AHC: Four Way Presidential Debate

US presidential debates have almost always had only two candidates on stage, with exception of Ross Perot in 1992, namely because of the 15% threshold to get into the debates, my challenge for you its to have a presidential debate, in any year, involving four candidates without removing the threshold.
 
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This would mean that the third and the fourth party are each resgistering at least 15% in the polls? In other words, the Democrats and the Republicans are each garnering no more than 35%?

Maybe have the Gulf War go totally into the crapper for the Americans, and this gives Pat Buchanan a boost, among right-wingers who are mad about the war. He almost certainly takes more votes from the GOP than from the Democrats, but I don't know what happens to the Perot vote in that scenario.

EDIT: Thinking about it again, I think my math is wrong in the first paragraph. Just for the record.
 
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If you start debates earlier you can try election of 1912. you could have 3 out of 4 right of the bat republican, democrat, bull moose party, who all got over 15% you just need to get the socialist party to 15% (they finished with 6%). Alternatively, if you can somehow split the Democrats in the same year that could be another avenue (I don't know where you would start)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1912
 
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Trying for a less obvious one:

Watergate breaks sooner, maybe early 1971, and someone tries to primary Nixon. Maybe a guy like Reagan. He runs on a “Nixon is a crook” campaign and blames all the ills of the nation on him. He blasts Nixon for cozying up to the Communists every chance he gets - and he gains traction.

Meanwhile, the Dems can’t muster anyone to unite the ticket, so assuming McGovern gets it, George Wallace rallies the Dixiecrats and counters the Southern Strategy.
 
Trying for a less obvious one:

Watergate breaks sooner, maybe early 1971, and someone tries to primary Nixon. Maybe a guy like Reagan. He runs on a “Nixon is a crook” campaign and blames all the ills of the nation on him. He blasts Nixon for cozying up to the Communists every chance he gets - and he gains traction.

Meanwhile, the Dems can’t muster anyone to unite the ticket, so assuming McGovern gets it, George Wallace rallies the Dixiecrats and counters the Southern Strategy.

Good scenario, though OTL the Watergate break-in itself didn't occur until June of 1972, so if by "break" you mean "be broken by the media", there won't be anything to break in early '71. If you mean some other wrongdoing by Nixon gets exposed in '71, that could be plausible, but I don't know if anything would capture the public imagination quite like a break-in.
 
Good scenario, though OTL the Watergate break-in itself didn't occur until June of 1972, so if by "break" you mean "be broken by the media", there won't be anything to break in early '71. If you mean some other wrongdoing by Nixon gets exposed in '71, that could be plausible, but I don't know if anything would capture the public imagination quite like a break-in.

The break-in that led to Watergate happened in ‘72, so it would have to be discovered that Nixon was up to no good before. Not sure how, but America would have to start to see Nixon as less than trustworthy a lot sooner than they did.
 
^^ After Nixon's visit to China in February, China does something totally berzerk in the international arena, like shell Taiwan or sack a western embassy in Peking. This provides the raw material for a right-wing campaign portraying Nixon as a naive fool.
 
Would a 2016 scenario be possible? Trump lost the primaries and ran as indie and Bernie decided to go for the Green nomination. Would that lead to a 4-way debate?
 
Would a 2016 scenario be possible? Trump lost the primaries and ran as indie and Bernie decided to go for the Green nomination. Would that lead to a 4-way debate?

Possibly. I was gonna say it might be tough getting Sanders above the 15% threshold, but looking at the primary results for 2016, he got 43%. Obviously, he's not gonna do as well with the general population, but I could still see him getting north of 15% in the polls.
 
This would mean that the third and the fourth party are each resgistering at least 15% in the polls? In other words, the Democrats and the Republicans are each garnering no more than 35%?

Maybe have the Gulf War go totally into the crapper for the Americans, and this gives Pat Buchanan a boost, among right-wingers who are mad about the war. He almost certainly takes more votes from the GOP than from the Democrats, but I don't know what happens to the Perot vote in that scenario.

EDIT: Thinking about it again, I think my math is wrong in the first paragraph. Just for the record.

How's this: Dole beats Bush in the 1988 GOP primaries and goes on to beat Dukakis. In 1990 he goes to war over Kuwait, but decides to push on to Baghdad in 1991. The occupation is incompently managed and Iraq goes to hell in a handbasket. Buchanan attempts to primary Dole, but loses and goes third party. That gives you Clinton v. Dole v. Perot v. Buchanan on the 1992 debate stage.
 
How's this: Dole beats Bush in the 1988 GOP primaries and goes on to beat Dukakis. In 1990 he goes to war over Kuwait, but decides to push on to Baghdad in 1991. The occupation is incompently managed and Iraq goes to hell in a handbasket. Buchanan attempts to primary Dole, but loses and goes third party. That gives you Clinton v. Dole v. Perot v. Buchanan on the 1992 debate stage.
I doubt Buchanan could win 15% of the vote with Perot running, the two had very similar views
 
In 1980 Anderson managed to make it into the debate against Reagan and Carter.

Reagan wins the primary in 1976 but goes on to lose. Ford or Bush is the 1980 nominee and conservatives aren't sold, so they run their own conservative candidate (Reagan? James Buckley?)

Bush/Ford, Carter, Anderson, and Reagan/Buckley all end up part of the 1980 debate.

Alternatively you could swap out an independent conservative ticket for a Libertarian one (Paul-Koch, Paul-McCarthy, somebody else like Mike Gravel, idk).

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In 2000 John McCain was offered the Reform Party nomination but said he wasn't for it. In three-way polling he was at 24%.

Gore runs further to the center out of concern that McCain will pull centrists from him, ultimately alienating more liberals.
Nader gets Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to be his running mate, resulting in Nader polling more strongly come September.

When McCain is invited to the debates, the Bush campaign calls for Nader's inclusion and McCain joins the call. Gore, not wanting to look bad, concedes. The debate is thus Bush, Gore, McCain, and Nader.
 
Another 1980 scenario: Carter loses the primary to Kennedy/Brown but chooses to run anyway. You get a debate with Carter, Anderson, Reagan and Kennedy/Brown.
 
In 1980 Anderson managed to make it into the debate against Reagan and Carter.

Reagan wins the primary in 1976 but goes on to lose. Ford or Bush is the 1980 nominee and conservatives aren't sold, so they run their own conservative candidate (Reagan? James Buckley?)

Bush/Ford, Carter, Anderson, and Reagan/Buckley all end up part of the 1980 debate.

Alternatively you could swap out an independent conservative ticket for a Libertarian one (Paul-Koch, Paul-McCarthy, somebody else like Mike Gravel, idk).

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In 2000 John McCain was offered the Reform Party nomination but said he wasn't for it. In three-way polling he was at 24%.

Gore runs further to the center out of concern that McCain will pull centrists from him, ultimately alienating more liberals.
Nader gets Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to be his running mate, resulting in Nader polling more strongly come September.

When McCain is invited to the debates, the Bush campaign calls for Nader's inclusion and McCain joins the call. Gore, not wanting to look bad, concedes. The debate is thus Bush, Gore, McCain, and Nader.

This makes the OTL 2000 election look normal by comparison. Ironically it'd probably have the same outcome. A hung electoral college results in the contest being decided by the Republican House of Representatives which picks Bush.
 
This makes the OTL 2000 election look normal by comparison. Ironically it'd probably have the same outcome. A hung electoral college results in the contest being decided by the Republican House of Representatives which picks Bush.

Well, at least the Supreme Court would retain more institutional legitimacy. The Bush administration might be seen as illegitimate by some (as in OTL) but from an institutional perspective it'd be less illegitimate than historically.

The states I see McCain doing best in are Arizona, Alaska, Minnesota, and Maine. Respectively, his home state, Ventura's home state (I imagine he'd stump for McCain), and two states that are much more willing to vote for independents than other states have been historically.

Arizona, Alaska, Minnesota, and Maine throw the election to the house if you wanna use the OTL map of 2000 as a baseline. Of course, Gore won't have Lieberman as his running mate here but will have another centrist who alienates liberals - Graham? Gephardt? Kerry?
 
This makes the OTL 2000 election look normal by comparison. Ironically it'd probably have the same outcome. A hung electoral college results in the contest being decided by the Republican House of Representatives which picks Bush.

Bush wins, sure, but the Senate was Democratic at the time and probably goes for Lieberman, if I recall correctly. I know the margin was razor-thin.
 
Bush wins, sure, but the Senate was Democratic at the time and probably goes for Lieberman, if I recall correctly. I know the margin was razor-thin.

Now that would be quite a divergence. I believe it'd be the first time since 1865 that the President and VP are from a different party.
 
A 2016 four-way debate between GOP nominee Trump, Democratic Hillary, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and an independent running Bernie Sanders. Johnson avoids making his "what's Aleppo gaffe" so Never Trump Republicans can tolerate supporting the LP. Bernie, obviously, will drain Hillary voters as well as some Trump supporters.

So the polling goes something like Hillary 33%, Trump 29%, Johnson 20% and Bernie 18%.
 
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