Get Off the Track! (1876 runoff)

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

No candidate received a majority on the first round, leading to a runoff between incumbent President William R. Taylor and Liberal-National challenger Abraham Lincoln.

Two days.

[H. Ross Peron]

Republican Labour.

[bagelman]

Honest Abe!

[Elcaspar]

Republican Labour.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Republican Labour but I'm not necessarily enthusiastic about it.

[PPT Spiral]

Went back and forth here, but I ultimately voted Lincoln because the divisions within Liberal-National would be fascinating to see play out once they're in power.

[S019]

Lincoln again!

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Went back and forth here, but I ultimately voted Lincoln because the divisions within Liberal-National would be fascinating to see play out once they're in power.

Same but the opposite, I’m a sucker for OTL towering figures being reduced to footnotes.

[PPT Spiral]

Went back and forth here, but I ultimately voted Lincoln because the divisions within Liberal-National would be fascinating to see play out once they're in power.

Same but the opposite, I’m a sucker for OTL towering figures being reduced to footnotes.

That was a big counter-temptation for me too, I have to admit.

[UlmerFudd]

Lincoln

[President Biden Democrat]

Lincoln, but wasn't Roosevelt like 18 years old at this point?

[H. Ross Peron]

Lincoln, but wasn't Roosevelt like 18 years old at this point?

I think it's TR's father.

[Elcaspar]

Lincoln, but wasn't Roosevelt like 18 years old at this point?

I think it's TR's father.

Yeah it's mostly likely Theodore Roosevelt Sr.

[KaiserDave]

Cmon people. Liberal-National in power will be more interesting and realistic.

[GoTfan]

Cmon people. Liberal-National in power will be more interesting and realistic.

I'm Australian. I will never vote for someone who belongs to anyone from a Liberal National Party. We already have one of those, and that's too many.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

1876 United States presidential election, runoff

Senator Abraham Lincoln (Liberal National, Illinois) / Mr. Theodore Roosevelt (Liberal National, New York) 50.001% popular votes
President William Robert Taylor (Republican Labor, Wisconsin) / Vice President Benjamin Franklin Butler (Republican Labor, Massachusetts) 49.999% popular votes

Not since the bitter Tilden–Sumner campaigns of 1860 had an American election been so closely contested. In the results of the first round, the president seemed to hold a small advantage; but Taylor would probe unable to consolidate his support among the left wing, with scores of Woodhull's voters in the Atlantic states rushing back to Lincoln. Meanwhile, George had weakened support for the Republican Labor party among Irish Catholics, who regarded the incumbent with a degree of indifference and his challenger as a relatively unobjectionable replacement. Taylor's anemic efforts to enforce the Civil Rights Act, meanwhile, meant he could not count on support from black voters in the South to put him over the line. Lincoln was the ideal candidate to exploit these weaknesses. So obscure was his career in politics (two years as a representative from Illinois during the Civil War, an uneventful term as vice president, and four more years in the Senate —each period separated by long absences from public life) meant he had no controversial record to defend. He was friendly enough toward Catholics not to ruin his chances in the east, but not so friendly as to alienate the National vote. He had opposed the 1874 railway workers' strike but made favorable statements toward labor in the past, which allowed him to carry Pennsylvania and run close campaigns in Indiana and Illinois. Even so, the election was unusually tight. It would take weeks of controversy and a special Congressional committee to certify the election for Lincoln, making Taylor the latest in a long line of presidents to serve only a single term.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Note to Truman: did you flip a coin to resolve a tie?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Note to Truman: did you flip a coin to resolve a tie?

When there's a tie I take that as a license to do whatever makes most sense for the story. (Obviously in a pure pv election on this scale it's highly unlikely there would be an exact tie.) The Republicans and their successors have won every election ITTL, and given the national environment, it makes sense that the opposition would have a slight edge.

[Blair]

If it helps I regret not voting for Lincoln purely because it would have made things marginally more interesting...