somewhere a Bill Clinton is smiling...But never fear, ancestral Dems, because our hero wins the ancestral blue dog Democrat stronghold of Arkansas by a solid 4-point margin in this very same scenario!
Alternate Electoral Maps III
- Thread starter killertahu22
- Start date
Here's another China TL provincial map, and it's one where the changes to OTL are particularly substantial: Shanghai.
Shanghai, China’s second-biggest city after Chongqing, is often described as ‘China’s global city', and has long been a crucial bastion of the nation’s relationship to the rest of the world. It has long been a crucial trade port, is the most visited city by foreign tourists in the country (discounting Hong Kong and Macau), and is home to the second busiest passenger airport in the country, Pudong Airport. Not only that, the 2010 census found around 2% of the city’s population to be foreigners.
This sizeable foreign influence has been an element of Shanghai’s culture since the end of the First Opium War in the 19th century, when foreign powers like Britain, France and America opened the city up to international trade and settlement (to put it euphemistically). The so-called ‘International Concessions’, most of which were based in downtown Shanghai, lasted almost 80 years before the Japanese occupation of the city in World War II. Once the war ended, however, the area was rebuilt with massive Western investment, though Chiang Kai-shek managed to wrangle two major concessions out of the Western powers: the ‘International Concessions’ would have their land reduced to only areas within Hongkou (formerly Hongkew) District, and the Sino-American and Sino-British New Equal Treaties that stripped the international settlements of their extraterritorial rights would be put in place.
This ended up working out quite well for both the Chinese and the foreign settlers- Hongkou became something of an ethnic enclave, yes, but it also attracted massive continued foreign investment to Shanghai, and The Bund became a particularly appealing retreat for British and American businessmen and tourists who didn’t want to have to speak another language in a foreign city. It certainly wasn’t all thanks to Hongkou that Shanghai prospered after WWII, of course, but it definitely didn’t hurt, and to the city’s mayor’s little credit, they did invest a fair bit of the massive income stream from Hongkou in funding programmes in the rest of the city, especially the outer suburbs.
As a result of Shanghai’s significant influence in foreign trade, its mayors have regularly ended up becoming some of the country’s most influential politicians, and perhaps the most defining figure of these mayors is Zhu Rongji, mayor from 1987 to 1995. Not only is Zhu’s skilful economics and conciliatory approach to the mayoralty well-remembered, but so is his public support for the Tiananmen Square Revolution at quite an early stage, influenced by the sympathy of both students in the inner city and the Hongkou traders who knew the revolution being violently quashed would stymie the city’s meteoric growth.
This dynamic of the city’s demographics, between the mostly inner-city based Progressive supporters and the Kuomintang supporters in the comfortable suburbs, has defined Shanghai’s electoral politics, and it’s been one of the main swing areas of the country ever since Zhu gave up the mayoralty before the 1995 City Council election. (On a national level, it’s a bit more pro-Kuomintang- the Progressives have only won it in presidential contests three times, tied with the Kuomintang for seats once and won more seats than them once.)
There are four notable exceptions to the ‘Progressive centre, Kuomintang suburbs’ dichotomy, though- Hongkou, as discussed, has its big international community, who are resolutely supportive of the Economic Liberals due to their local connections with the influential Keswick family (one of whose members, the spectacularly named Sir Chips Keswick, represented Shanghai’s 5th district in Congress from 1989 to his retirement in 2017 and for that time liked to be reported in the international press as ‘the only white person in China’s National Congress’). Huangpu was long a hotbed of communist insurgency from the 1940s to the 1980s and extremely deprived, as well as the area the party’s first leader Chen Yun represented, and is fiercely loyal to the modern day Communist Party. Jiading, as the site of a large Shanghai University campus, is the only suburb to be resolutely pro-Progressive. And lastly, Shanghai County (the name of which is a bit of a misnomer and basically just preserved for historical reasons- it’s the county south west of downtown Shanghai) sees a fairly large amount of left-wing overspill from the inner city that makes it friendlier to the Progressives than most of the suburbs.
Going into the 2015 Mayoral elections, incumbent Kuomintang Mayor Han Zheng was widely expected to easily win re-election. Having beaten Progressive Chen Liangyu in an upset after Chen faced significant accusations of corruption in 2010 and overseen Shanghai’s successful bid for the World Expo, he was fairly popular with the city’s residents, but things became much harder for him than expected when the Progressives nominated Mao Hengfeng, a City Council member who had protested against insufficient protections for women’s safety in the city and Han and the Kuomintang Council’s austerity measures.
In the polls leading up to the mayoral election, Mao started pulling ahead of Han in the last few weeks, which was a major shock to the Kuomintang establishment. In response, the Keswicks donated 500 million yuan (almost 80 million dollars) to Han’s campaign and ran aggressive attack ads against Mao, with the most infamous ad being put up in Hongkou in English and reading, ‘Mao in the ‘30s: communist insurgent. Mao in the 2010s: leftist insurgent.’ (Mao’s supporters soon started making T-shirts with the Chinese for ‘leftist insurgent’ and wearing them at her rallies in response.)
The negative campaigning from Han just about worked, and he won re-election by just under 2 points in the instant runoff. In the City Council, however, it was a different story. The council, elected by PR with 140 seats proportionately assigned between the city’s 15 districts, gave the Kuomintang 51 seats and the Progressives 47, with- and this is the important bit- the Progressives winning the popular vote, and with it the moral high ground in government formation.
On paper, the Kuomintang should have had no problem forming a new government- just get the Economic Liberals and Loyalists to form a coalition with them. But in a very unorthodox move, the Progressives decided, knowing they could probably get the Greens and Communists on side without much issue (which put them at 67 seats), to court the two independents and the Loyalists, who share the local Progressives’ disdain for the business-based Western influence in Hongkou and are more moderate on economic issues than most other provincial Loyalist parties.
To the surprise of almost everyone, this presented Han with a city council unified against his agenda, and in the intervening 6 years the council has forced him to roll back many austerity measures, making them look like an effective moderating presence on his leadership. To make matters worse for Han, this meant that when he postponed the provincial elections due in March 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it made him look as if he was trying to give himself another year in office.
As a result of all this, after 11 years of controlling Shanghai’s mayoralty, Han is one of the most unpopular provincial leaders in China. The 2021 campaign, set to start next month, has seen the Keswicks refuse to fund his campaign, the Kuomintang are a long way behind in the City Council election polls, and with Mao running again, the ‘leftist insurgent’ Han railed against looks set to become the first woman elected Mayor of Shanghai.
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Chinese provincial/city council election maps
Beijing
Guangdong
Chongqing
Shaanxi
Inner Mongolia
Shanxi
Tibet
Qinghai
Xinjiang/East Turkestan referendum
Fujian
Hubei
Shanghai, China’s second-biggest city after Chongqing, is often described as ‘China’s global city', and has long been a crucial bastion of the nation’s relationship to the rest of the world. It has long been a crucial trade port, is the most visited city by foreign tourists in the country (discounting Hong Kong and Macau), and is home to the second busiest passenger airport in the country, Pudong Airport. Not only that, the 2010 census found around 2% of the city’s population to be foreigners.
This sizeable foreign influence has been an element of Shanghai’s culture since the end of the First Opium War in the 19th century, when foreign powers like Britain, France and America opened the city up to international trade and settlement (to put it euphemistically). The so-called ‘International Concessions’, most of which were based in downtown Shanghai, lasted almost 80 years before the Japanese occupation of the city in World War II. Once the war ended, however, the area was rebuilt with massive Western investment, though Chiang Kai-shek managed to wrangle two major concessions out of the Western powers: the ‘International Concessions’ would have their land reduced to only areas within Hongkou (formerly Hongkew) District, and the Sino-American and Sino-British New Equal Treaties that stripped the international settlements of their extraterritorial rights would be put in place.
This ended up working out quite well for both the Chinese and the foreign settlers- Hongkou became something of an ethnic enclave, yes, but it also attracted massive continued foreign investment to Shanghai, and The Bund became a particularly appealing retreat for British and American businessmen and tourists who didn’t want to have to speak another language in a foreign city. It certainly wasn’t all thanks to Hongkou that Shanghai prospered after WWII, of course, but it definitely didn’t hurt, and to the city’s mayor’s little credit, they did invest a fair bit of the massive income stream from Hongkou in funding programmes in the rest of the city, especially the outer suburbs.
As a result of Shanghai’s significant influence in foreign trade, its mayors have regularly ended up becoming some of the country’s most influential politicians, and perhaps the most defining figure of these mayors is Zhu Rongji, mayor from 1987 to 1995. Not only is Zhu’s skilful economics and conciliatory approach to the mayoralty well-remembered, but so is his public support for the Tiananmen Square Revolution at quite an early stage, influenced by the sympathy of both students in the inner city and the Hongkou traders who knew the revolution being violently quashed would stymie the city’s meteoric growth.
This dynamic of the city’s demographics, between the mostly inner-city based Progressive supporters and the Kuomintang supporters in the comfortable suburbs, has defined Shanghai’s electoral politics, and it’s been one of the main swing areas of the country ever since Zhu gave up the mayoralty before the 1995 City Council election. (On a national level, it’s a bit more pro-Kuomintang- the Progressives have only won it in presidential contests three times, tied with the Kuomintang for seats once and won more seats than them once.)
There are four notable exceptions to the ‘Progressive centre, Kuomintang suburbs’ dichotomy, though- Hongkou, as discussed, has its big international community, who are resolutely supportive of the Economic Liberals due to their local connections with the influential Keswick family (one of whose members, the spectacularly named Sir Chips Keswick, represented Shanghai’s 5th district in Congress from 1989 to his retirement in 2017 and for that time liked to be reported in the international press as ‘the only white person in China’s National Congress’). Huangpu was long a hotbed of communist insurgency from the 1940s to the 1980s and extremely deprived, as well as the area the party’s first leader Chen Yun represented, and is fiercely loyal to the modern day Communist Party. Jiading, as the site of a large Shanghai University campus, is the only suburb to be resolutely pro-Progressive. And lastly, Shanghai County (the name of which is a bit of a misnomer and basically just preserved for historical reasons- it’s the county south west of downtown Shanghai) sees a fairly large amount of left-wing overspill from the inner city that makes it friendlier to the Progressives than most of the suburbs.
Going into the 2015 Mayoral elections, incumbent Kuomintang Mayor Han Zheng was widely expected to easily win re-election. Having beaten Progressive Chen Liangyu in an upset after Chen faced significant accusations of corruption in 2010 and overseen Shanghai’s successful bid for the World Expo, he was fairly popular with the city’s residents, but things became much harder for him than expected when the Progressives nominated Mao Hengfeng, a City Council member who had protested against insufficient protections for women’s safety in the city and Han and the Kuomintang Council’s austerity measures.
In the polls leading up to the mayoral election, Mao started pulling ahead of Han in the last few weeks, which was a major shock to the Kuomintang establishment. In response, the Keswicks donated 500 million yuan (almost 80 million dollars) to Han’s campaign and ran aggressive attack ads against Mao, with the most infamous ad being put up in Hongkou in English and reading, ‘Mao in the ‘30s: communist insurgent. Mao in the 2010s: leftist insurgent.’ (Mao’s supporters soon started making T-shirts with the Chinese for ‘leftist insurgent’ and wearing them at her rallies in response.)
The negative campaigning from Han just about worked, and he won re-election by just under 2 points in the instant runoff. In the City Council, however, it was a different story. The council, elected by PR with 140 seats proportionately assigned between the city’s 15 districts, gave the Kuomintang 51 seats and the Progressives 47, with- and this is the important bit- the Progressives winning the popular vote, and with it the moral high ground in government formation.
On paper, the Kuomintang should have had no problem forming a new government- just get the Economic Liberals and Loyalists to form a coalition with them. But in a very unorthodox move, the Progressives decided, knowing they could probably get the Greens and Communists on side without much issue (which put them at 67 seats), to court the two independents and the Loyalists, who share the local Progressives’ disdain for the business-based Western influence in Hongkou and are more moderate on economic issues than most other provincial Loyalist parties.
To the surprise of almost everyone, this presented Han with a city council unified against his agenda, and in the intervening 6 years the council has forced him to roll back many austerity measures, making them look like an effective moderating presence on his leadership. To make matters worse for Han, this meant that when he postponed the provincial elections due in March 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it made him look as if he was trying to give himself another year in office.
As a result of all this, after 11 years of controlling Shanghai’s mayoralty, Han is one of the most unpopular provincial leaders in China. The 2021 campaign, set to start next month, has seen the Keswicks refuse to fund his campaign, the Kuomintang are a long way behind in the City Council election polls, and with Mao running again, the ‘leftist insurgent’ Han railed against looks set to become the first woman elected Mayor of Shanghai.
*
Chinese provincial/city council election maps
Beijing
Guangdong
Chongqing
Shaanxi
Inner Mongolia
Shanxi
Tibet
Qinghai
Xinjiang/East Turkestan referendum
Fujian
Hubei
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What is the scenario? And how much of a swing did you apply?But never fear, ancestral Dems, because our hero wins the ancestral blue dog Democrat stronghold of Arkansas by a solid 4-point margin in this very same scenario!
It's the 2004 election with a uniform +13.86 swing to John Kerry, so he wins the state of West Virginia by 1 point.
Meanwhile, in probably the closest race of the entire election, Kerry only loses ancestrally Democratic Tennessee by 0.44%, putting in a solid performance throughout the state and particularly in the cities of Memphis and Nashville as well as in the traditionally rock-ribbed Democrat areas of Western and Central Tennessee. Bush is able to pull out a very narrow victory due to his strength in the suburbs and unionist East Tennessee.
Even in this scenario, Kerry doesn't exactly put in an especially impressive performance in rapidly GOP-trending Oklahoma, losing by a little over 17 points. he does however win back a decent number of ancestral Democrats in Little Dixie as well as putting in fairly strong (for the time) performances in the states' cities and suburbs which are traditionally the heart of the Republican Party in the state. he still wins one fewer county than Al Gore did in 2000.
Interestingly, in this scenario, Kerry wins the bellwether state of Missouri by a margin of exactly 6.66 points 
Having done additional revision and expansion work over the past several months, I'm going to post new county maps for the Ferguson Scenario. The first of these is the election of 2004, between Al Gore, Bob Smith, and a third-party candidate, who is a well-known businessman who has gained notoriety in recent years:
What would the state by state map look like here?
What would the state by state map look like here?
It sounds so much like a certain current political figure that I assumed you were just describing *them* that way to avoid going into current politics. the high third party vote in New York would seem to indicate that as well.
Well, I didn't have that consideration in mind, but given the rules of this forum, it's a good guess on your part. Here's the article I've created about this map: https://fiction.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004_(Ferguson_Scenario).
Here's the second map of the Ferguson Scenario. This one depicts the 2008 election-Mitt Romney vs. Dennis Kucinich:
Again, what is the state by state map?
Again, what is the state by state map?
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The National swing of the popular vote for the Democrats from 1928 to 1932 was a whopping 17.59%. So I just thought what if there had been a similar national swing from 2004 to 2008. This would give Obama one of the largest popular vote victory in US History but surprisingly not the largest electoral victory. Thinking of doing a county map for this as well as a 2012 map reflecting the National 3.4% swing towards Democrats in 1936, looking at it a couple more states would flip.
I would love to see the county map for this if you do decide to do one
Hawaii could go either way.
California looks like a narrow GOP win.
Oklahoma definitely goes GOP and I’d bet by double digits - Oklahoma and Tulsa counties are R >60%.
West Virginia is probably a narrow Kucinich win.
Wisconsin also looks like a close Kucinich win.
Kucinich definitely wins Michigan.
Maryland is an R win, looks just like the 2014 Governor election.
Kucinich obviously wins DC, and Rhode Island where he sweeps every county.
Wait a second, this is a 17.59% swing to Obama but halved, if you wanted to have the actual 1928-1932 swing replicated it would be 35.18 halved, so you would add 17.59% to Obama and take away 17.59% from McCain, using 2004 as your starting point
Hmmm ok I'm still not 100% sure how to implement swings but if thats the case then I guess would this be what that'd look like?