1988 Presidential Election

[PPT Spiral]

President Howard Metzenbaum has been a controversial leader with little to show over the last four years, and with that, his party abandoned him in the primaries to look for a fresher face with less baggage. That candidate would come in Senator Al Gore, a moderate with a technocratic bent. Gore doubled down on a message of pragmatism for the general election by selecting Paul Tsongas as his running mate. While this strategy was expected to attract independents, it came at the expense of a restless base. Propagated by the frustration of strong progressives (particularly many Metzenbaum supporters), Jesse Jackson announced an insurgent independent bid at the last minute to rally those voters and promote his ideas. The AU's Kemp/Kean ticket is also running a strong campaign, making this election one to watch.

Two days.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

jackson/mccarthy

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

jackson/mccarthy

Ugh, this very reluctantly.  On the bright side, maybe we'll finally get a voting rights act.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

A left-wing independent bid just when we got finally rid of the Worker's Party? ***n it.

Voted Gore, but would switch to Jackson if I could. now that it seem's he has the best chance of winning.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

A left-wing independent bid just when we got finally rid of the Worker's Party? ***n it.

Voted Gore, but would switch to Jackson if I could. now that it seem's he has the best chance of winning.

Spiral has to keep it interesting

[PPT Spiral]

To make a note, only one person each respectively posted VP picks for the two parties in the primaries thread. If there's somebody you'd like to see on the ticket, make it known and it could happen. I keep track of this stuff and it does impact elections, as we can see here.

[Mr. Smith]

To make a note, only one person each respectively posted VP picks for the two parties in the primaries thread. If there's somebody you'd like to see on the ticket, make it known and it could happen. I keep track of this stuff and it does impact elections, as we can see here.

I'm surprised you went with Tsongas, when Tom Bradley was also a good option (he probably had coattails to negate the Bradley Effect that cost him IRL).

Anyway, still going with Gore...but now more because of the selection of McCarthy for the Jackson ticket. I refuse to vote for the same McCarthy responsible for giving '72 to Taft by such a landslide.

And also more meaningful climate change legislation will come of Gore than anyone else, as well as innovation.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Kemp for the win

[ElectionsGuy]

KK

[Goldwater]

Kemp!

[VPH]

Jackson all the way!!

[Zioneer]

Jackson, because I'm bored of voting the defacto Democratic candidate, and to be honest I probably would be a little annoyed with Gore if I were in this timeline.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Definitely Jackson.

[PPT Spiral]

Bump.

[Mr. Smith]

How appropriate, considering we're at a tie between Jackson and Kemp.


And ironically, the party of Bayh that took the Northeast (and pretty much just the Northeast)  in the last big 3 way election are losing that to Jackson, and dominating the same South that they never were truly competitive in until last election...and even then it was a very very close call and far under half of the Confederacy.

If Jackson wasn't currently leading the West Coast, this would be a straight up ironic flip to 1976.

[PPT Spiral]

Well, you guys picked the IT'S HAPPENING option like I wanted. You should be in for a treat when 1992 comes out sometime during the weekend.

[Mr. Smith]

Jackson/McCarthy: 295 EV
Kemp/Kean: 155 EV
Gore/Tsongas: 88 EV


1976 with some minor flips, the EV distribution is roughly the same, the older left faction gets booted to South, and still loses it by a slim minority, the leftist faction continues with Northeast,...and the PV turned out the exact same

As compiled in the Master Thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=178971.msg4497952#msg4497952

[Boston Bread]

I think the black vote would have let Jackson win MS and LA win with a split white vote.
Hilarious scenario though. I voted Gore because I didn't expect Jessementum.

[Mr. Smith]

I think the black vote would have let Jackson win MS and LA win with a split white vote.
Hilarious scenario though. I voted Gore because I didn't expect Jessementum.

I had considered that (for LA and MS, I considered a narrow Gore win for AL) but a leftist split giving it to Kemp and his hard-headed economics the Deep South love on the Federal level seemed more plausible.

This, along with a growing love (for MS, AL, and LA) for the AU in general.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

If you fiddle with the percentages a little, you can get colors that roughly match the ones in the poll (I used navy for Jackson, since that's what Spiral is using for the Rainbow Alliance in '92):

Reverend Jesse Jackson (Independent-South Carolina)/ Fmr. Senator Eugene McCarthy (Independent-Minnesota): 295 EV; 45% PV
Congressman Jack Kemp (American Union-New York)/ Governor Thomas Kean (American Union-New Jersey): 155 EV; 32.5% PV
Senator Albert A. Gore, Jr. (Democratic Alliance-Tennessee)/Fmr. Senator Paul Tsongas (Democratic Alliance-Massachusetts): 88 EV; 22.5% PV

Granted, it doesn't have PV shades anymore, but you could probably find a way to improvise them.