Butterfly effects in the history of elections?

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Ford saying there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

[Brittain33]

Paul Wellstone’s plane crash in 2002 leads to Norm Coleman becoming Senator, which probably wouldn’t have happened, and then Coleman contesting his loss in 2008 for months, depriving Obama of a filibuster-proof majority for several months considering Wellstone would have won in a landslide in 2008, with implications for Obama’s agenda and health care reform.

[Brittain33]

Frank Murkowski appointing his daughter to a U.S Senate seat led to Sarah Palin being the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States.

That also led to Tim Scott becoming a senator.

What’s the connection there?

[TwinGeeks99]

Frank Murkowski appointing his daughter to a U.S Senate seat led to Sarah Palin being the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States.

Arguably also the election of the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the House since 1972, but this is ultimately debatable due to the ranked choice voting system they have.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Ford saying there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

That didn't help, but I still think him pardoning Nixon doomed him from the start, even if he did keep it very close in the end.

[Continential]

The election of Donald Trump and the rise of the DEI movement led the previously apolitical Vivek Ramaswamy to vote for Trump’s reelection and led him to consider running for office, running for the Presidency and briefly be in second place.

[Mr. Smith]

Paul Wellstone’s plane crash in 2002 leads to Norm Coleman becoming Senator, which probably wouldn’t have happened, and then Coleman contesting his loss in 2008 for months, depriving Obama of a filibuster-proof majority for several months considering Wellstone would have won in a landslide in 2008, with implications for Obama’s agenda and health care reform.

Oddly enough, Mel Carnahan not crashing in 2000 likely just replaces the trajectory of three Senators (including his wife) and still loses in 2018, spitting us to Hawley anyway.

[TDAS04]

Jesse Helms endorses Reagan in 1976, causing Reagan an impressive revival of his primary challenge against President Ford, but Reagan ends up falling just a little bit short in the GOP primaries. Ultimately, it all worked out perfectly for Ronnie. The Gipper lost the Republican nomination, the right way in the right year, enabling him to win big 4 years later.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

John Fetterman won his first election as Mayor of Braddock in 2005 by 1 vote.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

An election I don’t think anyone noticed but in SC last cycle Dillon’s state representative Jackie Hayes had a primary opponent and drew a lot of moderate republicans into the democratic primary to keep him in office.

In a world where Hayes wasn’t facing a primary challenge a lot of democratic voters (hi) and moderate republicans would have instead voted in the Republican primary. Rice was/is popular in Dillon with his work for the inland port. The numbers are extremely tight but if roughly 1,800 of Hayes voters instead voted for Rice in the primary he would’ve made the runoff, but with Eggman getting 49.9%, so I still think it would’ve gone to Eggman but Rice could’ve gone down swinging.

[Brittain33]

John Fetterman won his first election as Mayor of Braddock in 2005 by 1 vote.

To be fair, that’s probably like 10% of the electorate in Braddock.

[brucejoel99]

John Fetterman won his first election as Mayor of Braddock in 2005 by 1 vote.

To be fair, that’s probably like 10% of the electorate in Braddock.

149-148, a 0.3367% margin-of-victory, greater than WA-GOV 2004, NC-SCCJ 2020, FL-PRES 2000, AZ-AG 2022, MN-SEN 2008, VA-AG 2005, OH-AG 1990, VA-AG 2013, NM-PRES 2000, NC-AgComm 2004, FL-AgComm 2018, ND-SEN 1974, NJ-GOV 1981, WA-SEN 2000, NV-SEN 1998, & pretty much any other "close" election result which you can otherwise think of.

[Tekken_Guy]

The Hochulmander being passed and then overturned led the NYGOP without any time to recruit a candidate for NY-03 and leaving them stuck with the sacrificial lamb they ran against Suozzi in 2020.

His name? George Santos.

[Cape Verde]

Not exactly an election, but Rep. Mel Reynolds' sexual assault conviction and resignation motivated Illnois' State Senator Alice Palmer to launch her unsuccessful bid to fill Reynolds' vacancy. When Parker announced her run for the U.S. House seat and declared she would not seek re-election to the state senate, an author, activist, and law professor named Barack Hussein Obama II decided to run for Parker's state senate seat.

[The Arizonan]

Not exactly an election, but Rep. Mel Reynolds' sexual assault conviction and resignation motivated Illnois' State Senator Alice Palmer to launch her unsuccessful bid to fill Reynolds' vacancy. When Parker announced her run for the U.S. House seat and declared she would not seek re-election to the state senate, an author, activist, and law professor named Barack Hussein Obama II decided to run for Parker's state senate seat.

Barack Obama probably would have found another pathway to the presidency if Mel Reynolds’s didn’t get convicted due to his star power.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's worth noting that Obama's stardom was largely propelled by his landslide primary win (he got over 50% in a divided field of like 6 serious candidates) and of course his landslide in the general election. Both of which were the result of domestic abuse allegations, against the initial Democratic Senate establishment pick, and his initial Republican opponent Jack Ryan resulting in the Alan Keyes replacement. Now Obama would've probably won both the primary and general election anyway, but it's debatable if without the landslide primary win he would've been chosen for the 2004 DNC keynote, and without that he's going nowhere in 2008.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Kennedy not retiring and no Kavanaugh fight motivating reps to show up in 2018 might of resulted in senators Beto and Bredesen along with Nelson and possibly Donnelly or Heitkamp holding on

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Kennedy not retiring and no Kavanaugh fight motivating reps to show up in 2018 might of resulted in senators Beto and Bredesen along with Nelson and possibly Donnelly or Heitkamp holding on

If anything, it actually results in Tester and Sinema losing.

[Schiff for Senate]

Arguably the most famous example in modern U.S. Politics was the Jack Ryan divorce controversy leading to Obama's election, and subsequently him winning the presidency.

I mean, given that it's IL, wouldn't Obama have won nonetheless, or at least have been favored to? Ofc he wouldn't have won by anywhere near 43 points, but it's laughable to suggest that he only won because his opponent was an F tier candidate.

The decision of five dumbf@ck judges led to the election of George W. Bush.

Not a butterfly effect since the consequences of their actions were perfectly clear even them. The weight of their duty was incumbent upon all of them.

Although tbf, I guess even they couldn't have realized just how much damage their decision to coronate Dubya would do to the country - and to the Middle East - over the next eight years.

-If Anthony Brown had not sh*t the bed in his 2014 gubernatorial campaign, Andy Harris would be out of congress right now.

I mean didn't Democrats try to make MD01 purple? And then their map got struck down and redrawn by the courts?

What about if Derek Chauvin never killed George Floyd? A summer without those protests probably would have made 2020 a better year for Democrats.

Hard disagree. Floyd's murder definitely helped the Democrats on the whole in 2020.

[Schiff for Senate]

A bunch of Hamilton Tickets might be the reason for President DeSantis in 2024.

??

-Russ Feingold entered in 2012 for Senate, as someone else probably defeats RonJohn in 2016 and maybe even carries over Hillary.

Wasn't Feingold considered to be a fairly strong candidate? Johnson's reelection was considered a minor upset iirc. Besides, I don't think reverse cottails would've worked, since those occur very rarely and are never caused by closely-decided races (no Democrat would've beaten Johnson in 2016 by more than a few points at best).

[The Arizonan]

Frank Murkowski appointing his daughter to a U.S Senate seat led to Sarah Palin being the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States.

That also led to Tim Scott becoming a senator.

What’s the connection there?

Sarah Palin endorsed Nikki Haley for governor in the Republican primary and she got elected governor. Years later, Nikki Haley appointed him to Jim DeMint’s old Senate seat.