The Campaign Trail Game Has Returned.

Galba Otho Vitelius

The best way to get the highest possible George Wallace vote seems to be to self-sabotage Nixon. Here is one way to do it:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/418308

Nixon does worse than Goldwater in this one.

Of course random events highly impact this scenario. It doesn't seem you can do much to boost Wallace playing as Humphrey, even a self sabotage Humphrey, or as Wallace himself. In fact I think the scenario creator underestimated Wallace's appeal. Its very hard to get Wallace to his historical 13.5% of the vote or go have him win more states than he did. There were polls in 1968 showing him over 20%.
 

Gooderian

The story of two different Ford runs for re-election:

On one run, I smashed Carter. 355 EVs. I manage to win New York, the midwest and the entire western half of the country.

genusmap.php


(In Red) Ford/Connally or Dole (I honestly forgot who I picked): 355 EV, 49.1% PV
(In Blue) Carter/Assuming Mondale: 183 EV 48.4% PV

On the other run, this happens: https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/424861. 3,682 voters in Texas decided the election. Lost the popular vote by just over 750,000 votes, or 0.9%.
One could say Eugene McCarthy was the spoiler of '76.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

The two outcomes above are not that different if you look at the national popular vote.

The first map, the Ford win, Ford's national popular vote percentage margin is only 0.7%. The second map, Carter's national popular vote percentage margin is 0.9%. There is only a swing of 0.8% between the two outcomes. The "Ford landslide" in the first map is actually a closer result than the second map.

The Cold War, post Civil Rights Act decades were a period of history where states deviated very little from the national popular vote result, which exaggerated the effects of the map of big wins and had the possibility to create some weird maps with close elections.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

I've been running Republican candidates as the most left-wing candidates that are sort of plausible. These are not self-sabotage runs, but the result is generally big losses, except in 1988 where the GHW Bush campaign is just bashing Dukakis on minor culture war bs, like IOTL.

But left wing Hughes produces a strange electoral map. I have never gotten a Hughes popular vote win on normal:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/425357

Change about 2,220 votes in Indiana and West Virginia and Hughes gets elected on this map, even if you switch Delaware (36 vote Hughes margin) to Wilson, though Wilson still wins the popular vote of course. This indicates that anti-war, moderate on economics Hughes may be the path to victory.

"Left wing" Hughes was just anti-war, left wing on economics, so I still did immigrant bashing, was silent on Prohibition, and stuck to the party line on Mexico, the Philippines, and the Federal Reserve, though maybe there is room for Hughes to be less imperialist on the Philippines.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

I've been trying to crack winning as Hughes on normal. I've so far won the Electoral College only twice out of umpteen events, have never won the popular vote.

This latest is the closest I came to winning the popular vote as Hughes:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/427609

This result is better than 85.2% of all results as Hughes as normal. I'm starting to wonder if its possible to win the popular vote as Hughes as normal.

It seems the key is to run a strong anti-war platform, run just slightly to the right of Wilson on economics, and dodge alot of issues. Even then you seem to have just the right questions come up and need some help from the random part of the game engine. And you can't just write off New England, even though its the only part of the country that is pro-war.
 

VidaLaVida

Galba Otho Vitelius said:
I've been trying to crack winning as Hughes on normal. I've so far won the Electoral College only twice out of umpteen events, have never won the popular vote.

This latest is the closest I came to winning the popular vote as Hughes:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/427609

This result is better than 85.2% of all results as Hughes as normal. I'm starting to wonder if its possible to win the popular vote as Hughes as normal.

It seems the key is to run a strong anti-war platform, run just slightly to the right of Wilson on economics, and dodge alot of issues. Even then you seem to have just the right questions come up and need some help from the random part of the game engine. And you can't just write off New England, even though its the only part of the country that is pro-war.
Click to expand...

It takes some practice, but yes, winning the popular vote as Hughes can be done. Here's my latest doing so (in the process also being my biggest electoral victory so far):

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/427656

You're on the right track: be progressive (just to the right of Wilson himself) and anti-war, while immigrant-baiting (especially, I've found, the Irish). And also, spread out across the Midwest and Washington, not just in the obvious states like California, Indiana and Missouri.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

I've been playing these on easy, just to see how different easy runs from normal, the level on which I usually play.

So I am up to 1988, and I just played Dukakis on easy. Wow. Just wow:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/435513

I used the exact same strategy I use with Dukakis on normal, where it is something of a tossup whether Dukakis wins.

The result was better than 91.5% of the results on easy, so what seems to have happened is that the random element of the results really broke in Dukakis' favor.

I had earlier played Bush on Easy. In that go round, Bush beat Dukakis by about 10% of the popular vote and carried 44 states. Here, Dukakis beats Bush by about 10% of the popular vote and carries 44 states. It just seems weirder because historically Dukakis lost by about 8% and carried only 9 states, so the easy Bush result didn't seem that crazy.
 
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