Alternate US States

[hurricanehink]

I've been following this and it's been really interesting, and it's probably a little late to be asking about this, but why keep New Jersey whole? North Jersey and South Jersey are heavily integrated into the NYC and Philly metro areas and are fairly similar demographically and electorally.

Really good work though! Hope to see this continue.

The main reason is that New Jersey is fine in terms of population, neither too big nor too small, and that splitting it between NY and PA (as I understand you'd want to) would create two very large States. Besides, I don't think North and South Jersey are as culturally different as, say, North and South Florida.

Speaking as a Jerseyite, the cultural difference is fairly small, as is the voting pattern. https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=192957.msg4178016#msg4178016 I actually made a post on this and found that the two "states" would've voted the same way since '92. Btw, Loving this timeline still, can't wait for California!

[hurricanehink]

But Obama wouldn't be president here! You have Rush and Madigan as Illinois's senators, so Obama never got to run in 04 (which wouldn't have been an election year anyway for Chicago). And it's not like he could've run in 2002. He had just lost a congressional campaign in 2000 and had to run for state senate re-election in 2002. I guess that makes for an easy Hillary win then? I'm not gonna make you speculate about the primaries though

[hurricanehink]

But Obama wouldn't be president here! You have Rush and Madigan as Illinois's senators, so Obama never got to run in 04 (which wouldn't have been an election year anyway for Chicago). And it's not like he could've run in 2002. He had just lost a congressional campaign in 2000 and had to run for state senate re-election in 2002. I guess that makes for an easy Hillary win then? I'm not gonna make you speculate about the primaries though

Yeah, sorry, I really can't can't think that far in the implications of these State changes. For the sake of simplicity, let's say Obama still got elected in 2002 somehow.

My mistake actually. Rush beat Obama in 2000, but if he was senator, Obama would've won in 2000. Meaning he could've primaried Rush in 2002 for senate (a mirror of ITL 2000) and won! Sorry to be pedantic about one particular person, but I really enjoy this timeline and the prospect of these additional states. Keep it up