Retrospective US Presidential Election Results Thread

[Justin Green]

That graph is awesome. I can even tell without the years what all the election spikes were, canidate wise.

[Dean501]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

That's seven tentatives -- Red, JPJ, Plumber, Evan, Ab, Snerf, and Lyly.

Ooh ooh and me too, I wanna be included!

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Deano1001

Ooh ooh and me too, I wanna be included!

OK, but first you gotta tell me how it went with the map. Are you going to use a PNG map like the one I sent you, or are you still going to try your hand at the XML map?

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Fine, Ab it is.

Honest Ab.

[Abhakhazia]

Originally Posted by metastasis_d

Honest Ab.

Thanks, Meta.

[Abhakhazia]

By the way, starting on my timeline already, or at least thinking about it trying to decide the most important elections to focus on. I've narrowed it down to 1844 and 1848, 1876 and 1884, 1912 and 1928, 1952 and 1972, 1976 and 1980, and 1992.
1844 is when relatively popular incumbent got rerouted by the drive and experience of Henry Clay, tried to glue abck the union he realized Birney was about to break.
1848 is the historic election where the Whig nominating comittee made the fatal mistake of nominating the southern slave owner, the infamous New Orleans Whig Machine politician Zachary Taylor, who lived to create the Constitutuonal Union Party, which happened right before he died. Gerrit Smith, Championing the Liberty Call, went head to head with former Democrat Van Buren, a Free Soiler who lost because of not being able to energize his base.
1876 was also fairly historic. The dominant Republicans entered into the scandal of 1873, and Peter Cooper and a small group of liberals known as the Greenbacks, who ran a few seats in 1872, found them selves thrust into the national stage, when they suprisingly took a majority with a few independents that caucused with them. Party leader Peter Cooper is popular, and wins the election in a surpise by a bare majority.
I don't want to reveal anymore. Saved for later with all the other elections.....

[Van555]

Originally Posted by Lyly

Here's a graph of political parties over time. Hopefully it's pretty clear what's going on. I included all the tiny parties as well, but all as gray lines or dashed lines, if the party only popped up once.

Quoting for the next page.
ohh shit never mind.

[Evan]

Put me down for a TL, too! I even have a title: The Butterfly-Killers: A Retroverse TL. (It'll make sense in context, once we get to ~1802.)

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Presidential and vice presidential candidates must have the same political views as in OTL (with few exceptions*). If this weren't the case, then AH.commers who participated in the project would have voted for candidates who were not the same people as the participants thought they were voting for.

* For example, if Eugene Debs actually was not willing to serve as president in OTL, he would have to be willing to do so in the ATL, since he was elected three times.

I assume this means general personal ideology, not political point-by-point preferences? (i.e., like parties' platforms, they "can be adapted to what they most likely would be if faced with political issues in the ATL"?) For example, if I have President Smith mastermind a Constitutional amendment against slavery in 1850, President Lincoln doesn't have to be willing to accept its presence in the South?

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Please note that since each election is as fair and open as in OTL and the political stances of the candidates and parties in each election are the same as in OTL, a party that wins many ATL elections in a row will not experience the stagnation or corruption due to such dominance as seen in OTL one-party or dominant-party states. (This particularly applies to the Democratic Party of 1928-present.)

Oh, I can get a lot of stagnation even while having the platform and Presidential candidates being exactly the same. We don't see what Congress is actually doing, after all...

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Therefore, national popular vote percentages in each ATL election must be the same as in the percentages the candidates receive in polls here. Note that in the pre-Civil War South, you may assume that most if not all of the slave states did not hold popular elections for president but instead just had their electors choose candidates.

I hope you mean roughly the same? (This's especially important for the 1789-1800 electoral votes: if we switch the geography a bit, we'll throw the exact numbers out of whack. Plus, I'd really like Washington to still win one vote from everyone, even though he only got 70 out of 155 votes in 1792 - we'd need really dramatic differences to change that, and I'd rather not go there.) And just out of curiosity, can we have other states at other times choose electors by the legislature as well?

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Special note regarding Civil War EVs: If the Civil War in your TL starts earlier than the 1860 election, the seceded states will still have to cast EVs in the 1860 election, even if it's in absentia by a exiled unionist delegation. None of the 11 states of the OTL CSA will be able to cast votes in 1864, nor will Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas in 1868.

This is going to be really tough to stop them from voting in 1864 if we have the Civil War over and done long before then... I'm not sure I'm going to go there in my TL, but could you please lift this requirement?

[The Red]

Put me down too comrade! I'll focus mainly on the 1948-2008 period but I'll explain prior events in some detail.

[Turquoise Blue]

Since Madison won 1812, I'm assuming the war went as OTL. However, there is no Battle of New Orleans, so Jackson remains a tad more obscure then OTL.

This affects 1824, and he comes third, losing to Adams and Clay. By merging his followers with that of William H. Crawford, the only one he beat, he established the Democratic Party.

Adams has a brilliant first term, and easily wins re-election. Clay has been making a name for himself as part of Adams' cabinet, and so wins 1832.

Jackson gets very unpopular, even by his own party. They kick him out in 1832, after the humiliating loss they faced, and Crawford becomes the unofficial leader of the Democratic Party.

Crawford dies in 1834, as OTL, and Martin van Buren takes over the mantle, and runs in 1836 and 1840. He loses 1836 due to Webster's charisma and William Henry Harrison's war record. He loses 1840, due to a wave of abolitionism spreading through the North, affecting the Democratic popularity there.

After two humiliating losses, some Democrats, under van Buren, leave, and form the Free Soil Party, hoping to win some of the Abolitionist North. They are still building themselves up in 1844, so doesn't run.

James K. Polk, an American expansionist, easily win the nomination of 1844, so he runs for president. He faces the might of the very popular Clay, and the incumbent James G. Birney, and does badly.


That's a snippet of the TL, I'm working on. I'm focusing on parties' internal politics, as well as the presidential elections.

[Abhakhazia]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Since Madison won 1812, I'm assuming the war went as OTL. However, there is no Battle of New Orleans, so Jackson remains a tad more obscure then OTL.

This affects 1824, and he comes third, losing to Adams and Clay. By merging his followers with that of William H. Crawford, the only one he beat, he established the Democratic Party.

Adams has a brilliant first term, and easily wins re-election. Clay has been making a name for himself as part of Adams' cabinet, and so wins 1832.

Jackson gets very unpopular, even by his own party. They kick him out in 1832, after the humiliating loss they faced, and Crawford becomes the unofficial leader of the Democratic Party.

Crawford dies in 1834, as OTL, and Martin van Buren takes over the mantle, and runs in 1836 and 1840. He loses 1836 due to Webster's charisma and William Henry Harrison's war record. He loses 1840, due to a wave of abolitionism spreading through the North, affecting the Democratic popularity there.

After two humiliating losses, some Democrats, under van Buren, leave, and form the Free Soil Party, hoping to win some of the Abolitionist North. They are still building themselves up in 1844, so doesn't run.

James K. Polk, an American expansionist, easily win the nomination of 1844, so he runs for president. He faces the might of the very popular Clay, and the incumbent James G. Birney, and does badly.


That's a snippet of the TL, I'm working on. I'm focusing on parties' internal politics, as well as the presidential elections.

Pretty good...I might have some compition here....

Anyway, can there be a rule that we try to keep personal ideologies out of it as possible? I don't want some socialist transforming America into a socialist state and some Abhakhazia transforming it into a conservative Republic on the brink of revolution against it's liberal masters. Can we have a limit to how different America is to OTL? Like, can we set a range from a political spectrum similar to today's to a social democracy, but not an all the way socialist state or one like Abhakhazia would make?
If this is too confusing, I understand.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Evan

I assume this means general personal ideology, not political point-by-point preferences? (i.e., like parties' platforms, they "can be adapted to what they most likely would be if faced with political issues in the ATL"?) For example, if I have President Smith mastermind a Constitutional amendment against slavery in 1850, President Lincoln doesn't have to be willing to accept its presence in the South?

OK, like the parties, the candidates' political stances would need to adapt to different issues from OTL that would arise in the ATL, but their stances would have to logically follow from their OTL politics. Don't make candidates act out of character.

Originally Posted by Evan

Oh, I can get a lot of stagnation even while having the platform and Presidential candidates being exactly the same. We don't see what Congress is actually doing, after all...

I'm adding as one of the main goals to be politically neutral when writing these TLs. That is, don't let your own personal politics warp the TL. Because you don't like the Democrats, you are blatantly intent on making the Democratic Party into some evil dictatorship when the fact is that they were elected fairly. The elections were not rigged here. You just need to realize that your political viewpoints and those of the Republicans during that era are not very popular in the more liberal US.

Originally Posted by Evan

I hope you mean roughly the same? (This's especially important for the 1789-1800 electoral votes: if we switch the geography a bit, we'll throw the exact numbers out of whack. Plus, I'd really like Washington to still win one vote from everyone, even though he only got 70 out of 155 votes in 1792 - we'd need really dramatic differences to change that, and I'd rather not go there.) And just out of curiosity, can we have other states at other times choose electors by the legislature as well?

I meant what I said when I described the PV and EV. Not sure why that would be problematic. And Washington received 66 out of 73 valid votes in the poll for the 1792 EC vote, which translates to 122 out of 135 EVs in the actual ATL 1792 EC vote.

If you like, you can have other states not hold popular votes for the presidency, but again, I don't know why that would be necessary.

Originally Posted by Evan

This is going to be really tough to stop them from voting in 1864 if we have the Civil War over and done long before then... I'm not sure I'm going to go there in my TL, but could you please lift this requirement?

Not tough at all. Those states simply wouldn't have been readmitted to the Union yet.

Originally Posted by The Red

Put me down too comrade! I'll focus mainly on the 1948-2008 period but I'll explain prior events in some detail.

OK, comrade. Looking forward to your take.

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Since Madison won 1812, I'm assuming the war went as OTL. However, there is no Battle of New Orleans, so Jackson remains a tad more obscure then OTL.

The War of 1812 couldn't have gone as in OTL because it began in June 1812 and Madison wouldn't have taken office until March 1813, nine months later.

Originally Posted by Abhakhazia

Pretty good...I might have some compition here....

Anyway, can there be a rule that we try to keep personal ideologies out of it as possible? I don't want some socialist transforming America into a socialist state and some Abhakhazia transforming it into a conservative Republic on the brink of revolution against it's liberal masters. Can we have a limit to how different America is to OTL? Like, can we set a range from a political spectrum similar to today's to a social democracy, but not an all the way socialist state or one like Abhakhazia would make?
If this is too confusing, I understand.

Yes, as I mentioned earlier in this post, authors should keep their personal politics out of their TLs.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

The War of 1812 couldn't have gone as in OTL because it began in June 1812 and Madison wouldn't have taken office until March 1813, nine months later.

Alright. So War of 1813 then. I'm assuming it results in a draw, like OTL.

[Plumber]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Alright. So War of 1813 then. I'm assuming it results in a draw, like OTL.

The British stopped impressing before the War of 1812, but we got the letter afterwards.

There will be no war, unless it's a similarly disastrous one during Jefferson's term.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Plumber

The British stopped impressing before the War of 1812, but we got the letter afterwards.

There will be no war, unless it's a similarly disastrous one during Jefferson's term.

Either way, butterflying away the Battle of New Orleans helps explain why Jackson doesn't have the popularity he did in OTL.

[Elessar267]

Originally Posted by Plumber

The British stopped impressing before the War of 1812, but we got the letter afterwards.

There will be no war, unless it's a similarly disastrous one during Jefferson's term.

Unless you butterfly away the assassination of Spencer Perceval, who was adamant about maintaining the Orders in Council; they were only repealed after Lord Liverpool came to power.

[Dean501]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

OK, but first you gotta tell me how it went with the map. Are you going to use a PNG map like the one I sent you, or are you still going to try your hand at the XML map?

Wait, what? I thought you meant who's going to write TL's based on results?

And I also thought that for the TL's it was going to be along the lines of that the results are definite but the interpretation, like the maps, EV totals, etc. was up for interpretation.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Deano1001

Wait, what? I thought you meant who's going to write TL's based on results?

And I also thought that for the TL's it was going to be along the lines of that the results are definite but the interpretation, like the maps, EV totals, etc. was up for interpretation.

I was speaking off-topic about your progress with the electoral maps for your own Wikiboxes.

[Fleetlord]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

I'm adding as one of the main goals to be politically neutral when writing these TLs. That is, don't let your own personal politics warp the TL. Because you don't like the Democrats, you are blatantly intent on making the Democratic Party into some evil dictatorship when the fact is that they were elected fairly. The elections were not rigged here. You just need to realize that your political viewpoints and those of the Republicans during that era are not very popular in the more liberal US.

That said, parties that go a long while without serious electoral competition do tend to stagnate and corrupt, even if the elections themselves remain perfectly free and fair. Witness Chicago Democrats, or Alaska Republicans. So I think it would be fair to have some element of that in a TL. Perhaps the reason there are so many one-term Democrats is due to infighting between the "Machine" and "Reform" Democrats...

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Fleetlord

That said, parties that go a long while without serious electoral competition do tend to stagnate and corrupt, even if the elections themselves remain perfectly free and fair. Witness Chicago Democrats, or Alaska Republicans. So I think it would be fair to have some element of that in a TL. Perhaps the reason there are so many one-term Democrats is due to infighting between the "Machine" and "Reform" Democrats...

The point was made by the Red earlier that the Democrats do in fact have serious competition -- most of the time they do not win with a majority, and in three cases lost to the Republicans (in two of these instances, 1956 and 1976, due to a split among the left). They have managed to eke by in most close elections, but that itself is an indication that they are quite vulnerable. Fortunately for the Dems, it helps that the Republicans keep shooting themselves in the foot by nominating candidates that are too far to the right for most alt-Americans.