The Campaign Trail Game Has Returned.

Galba Otho Vitelius

Just got another close loss, playing as Dukakis in 1988 on normal, though with an interesting electoral map:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/307600

Its really easy to do better than Dukakis did IOTL, though maybe 50-50 on normal as to actually winning the thing.

Bush's margins were 0.7% in the national popular vote and 18 electoral votes. Though most of the close states went to Dukakis, the Bush's campaign's firewall in Michigan saved him. He won it by 4,761 votes.
 

Octosteel

Galba Otho Vitelius said:
I started working on an election by election review of which elections would be suitable for Campaign Trail scenarios, including the ones they have done (some of which could use some tweaks, there are bugs in the 1968 scenarios), but got bogged down in the 1864-76 elections. The main problem with those is that reviewing the elections, until the 1876 agreement with the Republicans and the Democrats, it is clear that the Republicans were willing and able to do whatever cheating they had to do to win. They were not really competitive elections.
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Yeah, those are pretty much non-starters. I wonder if some of the really early elections are doable. For instance, maybe something like 1800 except as Adams, you have to escalate the Quasi-War which would give you a huge boost sort of like in the 1988 election, how you can choose to make it competitive as Dukakis. If you want a more traditional election though, 1796 was also extraordinarily close.
 

Octosteel

Perhapsburg said:
I would say 1796, 1812 (as DeWitt Clinton try to finesse the war issue) 1824, 1848 for potential close early elections?
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I don't think 1812 was all that close. Clinton would need to win Pennsylvania at least and he lost it by 20 points even with a Pennsylvania politician on his ticket. 1824 would be fun though. Crawford was robbed!
 
Indigo

Indigo

Octosteel said:
I don't think 1812 was all that close. Clinton would need to win Pennsylvania at least and he lost it by 20 points even with a Pennsylvania politician on his ticket. 1824 would be fun though. Crawford was robbed!
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"Crooked Henry Clay couldn't even get third place, so he's teaming up with low energy John Quincy Adams. Sad!"
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

"I wonder if some of the really early elections are doable"

I looked at these. I have everything written down up to 1868 somewhere.

There are several big problems with 1796 to 1820, which to some extent apply to 1824 as well. The modern presidential election system, in the sense of two national candidates running nationwide campaigns to try to get votes for their slates of electors, really didn't get going until 1828, and that in large part was a reaction to how 1824 went down. Even after that, the Whigs tried running several regional candidates for a couple of elections.

The big problem you have with 1796 through 1820 is the sheer number of states, I think it was most of them at least at the beginning, where the state legislatures picked the electors. This remained the case with South Carolina up to 1860, and in the 1844 scenario South Carolina is just awarded automatically to Polk.

The second problem is that the Federalists were never a really national political party. What popular support they had was limited to New England and the Tidewater parts of the South. DeWitt Clinton may have had a chance, but he was a Republican, who had first tried for the Republican nomination, and the Federalists decided to support him when he ran as an independent. Rufus King wasn't really trying in 1816, and Pickney in 1804 and 1808 never had a chance at all. So the only one of these you could really do is 1812.

The third problem is with the 1796 and 1800 elections. They were held before the 12th Amendment, which legally put in place the system of electing presidents that we still had. The earlier system had the Electoral College, but it really functioned quite differently.

For 1864 through 1876 you really have to change the goal of the Democratic player to make the Republicans resort to as much fraud as possible, on the 1876 scale, in order to win. Maybe you can give the Republican candidate options as to how mcuh fraud to use. For example, for 1864 they created two new states (West Virginia and Nevada) pretty much out of their ---, were planning to use the electoral votes of Louisiana and Tennessee if needed, plus border states where there was a heavy army presence (Maryland and Missouri) went for Lincoln by unbelievable margins. I wrote up 1864 and there are some interesting strategic choices due to the possibility of a Fremont run and the Copperhead plank, also does Lincoln really back the attritional strategy that Grant wound up using?
 

Octosteel

Galba Otho Vitelius said:
"I wonder if some of the really early elections are doable"

I looked at these. I have everything written down up to 1868 somewhere.

There are several big problems with 1796 to 1820, which to some extent apply to 1824 as well. The modern presidential election system, in the sense of two national candidates running nationwide campaigns to try to get votes for their slates of electors, really didn't get going until 1828, and that in large part was a reaction to how 1824 went down. Even after that, the Whigs tried running several regional candidates for a couple of elections.

The big problem you have with 1796 through 1820 is the sheer number of states, I think it was most of them at least at the beginning, where the state legislatures picked the electors. This remained the case with South Carolina up to 1860, and in the 1844 scenario South Carolina is just awarded automatically to Polk.

The second problem is that the Federalists were never a really national political party. What popular support they had was limited to New England and the Tidewater parts of the South. DeWitt Clinton may have had a chance, but he was a Republican, who had first tried for the Republican nomination, and the Federalists decided to support him when he ran as an independent. Rufus King wasn't really trying in 1816, and Pickney in 1804 and 1808 never had a chance at all. So the only one of these you could really do is 1812.

The third problem is with the 1796 and 1800 elections. They were held before the 12th Amendment, which legally put in place the system of electing presidents that we still had. The earlier system had the Electoral College, but it really functioned quite differently.

For 1864 through 1876 you really have to change the goal of the Democratic player to make the Republicans resort to as much fraud as possible, on the 1876 scale, in order to win. Maybe you can give the Republican candidate options as to how mcuh fraud to use. For example, for 1864 they created two new states (West Virginia and Nevada) pretty much out of their ---, were planning to use the electoral votes of Louisiana and Tennessee if needed, plus border states where there was a heavy army presence (Maryland and Missouri) went for Lincoln by unbelievable margins. I wrote up 1864 and there are some interesting strategic choices due to the possibility of a Fremont run and the Copperhead plank, also does Lincoln really back the attritional strategy that Grant wound up using?
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Hm, that is quite a conundrum. Forcing the Republicans to commit fraud wouldn't be very fun since you would still lose the election and it's not like blatant fraud lost the Republicans any legitimacy. Guess I'll just have to take 1912 and 1992.
 
Prussian1871

Prussian1871

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So I hit Carter's ceiling on Easy today and it feels good.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

"Played as Ford on Normal, lost the popular vote by 0.3%, lost Ohio by 0.2%, and Wisconsin by 0.1%. I posted it because the map is weird."

Isn't that close to the OTL map? I'm going off of memory but the only difference I see is Ford carrying Connecticut.
 

LendleAlba

Galba Otho Vitelius said:
"Played as Ford on Normal, lost the popular vote by 0.3%, lost Ohio by 0.2%, and Wisconsin by 0.1%. I posted it because the map is weird."

Isn't that close to the OTL map? I'm going off of memory but the only difference I see is Ford carrying Connecticut.
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Ford wins Texas. And he did carry Connecticut IOTL.
 
Sabot Cat

Sabot Cat

Banned
Galba Otho Vitelius said:
"Played as Ford on Normal, lost the popular vote by 0.3%, lost Ohio by 0.2%, and Wisconsin by 0.1%. I posted it because the map is weird."

Isn't that close to the OTL map? I'm going off of memory but the only difference I see is Ford carrying Connecticut.
Click to expand...

What's weird for that era is Ford carrying Texas (which OTL Carter won by 3.17%) but not Ohio (which OTL Carter won by 0.27%).
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

Playing as Nixon in 1960 as normal, Nixon wins by 8,004 votes in the nationwide popular vote, but the electoral vote breaks more substantially for him. This is notable for having a weird map, due to most of the state being really close and breaking in random ways towards one candidate or the other:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/316463

Though Nixon wins by 159 electoral votes, Kennedy wins in California, Pennsylvania, and Michigan would have erased that gap and sent the election to the House. Nixon's margin was about 100,000 votes in those states. However, the three closest states, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Nevada, were all Kennedy states.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

Running through the 2012 scenarios on "normal", I've found that as either candidate, there is simply not that much variation in the results, unless you run a self-sabotage campaign, and not endorse the "Death with Dignity" law (btw I think the fallout from this would not be as bad as the game designers make out). Particularly if you run as Romney. I've been running "reasonable Romney", "Romney as Montgomery Burns", and "Romney as Ted Cruz" campaigns and he keeps getting the same states as he got OTL. Has anyone else had this experience?
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

Ran the 1968 scenario as Humprey as normal.

I ran a Humphrey/ Kennedy ticket and a somewhat more dovish Humphrey, risking pissing off LBJ. He still somehow carried Texas.

The result was more chaos:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/323485

Other than Humphrey winning the popular vote, and carrying Ohio and Wisconsin, the states went as they did IOTL, but Nixon carried the five closest states by popular vote percentage:

1. California went for Nixon by 4,000 votes

2. Illinois went for Nixon by 12,000 votes

3. New Jersey went for Nixon by 8,000 votes

4. Nevada went for Nixon by 700 votes

5. Oregon went for Nixon by 6,000 votes

Humphrey probably still would have prevailed in the post-election maneuvering after this result, but it would have been a mess. This is a good timeline scenario.
 
Sabot Cat

Sabot Cat

Banned
Galba Otho Vitelius said:
Running through the 2012 scenarios on "normal", I've found that as either candidate, there is simply not that much variation in the results, unless you run a self-sabotage campaign, and not endorse the "Death with Dignity" law (btw I think the fallout from this would not be as bad as the game designers make out).
Click to expand...

Agreed, especially as a majority of public agrees with such a law.

Particularly if you run as Romney. I've been running "reasonable Romney", "Romney as Montgomery Burns", and "Romney as Ted Cruz" campaigns and he keeps getting the same states as he got OTL. Has anyone else had this experience?
Click to expand...

Given what we've seen from OTL 2016, that's not too unrealistic.
 
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