2004 if McCain was Kerry’s running mate

[darklordoftech]

What would the map look like?

[538Electoral]

Only NM flips. 281-257 Bush.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Kerry would have picked Bob Graham if he would of did it all over again

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Unless McCain were to switch parties, such intra-party ticket would be problematic under electoral laws in some states.

[brucejoel99]

Probably would've scrambled GOP strategy enough to push Kerry over the top & deliver him a narrow victory. Restructuring the narrative in the middle of a campaign, especially for re-election, is very hard. Kerry as wishy-washy would be hard to sell with such boldness. Bold choices for VP mostly fail thanks to gaffes & weak picks. McCain would've probably had enough sense to avoid crippling statements & would beat Cheney in a debate. There'd be issues with the left-wing defecting, but I think the trauma of 2000 would likely prevent this to a significant extent.

[NewYorkExpress]

Think of how much hot water John McCain would have gotten in for picking Joe Lieberman in 2008, who technically was an Independent at the time, and multiply it.

That's how much hot water Kerry would be in if he'd picked McCain, and that's without considering he'd have wrecked McCain's career too.

George W.Bush/Dick Cheney 359 EV 56%
John Kerry/John McCain 179 EV 42.5%

Bush comes within a couple of thousand votes of also carrying New Jersey and Connecticut.

[Alben Barkley]

There was actually somewhat serious talk of McCain switching parties in the early 2000s, with Schumer and Reid supposedly courting him pretty hard. If he did that around 2001, he would have had a few years to establish himself in the party well enough to be a convincing enough running mate to most Democrats. While at the same time he would pretty much completely undermine the Bush campaign’s attempts to portray Kerry as “too soft” for a wartime president and the whole swiftboating strategy. Unless Bush wanted to go full “I like people who don’t get captured” years before Trump did it, which I doubt he would have or that it would have played as well then if he tried it.

I really do NOT see McCain as undermining Kerry with the majority of Democratic voters, at least any more than Lieberman did Gore. Probably less because McCain was more well-liked. Hell, I don’t even get why anyone thinks McCain would have somehow dragged Kerry down in the midwest/northeast/west coast but Edwards didn’t.

The result could conceivably be something like this:

[NewYorkExpress]

There was actually somewhat serious talk of McCain switching parties in the early 2000s, with Schumer and Reid supposedly courting him pretty hard. If he did that around 2001, he would have had a few years to establish himself in the party well enough to be a convincing enough running mate to most Democrats. While at the same time he would pretty much completely undermine the Bush campaign’s attempts to portray Kerry as “too soft” for a wartime president and the whole swiftboating strategy. Unless Bush wanted to go full “I like people who don’t get captured” years before Trump did it, which I doubt he would have or that it would have played as well then if he tried it.

I really do NOT see McCain as undermining Kerry with the majority of Democratic voters, at least any more than Lieberman did Gore. Probably less because McCain was more well-liked. Hell, I don’t even get why anyone thinks McCain would have somehow dragged Kerry down in the midwest/northeast/west coast but Edwards didn’t.

The result could conceivably be something like this:

I'm pretty sure the OP presupposes McCain is still a Republican.

If he has switched parties by 2004, and beats Cheney in the VP debate, it's certainly possible that a Kerry/McCain ticket could win.

[Alben Barkley]

There was actually somewhat serious talk of McCain switching parties in the early 2000s, with Schumer and Reid supposedly courting him pretty hard. If he did that around 2001, he would have had a few years to establish himself in the party well enough to be a convincing enough running mate to most Democrats. While at the same time he would pretty much completely undermine the Bush campaign’s attempts to portray Kerry as “too soft” for a wartime president and the whole swiftboating strategy. Unless Bush wanted to go full “I like people who don’t get captured” years before Trump did it, which I doubt he would have or that it would have played as well then if he tried it.

I really do NOT see McCain as undermining Kerry with the majority of Democratic voters, at least any more than Lieberman did Gore. Probably less because McCain was more well-liked. Hell, I don’t even get why anyone thinks McCain would have somehow dragged Kerry down in the midwest/northeast/west coast but Edwards didn’t.

The result could conceivably be something like this:

I'm pretty sure the OP presupposes McCain is still a Republican.

If he has switched parties by 2004, and beats Cheney in the VP debate, it's certainly possible that a Kerry/McCain ticket could win.

Well even if McCain was still a Republican, I don’t think that would be enough to give Bush a double digit landslide as you seem to. It certainly would have been a gamble of a pick that might have pissed off some leftists and been seen as a stunt/novelty... but it also might have invigorated the moderate/independent vote. There was still more of an appetite for bipartisanship in 2004, after all. Plus, why assume leftists unhappy with the selection are gonna flock to Bush? If anything it might just make Nader more relevant again. But here you only leave 1.5% for third parties and just give Bush seemingly every conceivable voter unhappy with his VP pick. I’m not sure any VP pick even has that much power.

[NewYorkExpress]

There was actually somewhat serious talk of McCain switching parties in the early 2000s, with Schumer and Reid supposedly courting him pretty hard. If he did that around 2001, he would have had a few years to establish himself in the party well enough to be a convincing enough running mate to most Democrats. While at the same time he would pretty much completely undermine the Bush campaign’s attempts to portray Kerry as “too soft” for a wartime president and the whole swiftboating strategy. Unless Bush wanted to go full “I like people who don’t get captured” years before Trump did it, which I doubt he would have or that it would have played as well then if he tried it.

I really do NOT see McCain as undermining Kerry with the majority of Democratic voters, at least any more than Lieberman did Gore. Probably less because McCain was more well-liked. Hell, I don’t even get why anyone thinks McCain would have somehow dragged Kerry down in the midwest/northeast/west coast but Edwards didn’t.

The result could conceivably be something like this:

I'm pretty sure the OP presupposes McCain is still a Republican.

If he has switched parties by 2004, and beats Cheney in the VP debate, it's certainly possible that a Kerry/McCain ticket could win.

Well even if McCain was still a Republican, I don’t think that would be enough to give Bush a double digit landslide as you seem to. It certainly would have been a gamble of a pick that might have pissed off some leftists and been seen as a stunt/novelty... or it might have invigorated the moderate/independent vote. There was still more of an appetite for bipartisanship in 2004, after all. Plus, why assume leftists unhappy with the selection are gonna flock to Bush? If anything it might just make Nader more relevant again. But here you only leave 1.5% for third parties and just give Bush seemingly every conceivable voter unhappy with his VP pick. I’m not sure any VP pick even has that much power.

We are talking Dubya post 9/11, pre-Katrina. Kerry didn't have room for BS like this (and if he was going to pick a Republican, someone like Arlen Specter makes more sense anyways, actually being from a battleground state) electorally.

Leftists probably still stick with Kerry. That's the 42.5% he's getting. But Independents, Republicans, and soft Democrats are going to jump to Bush. They aren't backing Nader, and they aren't backing any other third party candidate.

[President Biden Democrat]

This would have hurt Kerry for sure and Bush would definitely still win. Progressives in the Democratic party would be turned off and turnout especially among liberals and Democrats would be down.