Michael Lind's liberaltarian (OBD + Goldwater) vs populiberal (Battista + Western Democrat) timeline. Both campaigns engage in highly aggressive and targeted pandering to specific racial/ethnic, religious, and occupational groups, in order to compensate for the lack of clear policy differences between the two platforms, and prevent the parties from losing their "traditional" bases of support.
The liberaltarian campaign targets East/Southeast Asians, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, Mexicans, Wiccans, Scientologists,
pescetarians, allied healthcare workers, (
renewable) energy sector workers, food/beverage preparation and service workers, sex workers, semiconductor manufacturers, farm laborers, and truck drivers.
The populiberal campaign targets Italian Americans, Catholics at large, African immigrants,
non-Orthodox Jews, Muslims,
vegans, paralegals, automobile manufacturers, retailers, professional athletes, the financial industry at large, and Amazon employees.
The combination of ideological realignment and wanton pandering to special interest groups results in 1) a surprising number of close states, 2) regional realignment along a East-West axis, and 3) Miami-Dade defying pollsters' expectations and conventional wisdom (as occurred in OTL).
States within 3% (in no particular order): AK, AZ, MT, TX, GA, NC, MI, ME
