Realistic West Wing Presidential Elections 2002 and 2006

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I know I'm way late to this party, but I wanted to comment anyway.

I agree with the general sentiment in this discussion that the election scenario for Vinick-Santos was totally screwed up.  I haven't learned yet how to display electoral maps on this site, but if it's possible to put together a close, much more realistic winning scenario for Santos, it plays out like this:  First of all, give Vinick Missouri and South Carolina and give Santos Florida and Iowa.  Now, go ahead and let Vinick carry New England by really slim margins, and let him also, by about 1%, win Minnesota, where moderate Republicans do well.  In the south and West, Vinick wins Texas and narrowly Colorado, and certainly Arizona, with Santos taking New Mexico and Nevada.  That makes the election come down to California, and because of the nuclear plant accident and a strong Hispanic voter turnout, Santos takes it by a few percent and wins the electoral college 275-263.   There might be a few kinks, but it's a lot more plausible a Santos win than what was put up there.  What were the writers on in the last season?  Oh well, certainly nothing more powerful than they were on during the Zoey-kidnapping nonsense. 

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The West Wing's electoral maps are so ridiculous.

They were.  It's wierd; for the relative realism of the political issues and how they play out in White House vs. Congress fights, at least in the first few seasons, the writers really didn't consult anybody who knew anything about electoral results.  I'm also pretty skeptical that Bartlet could have won states like Tenessee, Arkansas and Louisiana even with John Hoynes' help, not to mention the Dakotas, against Ritchie.  Strange stuff.

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Who would be Santos' 2010 opponent?  I presume not Vinick again because he would prsumably still be at State.  Would it be Haffley, the former President Walkin who filled in for Bartlet during the Zoey kidnapping, or Russell, former Republican congressman and majority leader in the Senate?  Man, I'm a nerd.

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Here is Santos-Hafley 2010

Hafley was a Congressman from Washington on the show, and though Santos is barely able to keep Washington, Hafley carries Oregon and also barely swings Colorado.

Santos 286
Hafley 252

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Thanks for the help, defe07!  I'm new at this.

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Here is a new West Wing puzzle.

Let's say that the kidnapping of Zoey Bartlet, President Josiah Bartlet's daughter, happens not at the beginning of Bartlet's second term as depicted, but toward the end of his first term, in response to the covert assassination of Qumar's defense minister, Abdul Sharif.  The distraught Bartlet steps aside, and as depicted, the speaker of the House and congressman from the Missouri's 6th district Glen Allen Walkin (played by John Goodman) assumes the presidency for a few days, during which he bombs Bah'i terrorist camps in Qumar, all as depicted in the show.  After three days, Bartlet's daughter is safely recovered and he re-assumes the presidency.  Instead of picking Colorado congressman Bob Russell to take the vice presidency as in the show, Bartlet picks Secratary of State Louis Berryhill of New York to be his VP.  Note that, without John Hoynes of Texas as his running-mate, he having resigned the presidency caught in a sex scandal, Bartlet's appeal in the south is weakened.

Walkin decides to enter the race for the presidency in 2002 (?).  Having served as the acting president, and as a conservative Republican, he beats moderate Florida governor Robert Ritchie handily to win the Republican nomination.  Walkin picks powerful conservative House majority whip Jeffrey Haffley of Washington to be his running mate, so the Bartlet-Berryhill ticket is facing two smart, tough conservative Republicans.  The issues in the race primarily boil down to Bartlet's honesty; he has been caught and censured by Congress for lying about MS in his first term and covertly assasinating a foreign officer of state.  There is a limit to how far Walkin can take political advantage of the assasination, because he was a member of the Gang of Eight during the crisis and voiced agreement with Bartlet's decision during his term as Acting President.  Still, the downturn in the markets puts economic issues in play as well, with debates about what kind of stimmulus package the country needs raging. 

How does the election turn out?

President Josiah Bartlet (D-New Hampshire)/Louis BerryhIll (D-New York)
Former President Glen Allan Walkin (R-Missouri)/Jeffrey Haffley (R Congress, Washington)

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My maps for the two elections as depicted on the show:

2002
President Josiah Bartlet (D-New Hampshire) / John Hoynes (D-Texas)  339
Governor Robert Ritchie (R-Florida) / Jeff Heston (R ?)  199

2006
Congressman Matthew Santos (D-Texas) / Leo McGary (D-Illinois)  274
Senator Arnold Vinick (R-California) / Governor Ray Sullivan (R-West Virginia)   264

 

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The Santos-Vinick election is a fun one to think about, actually.  All the scenarios were fine until the shows depicting the election itself.  The election night episodes seem to have even forgotten about the 2002 results, as they suggested Bartlet lost the Dakotas when the 2002 election episodes said Bartlet won them.  The election night episodes featured the West Wing script writers completely losing their wits.  There is no way that Santos would have won South Carolina, and he would probably have lost Missouri badly.  I also don't think Santos would win Texas; I don't think a Democratic mayor of Houston takes the whole state, especially given how Vinck is depicted as having the support of oil companies.

I think, in the Santos-Vinick race, Santos has to win the following states: Iowa, because Vinick hit almost bottom in the Iowa primaries because he wouldn't take the ethonol pledge while Santos swollowed it; Pennsylvania, because Santos came to Goveror Eric Baker's defense at the Democratic convention, and he wins enough of Bakers confidence for them to pick Baker as their new VP nominee at the end of the show, and Michigan.  I think Santos wins in Virginia and North Carolina might be plausible, given Santos' military background and perhaps support from the NC research triangle.  Florida would have been a real tossup.  Still, I think a Republican as moderate as Vinick with his market committments and foreign policy background still holds on to these states by small margins.

On the other hand, I think Vinick does pick up a few wins in New England (1 EV from Maine and New Hampshire sound reasonable), and, as mentioned, I think he wins Missouri comfortably and Texas by single digits.  However, I think the show, until the election night episodes, set Vinck up to lose California because of the San Andreo event, which would have put a huge dent in the support in southern California Vinick would have absolutely needed to win the state. 

The way the election night shows were written was a huge disappointment coming at the end of two seasons of campaign shows which were really outstanding.

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That would be interesting.  Gillette was a lefty-populist Democratic Senator from North Dakota in the show, wasn't he?  With Bartlet nominated by the Democrats, he would have had to run as an Indpenedent.  So, Gillette might have taken the Dakotas, and he would probably have tightened up things in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. 

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I wonder how the 2002 election map would look like if Seth Gillette decided to pull a Nader and run against Bartlet.

How abou we add another layer of suspense on and say that Mark Buckland, the Democratic governor of Indiana, joins the Gillette ticket as the VP nominee?

Gillette in this scenario wins the Dakotas and,  because of the split in the Democratic vote in the region, costs Bartlet Iowa, Missouri and  Arkansas and pushes Minnesota and Wisconsin to the edge, though there is so little support of Ritchie in these states, Bartlet hangs on.  The result.

Bartlet/Hoynes     306
Ritchie/Heston      226
Gillette/Buckland      6

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[Do you really think that Gillette could win the Dakotas when La Follette, Anderson or Perot won no states though getting more than 10% of the votes ?

Well, the show had Bartlet winning the Dakotas in 2002 (which I think is pretty outlandish and I don't have that result in my maps).
But entertaining the scenario, if North Dakotans had elected Gillette to the Senate, they might vote for him as president (I think
if Byron Dorgan or Kent Conrad made a run for the presidency, Dakotans would get fairly excited about it.)  And the total national
vote doesn't necessarily reflect a candidate's electoral vote total. especially with small states; Gillette might only play in the Dakotas
and a little bit in other midwester states and still pick off a few electoral votes there.  But, I could easily be wrong about all that.  I
don't think even a big Bartlet solo landslide in 2002 gets him the Dakotas, contrary to what's in the show.  In the show, Bartlet
only got about 55% of the popular vote, and Johnson had to get practically 60% in '64 to bag the Dakotas.