For fun, let's try and predict the maps for the next six elections

[ShadowRocket]

Skipping the maps:

2020: Biden defeats Trump in a decisive, if not landslide, victory.

2024: VP Harris is nominated after Biden retires after one term and goes on to defeat former VP Pence by a comfortable margin.

2028:  President Harris defeats former FL Governor Ron DeSantis.

2032: Harris' VP is defeated by a currently unknown moderate Republican Senator or Governor elected sometime in the 2020's.

2036: Incumbent Republican president is reelected.

2040:  Currently unknown Democrat is elected.

[ShadowRocket]

I don't know that I would agree with the sentiment that Harris would lose in 2024 unless Biden turns out to be unpopular. Especially as I expect the GOP nominee to be either a full blown Trumpist or was someone damaged in the primary by the need to appeal to that wing ala Romney in '12.

I think she would be more vulnerable in 2028 as an incumbent President as she would be running for a third consecutive Democratic term.

[ShadowRocket]

2024

President Joe Biden (D-DE) / Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) ✓
Fmr. President Donald Trump (R-FL) / Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)

Instability and insecurity continue, with a global recession in 2023, gridlock and dysfunction in congress, and a war of attrition in Ukraine with an accompanying rise in food and energy costs still dragging on by 2024. Trump defeats DeSantis in the primaries and loses the general.

2028

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) / Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) / Fmr. Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) ✓

Feeding off the chaos, anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions break out around the world. There is a coup in Russia, followed by multiparty elections and a dramatic unraveling started by Chechnya's secession. Iran has a civil war with botched American-led intervention. There is another surge of migrants from Latin America, which Senator Hawley capitalizes on in his attempt to rebrand the party after 2024's fight between nationalist and neoliberal Republicans. Facing waning enthusiasm, Democrats lose a close one.

2032


China experiences a slowdown around this time caused by accelerated decoupling with Western economies, the fall of Russia, an aging population, and the bursting of a global tech bubble (cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the metaverse prove to be the nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners of their time, the gimmicks of tech monopolies trying to surpass the limits of capital that can be extracted from society's relationship with technology). However, the post-Xi Communist Party veers dramatically to the left and begins to challenge the US much more in proxy wars around the world. Hawley fumbles, struggling with a new Pink Tide in Latin America and "losing Peru" to a China-backed government. Progressive Senator Ruben Gallego excites a fledgling labor movement with social and economic reforms and public works projects to address climate change and the malaise in the long struggling American economy.

2036


The post-neoliberal soul-searching of the 2010s and 2020s is over. The government has a more active role in the economy, and sustainability is the zeitgeist. A network of transmission lines to widely distribute wind and solar power is under construction, but land acquisitions are in limbo and rallying Republican opposition. Climate migration and the arrival of an idealistic generation of Climate Corps workers flip the Gulf states. Republicans run a Hawleyist who loses handily.

2040

There are cracks in the Democrats' big tent, and even more climate refugees from South Asia and Central Africa, but Democrat policies remain popular enough for the incumbent VP to win. Republicans push hard in perma-Purple Texas but also make some breakthroughs in the Northeast.

2044

The US loses the War in Uzbekistan. A more moderate Republican wins, still pushing the envelope of communitarianism that Hawley emphasized, but primarily criticizing the Democrats' response to antibiotic-resistant pandemics and highlighting the coastal cities and communities that lay abandoned despite investment in bulkheads and seawalls, jumping on the blue-green infrastructure and biotech bandwagons. Nativists remain a big part of the coalition, but a muffled one as they were pre-2010: by this point, voting blocs are a lot fuzzier with the country being majority-minority and more mixed race.

I thought I'd throw a specific name into this which is Elissa Slotkin is elected as the first woman President in 2040 after being elected Senator in 2030 to replace Debbie Stabenow and then being elected VP in 2032.

Reading this, I think she would provide a good balance to Gallego as she's a woman, from the Midwest, and being from the more moderate wing of the party.  Plus a Gallego/Slotkin ticket would signal generational change ala Clinton/Gore in '92.

[ShadowRocket]

I thought I'd throw a specific name into this which is Elissa Slotkin is elected as the first woman President in 2040 after being elected Senator in 2030 to replace Debbie Stabenow and then being elected VP in 2032.

Reading this, I think she would provide a good balance to Gallego as she's a woman, from the Midwest, and being from the more moderate wing of the party.  Plus a Gallego/Slotkin ticket would signal generational change ala Clinton/Gore in '92.

I could totally see that! Was kinda picturing someone currently obscure with a similar profile to Gretchen Whitmer for the same reasons.

She has struck me as someone who could have a bright future ahead. At the very least, I think she is the frontrunner for whichever one of the MI Senate seats opens up first.