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[bballrox4717]

The 2016 Presidential Election

Bballrox4717 (D-NY) 50.1 %, 300 electoral votes
Governor Maxwell (R-OK) 48.7 %, 238 electoral votes

Governor Maxwell of Oklahoma shocked the country when the Libertarian defeated his conservative rivals for the Republican nomination. His victory originally threatened to split the party, and Bballrox4717 sailed to a lead of over 10 points in the polls. Governor Maxwell took advantage of the division created by Obama and Bush's presidencies and attempted to sell his Libertarian ideology as a pragmatic way to solve problems across party lines - he had already seen bipartisan support from liberals and conservatives alike over an amendment to shelve controversial portions of the PATRIOT ACT. Maxwell's campaign rose to within striking distance and eventually took the lead when he defeated Bballrox4717 in the first debate.  

Bballrox4717 throughout the campaign rose Governor Maxwell's disapproval among social conservatives by successfully connecting his religious beliefs to his economic policies to Governor Maxwell's secular Libertarianism. While Bballrox4717 never expected social conservatives to vote for him, his ads were designed to attempt to keep them home on Election Day. He also attempted to bring neoconservatives onto his campaign, focusing himself as a pragmatic foreign policy hawk in contrast to Maxwell's dovish-ness. The strategy proved to be disastrous in the west, in which Governor Maxwell took all of the battlegrounds states, Oregon, and almost won Washington as well. Nevertheless, Bballrox4717 won the election by regaining his lead in the Midwest, winning among seniors in Florida, and by keeping Governor Maxwell on defense in more traditionally socially conservative states such as Missouri, North Carolina and Georgia. The success of the Maxwell campaign would provide a groundwork for future Libertarian presidential candidates, and the 2016 election would later be seen as a realigning election.