Make a GOP presidential candidate win New York

[Shadow1080]

I had this idea of an interesting, unusual scenario of a Republican presidential candidate winning the state of New York. I know the last time it happened was Reagan in '84 but what would be a realistic scenario of having Republican winning N.Y. in more recent presidential elections starting from 2000, '04, '08, etc? NY is pretty important because of it's big number of electors and not to mention the name which is literally "NEW YORK", which people already get the idea of the most influential, financial, important city in the WORLD that pretty much make this alternate election exciting compared to our real world where we're pretty much stuck with the boring prediction like certain states voting for same party every time. So what could a realistic scenario be for GOP candidate winning NY with modern politics and demographics from 2000 without any 3rd party splitting votes?

 

[Anarcho-Occultist]

Most realistic way I could see this happening was if you delayed 9/11 until 2004. After the 9/11 attacks OTL, Dubya's approval topped at over 60% and if it happened right before the election, the rally-around-the-flag effect could get him a Reagan-tier landslide.

 

[overoceans]

NY is pretty important because of it's big number of electors and not to mention the name which is literally "NEW YORK", which people already get the idea of the most influential, financial, important city in the WORLD

Not really sure what difference that would make. When Reagan took New York, I don't think anyone was really saying "Wow, the gipper goes Manhattan! When's he guest hosting Letternman!!"

That said, a world where the GOP could take recalcitrant states like NY would be a pretty different one from our own. Maybe you're really asking "How do we keep the Reagan magic going post-84?"?

 

[sciscisciortino]

You'd need to push back the collapse of the War On Terror as a viable political revivalist project (which really *did* give the GOP Reagan-like authority for a bit again...)

 

[Expat]

Dick answer: Find a POD to let NYC secede and form its own state and you’ve got a purply Pennsylvania-like remainder flying under the banner of New York.

 

[overoceans]

You'd need to push back the collapse of the War On Terror as a viable political revivalist project (which really *did* give the GOP Reagan-like authority for a bit again...)

Have Bush get sick or die shortly after 9/11, and then Cheney, who pretty obviously never wanted the job, becomes president, but announces he will only be a caretaker until after the 2004 election.

Giuliani then runs for the nomination, wins, and takes New York in 2004, still trading on memories of The Mayor Who Cried At Ground Zero.

 

[David T]

IMO the last year it was plausible was 1988 when Dukakis' lead over Bush in the state was a modest four points--it is conceivable that Kemp might have been able to defeat Dukakis in the state. For 1992 you can theoretically argue that if Perot hadn't run and if all his votes had gone to Bush, Clinton would have lost the state; but the assumption is unrealistic, since Perot in fact drew votes from both parties. From 1996 on, the Republican candidate for president always lost New York by at least eighteen points (2004).

The Republican Party of the past few decades has just been too dependent on white Evangelical voters to have much of a chance in New York, where such voters are relatively rare.

 

[Wendell]

POD: Giuliani is the GOP nominee in 2008, and selects a running mate from Florida. Due to butterflies, the Jeremiah Wright controversy breaks sooner, costing Barack Obama the 2008 Iowa caucus and the Democratic nomination. John Edwards wins both instead. Though the National Enquirer has already broken the story about his affair with Rielle Hunter, the story, as per OTL, is not widely circulated among the more reputable press. In part because the GOP nominee is from New York, Edwards selects Eliot Spitzer to be his running mate. Due to butterflies, that scandal does not break when it did in OTL.

Mayor Giuliani enjoys a post-convention bounce that is propelled further when shortly thereafter, the Eliot Spitzer story begins percolating. By the time it's a large enough liability, and Spitzer leaves the ticket in September, the Rielle Hunter story starts to break, resulting in a controversy that consumes the campaign into October as the struggle to find a running mate continues. The campaign settles on Jesse Jackson Jr, hoping for a narrative change, and just as the campaign starts its rebound, Jackson's campaign finance scandal breaks.

Mayor Giuliani prevails both in New York and nationally, but butterflies delaying the great recession helped too.

 

[History Learner]

Cuban Missile Crisis goes hot in 1962, with New York City being one of a handful of American cities to be hit or Ford refuses to bail out NYC in the 1970s, resulting it undergoing a Detroit-style decline that allows the GOP to pick up the State as a whole in a close year like Michigan in 2016.