2000: John McCain vs Al Gore

[Lechasseur]

John McCain wins the GOP nomination instead of George W. Bush. How do you think this election would go?

[UWS]

I would say this map.

As McCain is more moderate than Bush, he would be able to flip at least the states that Bush lost by less than 1 percent. So he wins overall by a bigger margin. I guess that McCain would have a better chance to flip Pennsylvania as Gore won it by just 4 points in real life and as the 2000 Republican National Convention was held in Philadelphia.

And also, something interesting is that McCain was leading Bill Bradley in the state of New York by 5 percentage points (44 % for McCain over Bradley's 39 %) and was trailing Gore there by just one percentage point (44 % for Gore over McCain's 43 %). So if McCain was the Republican nominee in 2000, I guess that New York might have been a toss-up state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York#General_election

[Lechasseur]

This is the map I came up with:



I think this would have been a very interesting scenario because I don't think we would have had the realignment which happened IRL with Bush as the GOP nominee. I think McCain would have been much stronger in the North than Bush but Gore and the Democrats would have been much stronger in the South in this scenario than the were IRL against Bush.

EC: McCain wins 312-226

[Thunder98]

Here is my McCain v. Gore map. It's a 269-269 tie

[darklordoftech]

Here is my McCain v. Gore map. It's a 269-269 tie

So it would go to the House...

[UWS]

Here is my McCain v. Gore map. It's a 269-269 tie

So it would go to the House...

So McCain wins since the House of Representatives was controlled by the Republicans at that time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections

[Sir Mohamed]

Why is it widely assumed McCain would win? He may have caused conservatives to stay home and was less charismatic than W.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

-Snip-

A few things:

- McCain would not have come close in New York, vs. any Democrat in 2000, early polls are notoriously unreliable.
- Gore would have at least won his home state of Tennessee, and West Virginia. the rest of the South would have been much closer than OTL 2000 as well
- Arkansas may very well have gone to Gore as well
- Inversely, McCain could have flipped Vermont and Maine, creating a 1980s style map.

[S019]

Senator John McCain (R-AZ)/Senator Kit Bond (R-MO):           303 EV 50.9%
Vice President Al Gore (D-TN)/Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT): 235 EV 47.1%

[Suburbia]

McCain probably flips New Jersey....probably brings Bob Franks to the Senate......

NJ
McCain-Engler 50%
Gore-Lieberman 46%

NJ Senate
Bob Franks 50%
Jon Corzine 48%

McCain does well in Essex County, gets 15% of the Black vote in NJ

McCain gets 11% of the Black vote nationally