The New Campaign Trail

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played Hillary Clinton as a moderate Democrat. Got some interesting results. I played as winner take all, but adjusted the map for how the electoral votes in NE/ME would've voted if the states voted by that percentage in this timeline. ME-1 & NE-2 went from a 269-269 draw to a 271-267 Clinton win.

[Vice President Christian Man]

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Played as Romney/Trump normal difficulty. Very realistic map, although Florida would've had a chance of flipping if Trump was able to hammer Obama on relaxing the Cuban embargo, but we'll assume Obama will narrowly win it since Romney was running and not Trump.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played as Bush/Perot and managed to beat Clinton in a landslide. I don't think this was a realistic map overall, I think in a realistic scenario, Clinton would've taken the contiguous West Coast, NV, AZ, NM, MO (narrowly), and NC, as well as DE, NJ, and New England minus NH+ME, while Bush (Perot) would've taken MS,AL,GA & SC. Otherwise this was a strange result and could've been an alternative history Southern Strategy never happened scenario where Bill Clinton chose someone like Mario Cuomo to be his running mate.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Managed to steal Nixon's thunder as Wallace/Jackson in 1972. I doubt Wallace would've done this well but I ran as an anti-busing, anti-war but moderate on military spending, moderate on civil rights but reaching out to Black communities, pro-union economic populist (but anti-universal healthcare) who focused primarily in The Midwest and Appalachia.

Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew:363 E.V./50%
George Wallace/Henry Jackson: 175 E.V./40%
Eugene McCarthy: 0 E.V./5%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Wtf is this new meme scenario with Adele running against Jimmy Carter?

I think it's a joke. There's no way the maps are realistic.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Managed to steal Nixon's thunder as Wallace/Jackson in 1972. I doubt Wallace would've done this well but I ran as an anti-busing, anti-war but moderate on military spending, moderate on civil rights but reaching out to Black communities, pro-union economic populist (but anti-universal healthcare) who focused primarily in The Midwest and Appalachia.

Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew:363 E.V./50%
George Wallace/Henry Jackson: 175 E.V./40%
Eugene McCarthy: 0 E.V./5%

Hey! That's my mod! I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you, it was fun to play.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Wtf is this new meme scenario with Adele running against Jimmy Carter?

I think it's a joke. There's no way the maps are realistic.

As someone who views the subreddit of the game quite frequently, they can get quite meme-ish in there sometimes and this meme culture often finds it's way into mods. For example, in a 1996 mod version that makes the game more competitive Bill Clinton gets impeached for having sexual relations with a soccer ball. It's best not to question or try to take these kinds of mods seriously.

Also some of the mods are aesthetically bad or feel incomplete. Do any that you know of feel exactly like the base game?

I think 1996 is rigged in Dole's favor. I've never managed to get Clinton to win and it seems like Dole always wins in a 400+ landslide no matter what mod I'm in.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played as Wallace in 1972 and picked Jackson. Ran more like Jimmy Carter would have on racial issues rather than Wallace and nearly managed to win

Connecticut and Rhode Island seems like they’d be switched but maybe they were different states in that era.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Joe narrowly defeats Trump in the 2016 mod.

[Vice President Christian Man]

After months of anticipation, VA 2021 modder has released the VA 2021 mod to everyone with a county map and all. You can only play as Youngkin right now and it's unlikely that McAuliffe will be released too quickly, but I played it and already I think it's one of the best and most well crafted mods.

I love how you could see the county data on this mod.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Trump defeated Biden and yet lost Georgia.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played Ted Kennedy as the "anti-Reagan". Did better than Carter but still lost by a decent margin.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Got this map playing as Dukakis.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Ran as Trump/Sanders 2016 and won easily:

Where's the Trump/Sanders option?

[Vice President Christian Man]

Lost 51-47 as Oz in the PA Senate scenario

[Vice President Christian Man]

Won as AOC against incumbent president Ron DeSantis in the 2032 mod.



Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez/Lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes: 49%
Incumbent President Ron DeSantis/unknown VP: 42%
Chris Sununu/Unknown VP: 7%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played as Baker/Obama in an alterate history where Obama was a Republican. Got this interesting map, however his opponent never got more than 50% in any of the states he won despite winning in a landslide.



Henry Cuellar/Joe Manchin: 465 E.V./53.7% P.V.
Charlie Baker/Barack Obama: 65 E.V./46.7%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Won the P.V. as Wallace but lost the E.C. to Nixon.



Richard Nixon: 298 E.V./45.7% P.V.
George Wallace: 240 E.V./46.5% P.V.
Eugene McCarthy: 0 E.V./7.8% P.V.

Closest States:
Alaska: .47%

Closer States:
New Mexico: 1.11%
Indiana: 1.63%
Oklahoma: 4.11%

Close States:
Ohio: 5.80%
Pennsylvania: 5.87%
Delaware: 6.04%
New Jersey: 6.40%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Weird campaign trail result.



Hillary Clinton: 351 E.V./50.2%
Donald Trump: 187 E.V./44%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Weird campaign trail result.



Hillary Clinton: 351 E.V./50.2%
Donald Trump: 187 E.V./44%

Was McCaskill the running mate?

Yep

[Vice President Christian Man]

Flip CO, IA, VA & FL and this is how I expect that a similar match would've taken place around 2020.

Closest States (<1%):
Colorado: 0.09%
Missouri: .56%
Florida: .69%
Arizona: .93%

Closer States: (1-5%):
Ohio: 1.86%
Nevada: 2.74%
Montana: 3.39%
Michigan: 3.52% (Tipping point victory: Buchanan victory)
Virginia: 4.61%
West Virginia: 4.61%

Close States (5-9%):
Pennsylvania: 5.05%
Wisconsin: 5.51%
New Hampshire: 5.64%
Tennessee: 6.08%
New Mexico: 6.31%
Kentucky: 7.26%
Minnesota: 7.9%
Arkansas: 8.03%
Texas: 8.43%
Iowa: 9.1%
Oregon: 9.34%

[Vice President Christian Man]

Lost as Mastriano by 5 points

[Vice President Christian Man]

Played Oz but chose the most Trump-like answers. Lost 47-52.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Got this very unusual map but yet Tucker is a very unusual candidate. Ran as a populist but not overboard candidate and managed to lose only as a result of Texas. I bet the county map would be that much more interesting though.



Popular Vote:
Gavin Newsom: 50.4%/291 E.V.
Tucker Carlson: 45.8%/247 E.V.

Closest States:
Texas: .94% (Tipping Point state: Carlson win)

Closer States:
Florida: 1.77%
Minnesota: 1.88%
Arizona: 2.08%
Michigan: 3.09%
Georgia: 3.21%
Oregon: 3.83%
Pennsylvania: 3.85%
New Hampshire: 3.93%
Wisconsin: 4.50%
North Carolina: 4.75%

Close States:
Maine (At. lg): 5.86%
Nevada: 6.89%
Ohio: 8.95%

[Vice President Christian Man]

After a while I played a game, and it was quite fun.

I played the classic 2012 edition, as Mitt Romney (with Rob Portman as my running mate).

The race was ultimately a dead heat, boiling down to, ironically given their great importance in the primaries as well, NH and IA. Romney was leading in the EC 266-262, meaning that Obama would have to win both states to clinch the presidency (and Romney would need either or both to cross the finish line). Ultimately, IA was called first (Obama+0.2) and NH was subsequently called for Romney (49.8-49.5%). Definitely a pretty exciting game!

I was also satisfied because I won VA, where I sent Romney for most of his campaign visits. It, like all of Romney's states, was necessary for his victory.




States decided by margins of greater than 20 points are the darkest shade. States decided by double-digits, but by less than 20 points, are the next-darkest shade. States decided by single-digits, but by over 5 points, are the middle-shade (note: there was no such Romney state). States decided by under 5 points, but more than a point, are a shade lighter. States decided by under one point (just IA and NH) have the lightest shading.
I tried to shade the states on the map, but halfway through I accidentally shut the tab, lost my progress and decided not to bother. Instead, here are all the states decided by single-digit margins, ordered from closest to least close (despite me saying earlier that NH was decided by 0.3% and Iowa by 0.2%, that was a rounding error and it's actually the opposite, as you see below):

New Hampshire: R+0.24
Iowa: D+0.26
Colorado: D+0.74
Nevada: D+0.76
Pennsylvania: D+1.07
Wisconsin: D+1.44
Florida: R+2.54
Virginia: R+2.81
Ohio: R+2.89
Minnesota: D+3.53
Michigan: D+4.89
North Carolina: R+4.93
New Mexico: D+6.49
Maine: D+6.62
Washington: D+6.79 (perhaps the biggest difference between IRL 2012 result and in-game result)
Oregon: D+7.67
Delaware: D+7.75



Despite the closest state breaking for Romney, there was a large number of states that narrowly broke for Obama - had there been a universal swing of just 1.5 points to the right, a national PV of Romney+0.5, Romney would have won 321 electoral votes, 51 more than he managed, while a similar swing of 1.5 points to the left, to a national PV of Obama+2.5, would've bought Obama just NH's 4 electoral votes, and just barely given him the presidency (with 272 electoral votes).


Apparently, this would be similar enough to 2000 in that the Republican winning by one very closely decided state while the Democrat won the popular vote, since Obama won the national PV 50.0-49.0%, with about 1.3 million votes more than Romney.

This gives me real 2000 vibes