No scandal:
President John Kerry/Vice President John Edwards: 271 E.V/48.9% P.V.Senator Rick Santorum/Governor Mike Huckabee: 267 E.V./49.7% P.V.States Flipped (Santorum): Ohio (Tipping point from 2004):
States Flipped (Kerry): Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado
Some trivia:
1. This is the third consecutive election that the winner of the P.V. was not elected by the E.C.
2. This is the first time someone was re-elected without winning the P.V. either time.
Scandal:
As a sitting VP, the scandal doesn't receive as much backlash as if he was a vice presidential candidate, but it impacts the P.V. While Santorum would've brought out the Christian right vote, I don't believe he would've been electable in 2008 even during a recession, although any other Republican nominee that ran besides Paul would've beaten Kerry in this scenario. Santorum would've had to flip his home state of PA which rejected him by such a margin that he's unlikely to win statewide again, MI/WI/ME-2 where the cultural conservatives who turned out for Trump wouldn't turn out for him although Wisconsin would go for Kerry by Bush 2000 margins, and then NV, NM,CO, and NH where voters would reject his views on social issues, especially in Colorado with the Denver metro area growing. Santorum could've won in 2000, but he was the ideal candidate in the '80s/'90s. By 2008, most of the country was too socially liberal for him to win, although with the right circumstances he could've beat Clinton in 2016.
President John Kerry/Vice President John Edwards: 271 E.V/47.3% P.V.Senator Rick Santorum/Governor Mike Huckabee: 267 E.V./51.1% P.V.
