go for the technocratic Republican. As a large, diverse state with both Democratic and Republican elements in this party system, California becomes a major tipping-point state in 2040 and beyond. As long as the Republican Party remains the party of that Connecticut Governor, California will be at least somewhat open to it.

Close states include:
California
Illinois
New York
Colorado
Virginia and Maryland. These two states vote together in almost every election for the next several decades. Both states are defined by DC Suburbs, and will vote for the Democrat as long as the Republican goes hard right on either cultural or financial issues. After all, many of these suburban jobs come from the federal government right next door. But a moderate technocrat is exactly the type of Republican that could get their support.
Oklahoma and Alabama. These states are the only ones to vote for Castro but never for Cordray. They are a consequence of the GOP abandoning its cultural conservatism entirely. This is the only time they are close.
Georgia. TBH this state probably should have gone Republican, but by 2036 it's almost majority-black, and black Americans remain strongly D. (if to a lesser extent) They, and working-class whites in the state, deliver it for Castro, returning to its ancestral status as the Most Democratic State in the union.

Great map! But,

Why do the Dems hold onto Massachusetts? It seems like the college educated white cohort there would be sick of Cordray's New Deal by 2036/2040 and they'd be ready to vote for a fiscally centrist Republican. I believe that Massachusetts is at or near number one when it comes to having the largest college educated populace and they're a largely nonhispanic white state.

MA could go Republican, but I think it's too liberal in ways that states like New York are not. It voted McGovern in 1972 for instance, and only elected Republican Governors because their in-house Democratic Party has some really bad candidates. Brown and Baker are Coakley's fault. (also the Republican governors help to balance out their heavily D legislature) I could see it swapping for Illinois though, and I would guess it would flip in 2040 if the R president does a good job.

Alternatively:

I think this map is a little better than the first one I did, actually. Under the current EVs, it's a 304-234 Republican victory, which seems about right given the Ds will have a higher EV floor, but give or take Georgia and Massachusetts. This is based on TD's map, but I flipped Florida and Louisiana (because of their sunbelt status) and a few southern states. West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee will become Democratic strongholds. These are Southern states, but more importantly, Appalachian states. Cordray-Castro will cause the poorest region in the US to vote according to its economic self-interest. Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia also vote D because of their heavily black population and the depolarization of southern whites. Cali is closer, but I guess it would take longer to acclimate to the Rs than the rest of the North. The Northern strategy probably doesn't focus much on Cali anyway.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Another sticked TL

[ShadowRocket]

I'm just echoing everyone else, but I liked this timeline a lot and many of the things described within it sound like things that could actually happen.

I was bit surprised that you had Cordray picking Julian Castro for VP in 2024 since, unless I missed it, it didn't sound like he really did anything to remain relevant during the Trump/Pence presidencies. Joaquin Castro would've made more sense to me since I imagine he'll still be in the House, possibly in a leadership role. Out of the shortlist contenders you did mention, though, Kamala Harris struck me as the best choice, IMO.

Also, do you have a second-choice for who the realignment president could be in this scenario? I know you mentioned considering Carter or Kander before deciding on Cordray, but I was curious if you have an alternative in mind if things don't work out with him IRL.

[ShadowRocket]

Chris B, I was thinking Joe Kennedy III as the realigning candidate for the Democrats since it would be fascinating to see a Kennedy end the Reagan era but he doesn't seem like the kind of person who's interested in being President.

He seems like a possibility, though I would think his problem at the moment is that there isn't any room for advancement that would position him for a run at the moment as Warren and Markley don't seem to be giving up their Senate seats, and Baker will most likely win reelection.

I'm guessing TD didn't pick Kander for a similar reason.

[GlobeSoc]

Can't seem to see your Virginia map