Talk Elections

Kasich wins NH narrowly after securing endorsements from Kelly Ayotte, Ted Gatsas, Speaker Shawn Jasper, and Chris Sununu. This, combined with joint rallies with Sununu, gives Kasich an edge, and he takes nearly twenty percent of the vote in South Carolina, coming within 3% of Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, the top three in that order. Kasich takes six of the state’s delegates, too. In Nevada, Kasich is endorsed by Heller and Sandoval, following which he takes roughly 32% of the vote in Nevada, beating Trump by just over 3%. On Super Tuesday, Kasich takes Minnesota, Massachusetts, Alaska, Virginia, and Vermont, cementing him as the main opposition to Trump. Kasich officially becomes the presumptive nominee on May 3, the day after Cruz endorsed him and the day he wins Indiana.

Kasich’s short list includes Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Martin Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Murkowski, Joni Ernst, and Tim Scott, but he eventually selects Sandoval to complement his electoral prospects in the West. Trump, Cruz, Carson, and Rubio all speak on the first convention night to unify the party, but Kasich officially, to the surprise of many, names Joni Ernst as the keynote speaker. The rising Tea Party star rallies many wavering conservatives around the campaign, and is compared to Sanders’s similarly rallying keynote address to the DNC a month later.

The debates are largely inconclusive, although Clinton does successfully make same sex marriage an issue at the first debate, leading her to seem as the winner of the first debate. The second debate on economic and healthcare policy is largely inconclusive, while the final debate on foreign policy, unsurprisingly, goes to Kasich as a traditional Republican on this issue.

Who wins and what does the map look like?

My bet:

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350: John Kasich/Brian Sandoval - 53.0%
188: Hillary Clinton/Elizabeth Warren - 44.9%
Others - 2.1%

Your map with NM also going to Kasich.

Minus Virginia and I would see this being possible

This "Kasich would've won big" meme needs to die.

He would have though.

Clinton/Warren would have run a drastically different campaign than Clinton/Kaine.  With someone like Kasich at the top of the ticket, Clinton's campaign would resemble Obama's 2012 campaign a lot more than her Resistance-esque 2016 campaign.

I highly doubt that. Kasich is a bland, generic career politician, who wouldn't have generated much enthusiasm. He could've picked up Ohio, but that's pretty much it. He would've make Hillary look driven and passionate by comparison.

Trump won because of his "outsider/unconventional" image, that tapped into anti-establishment feelings and political polarization.

Honestly I agree with you mostly

The strongest Republican ticket imaginable for the electoral college.

Yeah,  He could have won, but it would not be a 340+ landslide.

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The only people that genuinely enjoy and love Kasich are Establishment hacks who think they're wing is the best thing ever and can easily beat any democrat ever. Maybe Kasich could've flipped OH and maybe IA and FL (The latter is more of a stretch), but anything more is seriously unlikely. He could've lost AZ from how bland he was (A Kasich campaign would basically be Romney 2.0 while Hillary would run a Obama 3.0 campaign against Kasich, likely generating enough enthusiasm to flip AZ to her column).