AHC: Get DC to vote Republican
- Thread starter Gonzo
- Start date
Sabot Cat
Banned
On May 15, 1972, Arthur Bremer does not paralyze George Wallace but kills his personal bodyguard, Alabama State Trooper Captain E. C. Dothard, allowing him to vigorously campaign while gaining sympathy votes. Wallace goes on to force a brokered convention, wherein in-fighting between the Democrats and eleventh hour deals allow him to win the nomination. George Wallace does markedly better than George McGovern against Richard Nixon, especially in the Midwest and the South, but he loses D.C. in a landslide due to his sordid racist history.
The only thing that would make this possible is the Democrats nominating George Wallace in 1972 and that IMO is ASB territory; in OTL he got 382 delegates to McGovern's 1,729 and Scoop Jackson's 525. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_1972
Even had Wallace somehow gotten the most delegates of any candidate (and this is very hard to see, given that California with its 271 delegates was a winner-take-all state and Wallace only got 7.53% of the vote there) he would be far short of a majority, and there is no way that the delegates of other candidates would support him.
I suppose that Nixon might carry DC in 1972 if the Democrats even nominated Wallace for *vice* president--usually the vice-presidential nomination doesn't change *that* many votes but Wallace in 1972 was still an extremely polarizing figure. We had a thread discussing the possibility of a Humphrey-Wallace ticket. For reasons why I think this is extremely improbable (whatever John Amos may have told Wallace) see my posts at http://ww.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showpost.php?p=8645311&postcount=58 and http://ww.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showpost.php?p=8647563&postcount=65
Even had Wallace somehow gotten the most delegates of any candidate (and this is very hard to see, given that California with its 271 delegates was a winner-take-all state and Wallace only got 7.53% of the vote there) he would be far short of a majority, and there is no way that the delegates of other candidates would support him.
I suppose that Nixon might carry DC in 1972 if the Democrats even nominated Wallace for *vice* president--usually the vice-presidential nomination doesn't change *that* many votes but Wallace in 1972 was still an extremely polarizing figure. We had a thread discussing the possibility of a Humphrey-Wallace ticket. For reasons why I think this is extremely improbable (whatever John Amos may have told Wallace) see my posts at http://ww.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showpost.php?p=8645311&postcount=58 and http://ww.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showpost.php?p=8647563&postcount=65
You basically need the Democrats to return to being the party of Southern Segregationists. Post-1964, that isn't happening. You might be able to pull it off with an alternate 1960 election where a Republican becomes the face of the Civil Rights Movement.
DC's electoral votes always go to the Democrat because DC was majority black for most of the 20th century (it recently slipped to be only 49.6% or there abouts), and the African American vote has gone to the Democrats by something like 90% in every election since the Southern Strategy took off. You'd need to change that, which in turn would require a bigger change to the political orientation of both parties.
DC's electoral votes always go to the Democrat because DC was majority black for most of the 20th century (it recently slipped to be only 49.6% or there abouts), and the African American vote has gone to the Democrats by something like 90% in every election since the Southern Strategy took off. You'd need to change that, which in turn would require a bigger change to the political orientation of both parties.
For Wallace '72 scenarios, I see a "Northern Democratic" ticket running - maybe the only Democrats on the ballot in some states. Rep. Chisholm could be a potential here.
Problem is that even if you can engineer a Nixon v. Wallace match-up, that choice is going to spark a leftist third party run, and whomever stands as that will win DC. Curiously, due to Nixon and Wallace splitting votes, it's likely that that candidate will do better than McGovern did in OTL.