Lets Make Jungle Primaries!

[Bidenworth2020]

discuss

[catographer]

2016 presidential primaries
Clinton 16,914,722
Trump 14,015,993
Sanders 13,206,428
Cruz 7,822,100
Kasich 4,290,448
Rubio 3,515,576

[Rjjr77]

discuss

Jungle primaries stink

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

2016 presidential primaries
Clinton 16,914,722
Trump 14,015,993
Sanders 13,206,428
Cruz 7,822,100
Kasich 4,290,448
Rubio 3,515,576

That might be close, but that has a couple problems. Republicans would feel more pressure to coalesece. Trump would likely get more with higher turnout.

I'd guess if it was held on say May 3rd, the results would be
Clinton: 25.7%
Trump: 22.7%
Sanders: 20.0%
Cruz: 14.5%
Kasich: 10.1%
Other: 7.0%

Which, given MOE, would have all three big candidates with a chance to get in the runoff.

[Del Tachi]

United States presidential election, 2016
Clinton 18,906,206 (26.8%)
Sanders 15,621,218 (22.2%)
Trump 14,908,011 (21.2%)
Cruz 8,633,908 (12.3%)
Rubio 4,981,216 (7.1%)
Kasich 3,711,608 (5.3%)
Carson 3,535,019 (5.2%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2016
Sanders 47,523,608 (50.3%)
Clinton 46,890,415 (49.7%)


U.S. jungle primary + runoff = crazy results

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

United States presidential election, 2016
Clinton 18,906,206 (26.8%)
Sanders 15,621,218 (22.2%)
Trump 14,908,011 (21.2%)
Cruz 8,633,908 (12.3%)
Rubio 4,981,216 (7.1%)
Kasich 3,711,608 (5.3%)
Carson 3,535,019 (5.2%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2016
Sanders 47,523,608 (50.3%)
Clinton 46,890,415 (49.7%)


U.S. jungle primary + runoff = crazy results

How would Sanders win that?

[Del Tachi]

United States presidential election, 2016
Clinton 18,906,206 (26.8%)
Sanders 15,621,218 (22.2%)
Trump 14,908,011 (21.2%)
Cruz 8,633,908 (12.3%)
Rubio 4,981,216 (7.1%)
Kasich 3,711,608 (5.3%)
Carson 3,535,019 (5.2%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2016
Sanders 47,523,608 (50.3%)
Clinton 46,890,415 (49.7%)


U.S. jungle primary + runoff = crazy results

How would Sanders win that?

Easy, the bulk of Trump's support goes to Sanders because "muh establishment" whereas center-right voters aren't comfortable enough with Hillary to turn-out for her (unlike Macron in France).  The result is abysmal turnout (note that Hillary receives about 15 million less votes than in RL 2016 and Sanders eking out an unexpected win.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

United States presidential election, 2016
Clinton 18,906,206 (26.8%)
Sanders 15,621,218 (22.2%)
Trump 14,908,011 (21.2%)
Cruz 8,633,908 (12.3%)
Rubio 4,981,216 (7.1%)
Kasich 3,711,608 (5.3%)
Carson 3,535,019 (5.2%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2016
Sanders 47,523,608 (50.3%)
Clinton 46,890,415 (49.7%)


U.S. jungle primary + runoff = crazy results

How would Sanders win that?

Easy, the bulk of Trump's support goes to Sanders because "muh establishment" whereas center-right voters aren't comfortable enough with Hillary to turn-out for her (unlike Macron in France).  The result is abysmal turnout (note that Hillary receives about 15 million less votes than in RL 2016 and Sanders eking out an unexpected win.

I really don't think many GOPers would vote for someone who chanted "death to the yankees"

[Del Tachi]

Another scenario

United States presidential election, 2012
Obama 26,616,208 (43.4%)
Romney 19,524,811 (31.8%)
Sanders 5,807,209 (9.5%)
Paul 2,981,608 (4.8%)
Santorum 2,034,580 (3.3%)
Other 4,414,906 (7.2%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2012
Obama 56,732,958 (52.1%)
Romney 52,085,665 (47.9%)

[Pollster]

I had a lot of fun with this.

2000 primary
Vice President Al Gore faces no opposition from Democrats, who are united behind President Clinton and expect Al Gore to carry on the Clinton legacy. Gore does minimal campaigning in the primary, largely relying on statewide machines to get out the vote. George W. Bush runs as a conservative Republican, while John McCain runs as a "maverick," claiming that Bush/Gingrich-style conservatism has ruined the GOP brand. The world is stunned when Gore takes a surprising third in the primary, the machines not being able to turn out enough Dem voters to match the enthusiasm of the GOP. Bush and McCain advance to the general election in a devastating blow to the Clinton legacy.

Bush - 34.2%
McCain - 33.4%
Gore - 32.4%

2000 general
A clearly dejected Bill Clinton issues a tepid endorsement of John McCain, who selects Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate and attempts to reach out to Democratic voters, notably promising not to lower taxes on the wealthy. Bush spends considerable time in Texas, attempting to run up the margins out of his highly populated home state where he is well liked, allowing McCain to romp through the Midwest and Florida. Bush abandons all pretenses of attempting to win over Democratic voters, branding McCain as "the Democratic nominee" and selecting arch-conservative Jim DeMint to be his running mate despite his inexperience. DeMint largely acts as Bush's attack dog, frequently referring to McCain as a "RINO." McCain winds up winning 91% of the Democratic vote, and is able to narrowly defeat Bush by holding 22% of Republicans and leading slightly with independents.

McCain - 52.4%
Bush - 47.6%

2004 primary
Al Gore is the first candidate to enter the 2004 election, arguing that McCain's strength in 2000 as "basically the Democrat" proves he would have defeated Bush. He takes responsibility for letting the party down in the 2000 primary, asking for a second chance and promising to learn from his mistakes. Howard Dean blasts Gore, arguing that he "didn't even try" to win and enters the primary against him, attacking him from the left. John Kerry and John Edwards also enter the primary with little support, but as the battle between Gore and Dean gets nastier, many Democratic voters defect to their campaigns, and the Democratic support gets evenly split. Meanwhile, McCain privately considers not running for reelection; despite his good approval numbers due to his strong response to 9/11, he has angered Democrats by reneging on some of his liberal campaign promises and still has a sour relationship with conservatives. After a highly publicized poll shows that "Someone more conservative" boxes McCain out of the general election, Newt Gingrich begins making noise about "bringing conservatism back to the conservative party." A White House leak reports that McCain will not run for reelection, but The White House denies this and McCain announces his reelection bid two days later. The muddied rollout of McCain's reelection bid provides an opportunity for Gingrich to come in. It becomes one of the nastiest and closest primaries in history, and polling indicates that any of the candidates could make it to the general. Gingrich comes in first, and the divisions on the Democratic side prove insurmountable as McCain takes second to again box the Democrats out of the general.

Gingrich - 22.4%
McCain - 20.9%
Kerry - 17.4%
Gore - 14.6%
Dean - 12.9%
Edwards - 11.8%

2004 general
Democratic enthusiasm and turnout is significantly lowered due to McCain's broken promises, but McCain still manages to hold most Democratic voters who are uniformly opposed to a Gingrich presidency. The two run even until McCain begins gradually reminding the nation of Gingrich's abandonment of his wife, and hits Gingrich hard on military issues as the McCain administration begins to prepare for an assault on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which is launched in September and is initially fairly successful. McCain is able to make up for the lost Democratic votes by expanding his margin with independents and wins a large reelection victory just months after believing such a thing would be impossible.

McCain - 58.7%
Gingrich - 41.3%

2008 primary
After two straight cycles of being boxed out of the general election, the Dem electorate is highly energized and overwhelms the GOP in turnout in the primary. The assault on Iraq has taken a turn for the worse - days before his scheduled execution, a group loyal to Saddam attacks U.S. troops guarding his prison cell, allowing him to escape. U.S. forces have a surprisingly difficult time locating him and the Middle East spirals into a panic, believing that Saddam is orchestrating a return to power. This, in addition to a souring economy at home, is a major blow to the McCain administration, and numerous Republicans are dissuaded from attempting to succeed him. Days before the primary, Saddam is captured by armed Iraqi citizens instead of U.S. troops and is executed and hung in a city square in Baghdad a la Mussolini. This is largely portrayed as an embarrassment for America and McCain in particular, and support for U.S. presence in Iraq nosedives, eliminating any chance for a Republican to make the runoff.

Obama - 34.4%
Clinton - 31.2%
Edwards - 25.6%
Romney - 5.8%
Huckabee - 1.3%
Other - 1.7%

2008 general
The historic 2008 general election matchup sees an unprecedented amount of enthusiasm and millions of new voter registrations. Obama picks moderate GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski to be his running mate to stunt Clinton's advantage with women and conservative voters, while Clinton picks Liberal stalwart Senator Tom Harkin to win over the white liberals that had been flocking to Obama. Both candidates break 60 million votes for the first time in history, and Obama wins by only a few hundred thousand.

Obama - 50.4%
Clinton - 49.6%

[Pollster]

2012 primary
The popular President Obama receives only token opposition from Democrats in the primary, with Lawrence Lessig being the most noteworthy one, running on a single-issue platform against the Citizens United ruling. Romney, by far the most successful GOP candidate from 2008, consolidates most GOP support early on, though he faces significant attacks from conservatives in the primary for his late-October 2008 endorsement of Obama over the more conservative Clinton, which many believe swung the race in Obama's favor.

Obama - 47.8%
Romney - 35.3%
Paul - 5.1%
Santorum - 5.0%
Johnson - 2.2%
Lessig - 1.5%
Other - 3.1%

2012 general
The Obama campaign floods the national airwaves with ads consisting only of the video of Romney endorsing Obama in 2008, followed by text on the screen that reads "Thanks so much for your support!" Obama drops Murkowski from the ticket, replacing her with loveable and goofy Joe Biden. Romney is further humiliated when Murkowski publicly rejects his offer to be his VP and enthusiastically endorses Obama for reelection. In a last ditch effort, Romney chooses loudmouth nationalist/populist Governor Paul LePage to be his running mate. LePage is a national embarrassment on the public stage but generates a powerful following in the GOP, with some even launching a nationwide attempt to replace Romney on the ticket with him. All polls forecast a routing, but Obama winds up winning only comfortably, which is considered a testament to LePage's vote-drawing power. The day after the election, LePage slams Romney, resigns the governorship of Maine and announces his candidacy for the next Presidential election.

Obama - 53.5%
Romney - 46.5%

2016 primary
With the GOP brand in shambles nationally due to LePage's highly publicized Presidential campaign, many expect Obama's hand-picked successor Hillary Clinton to win the election outright in the first round. The threat of a Clinton first-round knockout is so great that many mainstream GOP candidates sit the cycle out entirely. Widely disliked conservative Ted Cruz runs but fails to break 15% in most polls. Donald Trump enters the race and LePage stuns the nation by ending his candidacy in support of Trump's. Trump surges in the polls, leading John Kasich to enter the race as a last ditch effort to preserve the mainstream GOP, but his candidacy goes nowhere. Trump's momentum is stunted by the unexpected entry of Bernie Sanders, who's rhetoric sounds eerily similar to Trump's, replaced only with left-wing talking points instead of right-wing. Sanders quickly starts pulling support from Hillary Clinton, putting the foregone conclusion of a Clinton presidency in jeopardy. Both mainstream Democrats and Republicans publicly beg Sanders to drop out to prevent what many believe would be the most embarrassing general election in American history, which only serves to further energize the Trump and Sanders bases. Polls begin to forecast a Sanders/Trump general election, leading to widespread panic in the global economic markets. The last-minute release of the Access Hollywood tape and the Sanders rape essays leads to a Clinton surge with female voters that is just barely enough to put her on top.

Clinton - 24.8%
Sanders - 23.4%
Trump - 23.1% (the tweets would be amazing)
Cruz - 13.7%
Kasich - 11.2%
Johnson - 2.6%
Others - 2.2%

2016 general
The mainstream Dem and GOP immediately rally behind Hillary Clinton, who opens a comfortable lead in the first polls and picks moderate GOP Senator Shelley Moore Capito to be her running mate on a historic two-women ticket. Both Trump and LePage refuse to endorse Sanders, which hinders his ability to overtake Clinton's lead. He picks young Hawaiian Tulsi Gabbard to be his running mate. Gabbard is indicted shortly after when it is discovered that she is a Russian spy, and she is given immunity in exchange for her testimony which reveals that the Russian government has undertaken a massive operation to destabilize the United States government and cripple the nation through its electoral process. She insists on Sanders' innocence, claiming he was unwittingly being used, but implicates both Trump and LePage as well as Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, all of whom also testify in exchange for immunity and reveal that the operation has been underway for years and is active in other nations as well. With nobody else willing to join the ticket, Sanders is forced to select Jill Stein as his new running mate. The successive embarrassments and loss of the campaign manager send the Sanders campaign into a death spiral, with polling indicating the largest landslide in American history for Clinton. Weeks before the election, a leaked audio tape is released in which Clinton and Moore Capito can be heard mocking the populist movement in the country, referring to it as "a group of angry old white men who can't get it up anymore." This sets off an atomic bomb underneath the Sanders base and remotivates the Trump base, which gets firmly behind Sanders. The race narrows to a draw, and markets plunge when, two days before election day, a poll is released showing Sanders up by 5 points. The world watches anxiously as Clinton manages a barely-2 point victory. She is unable to make it to her election night event due to riots in the streets, and is forced to give her victory speech over livestream from her hotel suite. Sanders refuses to concede and vows to fight the Clinton administration at every turn.

Clinton - 51.1%
Sanders - 48.9%

[Del Tachi]

United States presidential election, 2000
Bush 21,820,611 (40.5%)
Gore 18,109,970 (33.6%)
Bradley 4,440,111 (8.2%)
Nader 3,752,045 (7.0%)
Buchanan 3,559,108 (6.6%)
Others 2,208,984 (4.1%)

United States presidential runoff election, 2000
Gore 44,481,776 (50.02%)
Bush 44,446,168 (49.98%)

Gore becomes President after a protracted legal battle that is resolved by SCOTUS