AHC: Nixon Carries Massachusetts

Delta Force

Banned
Massachusetts is the only state that Richard Nixon failed to carry in one of his three presidential campaigns. Could Nixon have gone on to carry Massachusetts and become the only person to have carried every state at least once under the modern presidential election system?
 
Massachusetts is the only state that Richard Nixon failed to carry in one of his three presidential campaigns. Could Nixon have gone on to carry Massachusetts and become the only person to have carried every state at least once under the modern presidential election system?

Maybe have McGovern stick with Eagleton despite the allegations over his mental state?

teg
 
Nixon selecting Volpe for VP would probably have done it, but in that case he'd probably have lost other states.
 
This is difficult. McGovern won Massachusetts quite comfortably (54%-45%), notwithstanding a campaign where everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
 
Yeah the only time when a fifty state slide was feasible was 84 when the margin in Minnesota was 2,000 votes.
 
And wasn't that only because Reagan rejected the advice of his team to campaign there as he thought it "unsporting" to campaign in his rival's home state?
 
He might have won if Wallace had taken the Democratic nomination, but then Nixon wouldn't have swept the South.
 

Gaius Julius Magnus

Gone Fishin'
Massachusetts is the only state that Richard Nixon failed to carry in one of his three presidential campaigns. Could Nixon have gone on to carry Massachusetts and become the only person to have carried every state at least once under the modern presidential election system?
I'd say McGovern not being the nominee, but that would probably mean Democrats perform better at the Presidential level in '72.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Yeah, as Gog3451 said, your best bet for a 50-state landslide is Reagan in 1984.

I think that had Goldwater in '64 come down on the side of the Civil Rights Bill, as he was no raving racist but someone who just had issues with the scope of the bill, he probably loses the South.

It is possible that you get a third party Dixiecrat again to try to take some of the South. They stayed out of it this time, mostly because they as a faction were somewhat cowed and indecisive, and the disgust of many in the South to have to vote for a Republican was enough that you saw an unpledged Democratic elector movement come about in Alabama.

Had Thurmond, or better yet, Harry Byrd, tossed their hat into the ring, I don't think Goldwater wins any of the states that he did in the Solid South.

That leaves him only Arizona, and there was a substantial Democratic base there that was quite Conservative, which is why they backed him, but with an effort by LBJ to campaign there more, you never know.

1964 was probably the best chance in my view.

Nixon would not have won DC, no matter what.
 
I think that had Goldwater in '64 come down on the side of the Civil Rights Bill, as he was no raving racist but someone who just had issues with the scope of the bill, he probably loses the South.

True, but there is a difference between a major party candidate losing all fifty states and the *other* major party candidate carrying all fifty. Goldwater might have lost the Deep South but LBJ obviously could not have won it. The only major party candidate in modern times with a good chance of carrying all fifty states was Reagan in 1984.
 
And wasn't that only because Reagan rejected the advice of his team to campaign there as he thought it "unsporting" to campaign in his rival's home state?

If Reagan had campaigned in Minnesota, Mondale's campaign would have devoted more ofl their time and money in the state. This means he does even worse in other states than OTL, but I still see him winning his own state.
 
I think that had Goldwater in '64 come down on the side of the Civil Rights Bill, as he was no raving racist but someone who just had issues with the scope of the bill, he probably loses the South.

It is possible that you get a third party Dixiecrat again to try to take some of the South. They stayed out of it this time, mostly because they as a faction were somewhat cowed and indecisive, and the disgust of many in the South to have to vote for a Republican was enough that you saw an unpledged Democratic elector movement come about in Alabama.

Had Thurmond, or better yet, Harry Byrd, tossed their hat into the ring, I don't think Goldwater wins any of the states that he did in the Solid South.

That leaves him only Arizona, and there was a substantial Democratic base there that was quite Conservative, which is why they backed him, but with an effort by LBJ to campaign there more, you never know.

1964 was probably the best chance in my view.

Nixon would not have won DC, no matter what.
Even if Goldwater loses the South (very plausible), I don't see Johnson winning. Maybe a 1960-Alabama/Missisppi-style situation where unpledged electors cast their votes for an old-school racist Southern Democrat, but not LBJ?
 
There are only two real possibilities I can see of an established major party in a modern election being completely shut out of the Electoral College (which is *not* the same thing as the other major party winning all the electoral votes). First is the "Goldwater votes for the civil rights act and loses the Deep South to a neo-Dixiecrat" scenario--though I still think Goldwater would be favored to carry Arizona. Second is if Jesse Jackson heads a third party in 1984 and it carries the District of Columbia (and even siphons a few votes away from Mondale in Minnesota). But this is quite unlikely; Jackson wanted to preserve his future in the Democratic Party.

In 1936 it is theoretically possible that you could have a right-wing third party that claimed Landon had made too many concessions to the New Deal, but I doubt very much that it could get enough votes to prevent Landon from carrying Vermont and Maine, both of which he won by double digits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1936 Most conservative Republicans found Landon, if not the ideal candidate, at least satisfactory.

(Landon could probably have carried New Hampshire, too, if he had chosen Styles Bridges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styles_Bridges as his running mate. But the Republicans were worried that in that case the Democrats would be chanting "Landon-Bridges falling down"...)
 
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